Cash ISAs

AER stands for Annual Equivalent Rate and illustrates what the interest rate would be if interest was paid and compounded once each year.

Tax-free is the contractual rate of interest payable where interest is exempt from income tax.

The tax information provided is based on our understanding of current law and HM Revenue & Customs practice, both of which may change.

You have an annual ISA allowance

The amount you can put in your ISA is set by your ISA allowance.

Your ISA allowance is the most you can save in an ISA in each tax year. For 2026/27, the allowance is £20,000. Some non-ISA savings accounts let you save up to £5 million in total.

Your allowance is split across your ISAs

For example, you could save some money in a cash ISA and invest some money in a stocks and shares ISA with another provider. The amount you pay into each will be deducted from your annual allowance.

Your allowance is flexible

This means you can replace any money you take out during a tax year without it counting towards your allowance, as long as you pay it back in during the same tax year.

So if you pay £50 into your Nationwide ISA, then take out £10 and pay in another £10, we will only count this as £50 towards your £20,000 ISA allowance.

You can check your balance

You can see how much you have already saved in your Nationwide cash ISA:

• by checking your statement on our internet bank
• at any Nationwide branch
• by calling us

You cannot check how much of your ISA allowance you have used if you have ISAs with multiple providers.

No. A cash ISA can only be opened in your own name, joint accounts are not allowed.

No, we do not offer Lifetime ISAs (LISAs), Help to Buy: ISAs or Junior ISAs.

There are 4 types of ISA:

• cash ISAs
• stocks and shares ISAs
• innovative finance ISAs
• LISAs

At Nationwide, we only offer adult cash ISAs.

You can transfer any ISA to us, but after the transfer you will have a cash ISA.

If you already have a Nationwide Help to Buy: ISA

You can find out more about how to claim your Government bonus or manage your account on our guide to Help to Buy: ISAs.

If you are 18 or over, you can open multiple cash ISAs and stocks and shares ISAs within a tax year.

Some providers will allow you to open multiple ISAs of the same type with them, for example 3 cash ISAs. However, others might only allow you to open 1 cash ISA with them at a time.

Your annual ISA allowance of £20,000 is shared between all your ISAs, across all providers.

If you open multiple Nationwide ISAs

When you open more than one cash ISA product with us, we create a 'portfolio cash ISA'. This keeps all your products together as a single cash ISA.

The portfolio means you get more control of your savings. You can spread your ISA allowance across any Nationwide ISA products and track how much you have used in our app. You will also get a unique account number for each of your ISA products. So you can choose which ISA to deposit your savings into. For example, you could pay part into a fixed rate ISA, for a guaranteed savings rate, and part into a limited access ISA, so you can dip into your savings if you need to.

Some of our 'standalone' cash ISAs are excluded from the portfolio. For example, our CTF Maturity ISA. The product terms and conditions will say if a cash ISA is standalone.

An ISA transfer is where you move an ISA from one provider to another.

You can transfer an ISA from another provider to a new Nationwide ISA when you open the account. You can do this either online or in one of our branches, depending on which provider you are transferring from. You cannot transfer to an existing Nationwide ISA.

You must follow the correct ISA transfer process to keep the ISA’s tax-free status.

ISA transfers are often done to find better interest rates or consolidate accounts.

If you are transferring to us, we will tell you what to do when you apply for an ISA with us.

More about ISA transfers

Only your deposits count

Your annual ISA allowance is shared between all your ISAs, across all providers. This means you can pay in up to £20,000 across your ISAs this tax year, whether they are with Nationwide or another provider.

The interest you earn does not contribute to your allowance. For example, if you have earned £50 of interest this tax year, you do not now only have £19,950 left of your £20,000 allowance.

Also, if you follow the correct transfer process to transfer a non-Nationwide ISA to us, only the money you have paid into your ISAs this tax year will count towards your annual ISA allowance. Money saved in previous tax years and the transfer itself will not also count.

More about ISA transfers

Some of our cash ISAs are flexible

This means you can replace any money you take out during a tax year without it counting towards your allowance, as long as you pay it back in during the same tax year.

So if you pay £50 into your Nationwide ISA, then take out £10 and pay in another £10, we will only count this as £50 towards your £20,000 ISA allowance.

The interest you earn does not count towards your allowance.

Check your ISA terms and conditions to find out if your ISA is flexible.