Most ISA amendment provisions come into force

Most provisions of the Individual Savings Account (Amendment) Regulations 2025 came into force on 15th July 2025, the Treasury has confirmed. The regulations were made on 23rd June 2025 and laid before the House of Commons on 24th June 2025¹. Regulation 4 is the exception: it comes into force on 6th April 2027 and has effect for the tax year 2027-28 and subsequent tax years¹.

The regulations amend the Individual Savings Account Regulations 1998¹. Among the changes now in force, an individual may not subscribe to an account that is not a junior ISA account unless the account manager has been provided with the individual's national insurance information and has no reason to believe the conditions in regulation 12(3)(f) are not met¹. For flexible accounts, any replacement of a previous year's subscription may be made only to the account from which the cash withdrawal it replaces was made, and no withdrawal may reduce the current year's subscription amount to less than nil¹.

The regulations also add a definition of "long-term asset fund" as a scheme to which chapter 15 of COLL applies, and add investments in a long-term asset fund to the qualifying investments for an innovative finance component¹. Separately, investments that immediately before 1st October 2024 were units in, or shares of, a recognised UCITS, or that qualify as part of an umbrella scheme that fell within that paragraph immediately before that date, are to be treated as qualifying investments for the stocks and shares component until the end of 31st December 2026¹. Paragraph (2A) of regulation 7 ceases to have effect at the end of 31st December 2026¹.

The regulations set out their own commencement:

The Treasury made the regulations under section 151(1) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 and sections 694(3) and (5), 695, 695A, 696, 699(2) and 701 of the Income Tax (Trading and Other Income) Act 2005¹.

The explanatory note states that a Tax Information and Impact Note will be published on the HM Government website¹. No further detail on that note has been reported.

Why it matters for households

The provisions now in force affect how ISAs operate in practice. Account managers must hold national insurance information before an individual subscribes to a non-junior ISA, which affects the information savers and investors need to give when opening or paying into an account¹. For flexible accounts, replacement of money withdrawn in an earlier tax year is restricted to the same account the withdrawal came from, and withdrawals cannot push the current year's subscription below nil¹.

The treatment of certain UCITS investments as qualifying investments for the stocks and shares component runs until the end of 31st December 2026, after which paragraph (2A) ceases to have effect¹. Long-term asset funds are now within the qualifying investments for an innovative finance component¹.

The national insurance information requirement for non-junior ISA subscriptions does not take effect until 6th April 2027, applying from the 2027-28 tax year¹.

What happens next

Regulation 4 takes effect on 6th April 2027 for the 2027-28 tax year and subsequent years¹. The UCITS transitional treatment and paragraph (2A) both end on 31st December 2026¹. A Tax Information and Impact Note is to be published on the HM Government website, though no date has been reported¹.