Zopa Stocks & Shares ISA

Zopa's Stocks & Shares ISA is a ready-made investment ISA: you pick one of two funds built by Invesco, and Zopa runs the account. There is no share dealing, no fund supermarket and no list of hundreds of funds to choose from. You open it in the Zopa app, you can start from £1, and the annual ISA allowance is £20,000 per tax year, which resets on 6 April¹.

The two funds are a Balanced option and a Bold option, and Zopa describes them as ready-made rather than something you assemble yourself¹. Your money is managed by Invesco, which Zopa describes as one of the world's biggest investment managers³. Because the money is invested rather than deposited, its value can fall as well as rise, and you can get back less than you put in⁴.

Zopa charges a platform fee for running the service, calculated daily and taken once a month by selling a small portion of your investments, so it shows up in your transaction history rather than as a separate bill⁵. The current figures sit on Zopa's own site. This page covers what the product is, how the charges are structured, who can open one, how it compares in behaviour with Zopa's Cash ISA, and what protection applies.

What the Zopa Stocks & Shares ISA offers: two ready-made funds run by Invesco

The choice on offer is deliberately narrow. Zopa's Stocks & Shares ISA holds two ready-made funds, described as Balanced and Bold, both built by Invesco¹. Zopa's investing pages repeat the same structure: pick from two ready-made funds, with your money managed by Invesco³.

That is a different shape from most of the market. Halifax, for example, splits its stocks and shares ISA offering into two routes, one for experienced investors and one using three ready-made funds for newer investors⁶. Santander offers four ready-made funds created by its own financial experts⁷. Aviva's ready-made funds come in four choices pitched at different risk appetites and goals⁸. Legal & General describes two investment options⁹, and TFS offers two funds where you can invest in one or both¹⁰.

The practical consequence of a two-fund range is that the decision you make is about how much risk to take, not about which manager or sector to back. There is no dealing desk, no individual shares and no fund shortlist to research. If you want to hold specific companies, or a wider spread of funds, this is not that product. If you want the ISA wrapper and a managed fund without choosing between hundreds of options, the range is the point.

Both funds are managed rather than tracker funds, which means a manager decides what the fund holds. Charges for that management sit inside the fund itself, separate from what Zopa charges for the platform, and the current figures are on Zopa's site.

How the charges work: the Invesco and Zopa fees

There are two layers of cost, and they are charged in different ways.

The first is Zopa's own platform fee, which pays for the account, the app and the service. Zopa states this as 0.40% for providing the investment platform and service⁵. It is calculated daily and taken from your account once a month by selling a small portion of your investments, and the deduction appears in your transactions⁵. Zopa's own illustration of the effect is that on a £1,000 investment, the total comes to around 45p a month before any growth or withdrawals¹.

The second layer is the fund charge, which Invesco takes for managing the money. That sits inside the fund and is reflected in its value rather than billed to you. Zopa's site carries the current figures for both layers.

Some features keep the cost down at the edges. Zopa says it charges no fees if you do not have any investments with it, and nothing on any savings you hold, and that there are no added fees for buying or selling investments⁵. So there is no separate dealing charge each time money moves in or out of a fund.

For context on how platform fees are usually built, one provider's guidance notes that platform fees can be charged either at a flat rate or as a percentage of the value of your funds⁴. Zopa's is the percentage type. Monzo's Stocks & Shares ISA, by comparison, also accrues fees daily and charges them monthly¹¹.

One cost that catches people out when they leave rather than join: some providers charge exit fees of £15 to £30 per holding, though most charge nothing¹². Zopa's own charges are set out on its site.

Who can open one and how the ISA allowance applies

The ISA allowance is £20,000 per tax year, and Zopa states that this resets on 6 April¹. NS&I's ISA guidance is explicit that unused allowance cannot be carried into the next tax year⁴. The allowance is a single pot across all your ISAs, not a separate £20,000 for each type.

You can split it however you like. One provider's guidance confirms that the £20,000 can be divided in any proportion between a Stocks & Shares ISA and a Cash ISA⁴. You can also hold both at the same time, and more than one of each if you want to⁴.

The rules on paying in changed in April 2024. Since then you can open and pay into several ISAs of each type in the same tax year, so two cash ISAs or two stocks and shares ISAs are permitted, provided the total across all of them stays within £20,000¹³. The older restriction, one cash ISA and one stocks and shares ISA per tax year, still appears in some guidance, and the two positions conflict; the newer rule is the one that reflects the current regulations¹³.

On what can be held, the law restricts a stocks and shares ISA to authorised or recognised funds¹⁵. That is a rule about the wrapper, not about Zopa specifically, and it is why a stocks and shares ISA cannot simply hold anything you like.

The government has confirmed that the limits for Innovative Finance ISAs, LISAs and Stocks and Shares ISAs will remain the same from April 2027¹⁰.

Cash sitting in a stocks and shares ISA waiting to be invested is affected; cash in a Cash ISA is not.

Stocks & Shares ISA or Zopa's Cash ISA: how each one behaves

Zopa offers both, and they behave in fundamentally different ways.

A stocks and shares ISA is one where the money you put in is invested on the stock markets¹⁶. A cash ISA is a savings account with the ISA wrapper. Zopa's Cash ISA, branded the Smart ISA, lets you mix easy access and fixed term pots in one account⁶. The fixed term pots lock money away for between 1 and 5 years to earn a guaranteed interest rate⁸, and interest cannot be withdrawn while money is in a Notice or Fixed Term ISA pot⁸.

The behavioural difference matters more than the labels. Cash in a fixed term pot has a known rate and a known term. Money in a stocks and shares ISA has no guaranteed outcome at all: it can grow, and it can fall. Zopa's own risk wording is that with a stocks and shares ISA the value of your investments could go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you paid in⁴.

There is also a timing difference on access. Zopa's Cash ISA allows withdrawals at any time with no penalties⁶. The Stocks & Shares ISA also allows withdrawal whenever you need to¹, but the money has to be sold first, so what you receive depends on the fund price on the day.

You do not have to choose between them. Holding both is permitted, and the allowance is shared⁴. A common structure is cash for money you may need soon and investments for money you will not touch for years, but that is a judgement about your own circumstances rather than a rule.

Opening and managing the ISA in the Zopa app

Zopa is app-only. Its terms state that you can only open, view and manage your Zopa account through the Zopa app⁹. There is no branch and no online banking website in the conventional sense.

The route in starts with a Smart Savings account. Zopa's ISA Builder guidance says that if you are new to Zopa, you open a Smart Savings account first, then build your ISA plan in the latest version of the app⁶. The Cash ISA follows the same pattern: download the app, open a Smart Saver account in the Smart Savings Hub, then apply for the ISA⁷.

For the Stocks & Shares ISA specifically, the minimum to open is £1¹. The same £1 minimum applies to Zopa's fixed term ISA pots⁸.

Transfers in are handled through the app. Zopa says you can transfer an existing ISA via the app, and that your money will land in your Smart ISA within 15 business days⁶. If you are moving a stocks and shares ISA from another provider, be aware that transfers normally happen in cash: your existing investments are sold and the proceeds are used to buy into the new provider's funds¹⁷. That means you are out of the market for part of the transfer window.

The ISA Builder tool is the planning layer. You set a monthly amount and choose how to split it between Cash and Stocks & Shares ISAs¹. The ISA Builder Challenge runs alongside it, from 6 April 2026 to 1 April 2027, with entries into prize draws across the year and up to £20,000 to be won².

Your investment can fall as well as rise

This is the central risk of the product, and it is not a technicality. The value of your investments can fall as well as rise, and you may get back less than you put in⁴. Zopa's own wording on its Stocks & Shares ISA page is that the FSCS does not cover losses from investments falling in value².

Zopa points to the usual guidance that experts recommend keeping your money invested for at least 5 years². The reasoning is that share prices move in the short term for reasons unrelated to the underlying businesses, and a longer period gives more opportunity for those movements to even out. It is a rule of thumb, not a guarantee: a five-year holding period does not make a loss impossible.

There is one piece of good news on the tax side. Investments can increase in value within a stocks and shares ISA without using up your ISA allowance¹⁸. Growth inside the wrapper does not consume allowance; only new money paid in does.

On tax treatment more broadly, Zopa says any growth is free from income and capital gains tax¹, and independent guidance confirms that buying funds within a stocks and shares ISA means you will not pay dividend tax or capital gains tax¹². Any dividends and returns on shares and bonds held in an ISA are tax-free¹¹.

Two limits are worth knowing. Stocks and shares ISAs do not shield your investments from inheritance tax, and they do not remove stamp duty when buying shares¹³. The ISA wrapper is an income tax and capital gains tax wrapper, not a blanket exemption.

Complaints and where to get help

If something goes wrong, the first step is Zopa's own complaints process. Complaints can be raised by calling 020 7580 6060 or emailing complaints@zopa.com⁹. Phone lines are open Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm, and weekends and bank holidays 9am to 5:30pm¹⁵.

If Zopa does not resolve the complaint to your satisfaction, the Financial Ombudsman Service can look at it. The ombudsman's consumer guidance notes that if your complaint is about stocks and shares that you hold in an ISA, there is a separate page covering ISAs¹⁹. The ombudsman publishes complaints data by product, which gives a sense of how often these disputes arise.

In the first quarter of 2026/27, the ombudsman recorded 392 complaints about Stocks and Shares ISAs, alongside 620 about Cash ISAs including cash lifetime ISAs and Help to Buy ISAs, and 27 about Help to Buy and Shared Equity Loans²⁰. Across the whole of 2024/25, Stocks and Shares ISA was the most complained-about investment product, with 1,655 new complaints²¹.

Those figures cover the whole market, not Zopa, and a complaint being upheld does not mean the provider did anything wrong in the regulatory sense; it means the ombudsman found in the consumer's favour on the facts.

If you think you have been scammed, Zopa's guidance is to contact it immediately with transaction details, a summary of the situation and any evidence ready to share, on the basis that the sooner you get in touch the better the chance of recovering money¹⁵. More generally, consumer protection law gives you rights when something you buy is not as described, and complaint information can be shared nationally with enforcement authorities including Trading Standards and the Competition and Markets Authority²².

FSCS protection: what it covers and what it does not

Eligible investments held with Zopa are protected up to a total of £85,000 by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme¹.

The distinction matters. The two are not added together.

What the FSCS covers is the failure of the firm, not the performance of your investments. Zopa states plainly that the FSCS does not cover losses from investments falling in value². If the funds fall, that is your loss, and no compensation scheme steps in.

There is also a scope condition. FSCS protection applies only where the authorised firm's activity is regulated by the PRA or the FCA¹⁶. Zopa Bank Limited is authorised by the FCA, with reference number 800542, authorised with effect from 3 December 2018²³. It also appears on the Bank of England's list of banks incorporated in the UK authorised to accept deposits, dated 1 September 2026²⁴. The company is active on the Companies House register, incorporated on 20 February 2017 under company number 10627575²⁵.

Zopa's own history is worth one line for context: it launched in 2005 as the first peer-to-peer lending business, specialising in loans to consumers, and is now regulated by the FCA²⁶. It says it is trusted by over 1.5 million customers²⁷.

Money in a Zopa Stocks & Shares ISA counts towards the investment limit; money in a Zopa Cash ISA counts towards the deposit limit.