ISA allowance

Every year, the government sets a limit on the amount of money you can put into ISAs. This amount is known as the ISA allowance.

The ISA allowance for the current tax year is £20,000. The Junior ISA allowance for this tax year is £9,000 – this amount is separate to the £20,000 ISA allowance.

How much can I invest in a stocks and shares ISA?

If it suits your personal circumstances, financial goals and attitude to risk, you could choose to invest your entire annual ISA allowance, currently £20,000, into a stocks and shares ISA.

You can split your allowance across the different types of ISA available. So, you could choose to contribute to a stocks and shares ISA, a cash ISA, an Innovative Finance ISA and a Lifetime ISA all within the same year – contributing as little or as much of your annual allowance as you want into each type.

However, you can only pay a maximum of £4,000 into a Lifetime ISA per tax year. It’s also important to remember that if you have both a Lifetime ISA and Help to Buy ISA, when you buy your first home you’ll only be able to get the government bonus for that from one of them.

No matter how you split your allowance across ISAs, make sure never to contribute more than £20,000 during the tax year. If you do, you won’t get any of the ISA tax benefits on the excess amounts.

Your ISA allowance resets at the start of each tax year. The tax year starts on 6th April of one year and ends on 5th April of the following year. Your allowance, or any unused portion of it, doesn’t carry over to the next tax year

How do I manage my ISA allowance with John Lewis Investments?

You can split your annual ISA allowance between a combination of different providers, and you can contribute to the same type of ISA (e.g. cash or stocks and shares) with more than one provider in any one tax year. You can do this in any combination so long as you don't contribute more than £4,000 into a Lifetime ISA and more than £20,000 in total during the current tax year across all your ISAs.

Remember, you can only open and contribute to one Lifetime ISA or Innovative Finance ISA in the same tax year.

Please note, if you contribute to a John Lewis stocks and shares ISA, you cannot contribute to a Nutmeg stocks and shares ISA. 

If you invest more than this year’s ISA allowance in your account before the end of the current tax year, any investments beyond the ISA allowance will be treated as a general investment account and you may have to pay tax on any returns.