Smart ISA. The smart way to save tax-free

A Smart ISA (Individual Savings Account) is a cash ISA, which works a lot like a normal savings account, except you don’t have to pay any tax on the interest you earn.

You have an annual ISA allowance of £20,000. This is the maximum amount you can put into ISAs each tax year, from 6th April to 5th April.

Smart ISA comes with two types of pots — Access and Fixed Term ISA pots. You can mix and match up to 20 Smart ISA and Smart Saver pots in your Smart Savings Hub to spread your savings in whichever way you like.

Your annual ISA allowance is £20,000. This is how much you can save tax-free in ISAs each tax year (from 6th April to 5th April), and it's set by the UK government.  

Your ISA allowance resets at the start of a new tax year, on April 6th. Bear in mind that you can’t carry any unused allowance over to the next tax year. So, if you don't use your allowance, you’ll lose it. 

Yes, Zopa’s Access ISA pots are flexible. That means you can withdraw and replace money in the same tax year without affecting your allowance. For example, say you’d saved £10,000 in your Smart ISA. You could withdraw this in full and then add it back in within the same tax year and still have £10,000 of your ISA allowance left.

Just so you know, any money you withdraw and move outside your Smart ISA will no longer qualify as tax-free.

To open a Smart ISA, you'll need to have already opened a Smart Saver. You can do this in our Smart Savings Hub.

You must also: 

• be aged 18 or over  

• be a UK resident and only have tax residency in the UK (which excludes the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) 

• have an active UK bank account that we can link to  

• have not already used up your total annual ISA allowance of £20,000 this tax year 

• open your ISA in your name only 

Absolutely! How you do this will depend on whether or not you've already added money to your Smart Savings Hub — which includes your Smart Saver and Smart ISA pots.

If you've already added money to your account, simply head to the Smart Savings Hub where you can see all your pots and tap Add money, then Transfer in an ISA. Don't tap into your individual pots, as you won't see the option to transfer an ISA that way.

If you haven't added any money, go to your Smart Savings Hub and click Manage in the top right corner, then Account information, Smart ISA details, ISA transfers and Transfer in an ISA.

We'll ask you to provide some information so that we can contact your old ISA provider to request the transfer. You'll be given the option to provide your sort code and account number or ISA reference (sometimes called a roll number), we recommend providing your ISA reference where possible as this helps us to identify the specific ISA you're looking to transfer. Please note — there's no need to provide your sort code and account number if you've supplied your ISA reference.

Just so you know, when you request a transfer in, we'll open a new Access ISA pot — named 'Transfer in' — in your Smart Savings Hub. Don't worry, this isn't a new ISA, it's just another pot within your existing Smart ISA. Once your transfer's complete, you'll be able to move your money and keep or delete this pot.

Please note, we accept cash ISA transfers from all providers that use Pay.UK to process their transfers. The minimum amount you can transfer is £500. 

Just so you know, we're currently experiencing issues transferring ISAs for customers with National Insurance numbers beginning 'NJ' or 'TJ'. Learn more.