ISA FSCS protection: how much of your money is covered

How much of my ISA is protected?

It depends on the type of ISA. A Cash ISA holds money as a bank deposit, so the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) protects it exactly like an ordinary savings account: up to £120,000 per person, per banking licence, for firms that fail on or after 1 December 2025. That limit rose from £85,000 after a Bank of England Prudential Regulation Authority policy statement in November 2025.

A Stocks and Shares ISA is not a deposit, so it falls under the FSCS’s separate investment protection rules: up to £85,000 per person, per firm, and only in specific circumstances, covered below. An Innovative Finance ISA is different again. The peer to peer loans held inside one are not covered by the FSCS at all.

It is worth separating this from the ISA allowance. The FSCS protection limit is about what happens if your bank or investment firm fails. It has nothing to do with how much you are allowed to pay into ISAs each year. See our guide to the ISA allowance if that is the question you actually meant, or does an ISA count as savings for benefits if you are asking about Universal Credit rather than a firm failing.

FSCS protection limits, from 1 December 2025

Cash deposits, including Cash ISAs

£120,000

Per person, per banking licence

Stocks and Shares ISA investments

£85,000

Per person, per firm, if the firm fails

Temporary high balances

£1.4 million

For up to 6 months, in specific circumstances

Innovative Finance ISA (P2P loans)

Not covered

FSCS does not protect peer to peer investments

FSCS also protects certain balances above £120,000 for up to six months, called temporary high balances, up to £1.4 million. These cover specific events such as the proceeds of selling your main home, an inheritance, a redundancy payout, or money received around a marriage or divorce. General savings built up gradually over time do not qualify, so this exception will not help most everyday balances, and you would need to provide written evidence of the qualifying event to claim it.

Does my Cash ISA count towards the same limit as my other savings?

Yes. The FSCS does not give a Cash ISA its own separate pot of protection. It counts as a deposit, alongside your current account and any ordinary savings account, so everything you hold at the same bank is added together and protected up to a combined £120,000.

If you had £70,000 in a Cash ISA and £60,000 in a separate savings account at the same bank, that is £130,000 at one institution: £10,000 above the protected limit. The only way to increase your total protection is to hold savings at banks that do not share a banking licence with each other.

What does “per banking licence” actually mean?

A banking licence, or authorisation, can cover more than one brand. FSCS protection applies per licence, not per brand and not per account, so if two banks you save with share a licence, your money at both counts as one combined balance for the £120,000 limit.

FSCS gives its own examples of this: HSBC and first direct (which also trades as fd) share one banking licence, and so do Nationwide, Derbyshire Building Society and Cheshire Building Society. Banks do not always make this obvious in their branding.

To check, ask your provider directly whether it shares a licence with another brand, or look up its Firm Reference Number on the FCA’s Financial Services Register. If two providers show the same number, they share one FSCS limit between them.

Where does my money go with an app-based or platform Cash ISA?

Cash ISA apps and savings platforms are not usually banks themselves. Most hold customer cash with one or more partner banks that do the actual depositing, and typically pass FSCS protection through to you on similar terms to opening the account directly with that bank.

The exact structure varies by provider, and it affects how the £120,000 limit applies to your money, particularly if the platform pools several customers’ cash together. FSCS also cannot protect a firm that only provides e-money or payment services, as opposed to a genuine bank deposit, so it is worth checking your specific provider’s own terms for where your cash is actually held rather than assuming it is covered.

Is a Stocks and Shares ISA protected the same way?

No. A Stocks and Shares ISA is covered by the FSCS’s investment protection rules, up to £85,000 per person, per firm. This applies if the firm holding your investments fails and cannot return them, because of bad or negligent advice, mismanagement, misrepresentation or fraud.

It does not apply if your investments simply fall in value. The FSCS is explicit that it does not pay compensation for poor investment performance, since the value of investments can go down as well as up: the trigger is the firm failing and being unable to return what it owes you, not a bad run in the markets. See our Stocks and Shares ISA comparison for how these accounts work more generally.

Separately, the Financial Conduct Authority’s client money and custody rules require investment firms to keep customer money and investments apart from the firm’s own money. That reduces, though does not remove, the risk of your investments being caught up in a firm’s failure in the first place.

Is an Innovative Finance ISA protected?

Largely no. An Innovative Finance ISA wraps peer to peer loans or similar investments, and the FSCS lists peer to peer lending directly among the products it does not cover. If a borrower defaults, or the platform arranging the loans fails, you can lose that money with no FSCS compensation.

Cash sitting in the ISA while it waits to be lent out is a different matter. If that uninvested cash is held with a bank, it is typically protected as a deposit in the same way as any other cash balance, up to the usual limit. Our Innovative Finance ISA guide covers how this risk works in more detail.

How do I check my own provider is protected?

Two free tools cover this. FSCS runs a protection checker where you list your accounts and it flags any that share a banking licence. The FCA’s Financial Services Register lets you search a firm by name or Firm Reference Number to confirm it is authorised, see what it is authorised to do, and compare its contact details against what you have been given, which is a useful check against clone firms using a genuine firm’s name.

How do our tables show this for each Cash ISA?

Every Cash ISA in our rate tables names the deposit taker behind the product, not just the brand on the app or the interest rate. Open the details on any listing and you will find who actually holds your money, alongside the provider’s regulatory status and its stated deposit protection, so you can check it against the FSCS and FCA tools above before you apply.

If you are also weighing a Cash ISA against NS&I Premium Bonds, which carry a 100% HM Treasury guarantee rather than FSCS protection, see Premium Bonds versus a Cash ISA. See our methodology for how we verify provider details generally.