How much can you hold in Premium Bonds?

You can start a Premium Bonds holding with £25 and you can hold up to £50,000 in your own name. The £50,000 limit is per person, not per household, so two adults can hold £50,000 each, £100,000 between them. Bonds cost £1 each, and every £1 Bond you hold is entered into a monthly prize draw instead of earning interest¹.

The draw pays tax-free prizes from £25 up to £1 million, with two £1 million jackpot winners each month. NS&I states the odds as 21,000 to 1 for every £1 Bond in the monthly prize draw, variable, from the July 2026 prize draw, having been 23,000 to 1 before that³.

A child can hold their own £50,000, separate from anything held by a parent or anyone else. The limit is the same figure, but it is a different person's allowance, so a family with two children can hold £100,000 across the children's accounts on top of whatever the adults hold⁴.

Premium Bonds limit: £25 minimum, £50,000 maximum per person

The two figures that matter are the floor and the ceiling. You can invest from £25, up to the maximum holding of £50,000¹. Bonds are sold in whole pounds at £1 each, with a minimum purchase of £25, so a holding is always a whole number of Bonds².

The £50,000 is a limit on the total value of Bonds held in one person's name, not on how much you can pay in over time. Once a holding reaches £50,000, further money cannot be added as more Bonds. The limit applies to each individual, which is why a couple can hold £100,000 between them even though neither can go above £50,000 alone. Premium Bonds are held in a single name, so there is no joint Premium Bonds account; a joint savings account is a different product with different rules⁷.

The £50,000 ceiling is specific to Premium Bonds. Other NS&I products have their own limits: British Savings Bonds allow £500 to £1 million in each Issue, and Guaranteed Growth Bonds and Guaranteed Income Bonds allow £500 to £1 million⁸. If you are comparing what to do with a larger sum, the NS&I accounts and bonds page sets out how the different products work and how the Treasury backing applies.

For a holding that has grown through prizes rather than deposits, the limit still applies to the total. NS&I states that any Premium Bond numbers that go over the £50,000 limit are not eligible to win prizes, and that if a number beyond the limit is drawn and a prize paid in error, it has the right to reclaim it³.

Reinvesting prizes when you are at or near the limit

Prizes can be paid straight into your bank account or reinvested into more Bonds, and NS&I says 9 in 10 prizes are now paid one of those two ways. If you choose either option, NS&I notifies you by text or email when you win¹¹.

Reinvestment is where the limit bites. Every prize you put back into Bonds buys more £1 Bonds, which increases your holding and your entries into future draws. That works well below the ceiling, but once the holding reaches £50,000 there is no room for more eligible Bonds, and any numbers above the limit do not win³.

There is a second practical point about large prizes. If you win £25,000, £50,000 or £100,000, NS&I sends a claim form which must be completed and returned before the prize can be paid³. That is a delay rather than a loss, but it is worth knowing if a prize lands at the same time as a withdrawal request.

NS&I splits prizes into three value bands, higher, medium and lower, and allocates a percentage share of the monthly prize fund to each¹¹. The bands determine how many prizes of each size are drawn, which is why most prizes are modest and the jackpots are rare.

Premium Bonds for children: a separate £50,000 each

A child can hold Premium Bonds in their own name, with the same £25 to £50,000 range as an adult⁴. The child's holding is their own, so it does not count towards a parent's £50,000, and a child can have more than one responsible person linked to their account. What they cannot do is exceed £50,000 in total across everything held for them: NS&I states that the child must not hold more than £50,000 of Premium Bonds in total⁵.

Whoever opens the account, the parent or guardian looks after the investment until the child turns 16, and only the parent or guardian can view and manage the account². That matters if someone else is doing the buying. If you buy Premium Bonds as a gift for someone else's child, the child's parent or guardian must be happy to look after the investment until the child turns 16, and must give permission for their information to be shared with NS&I².

Identity checks apply. Where the parent or guardian is not already an NS&I customer, they will be asked to provide proof of their own and the child's identity, and the documents have to be sent by post. The gift reaches the child only after all identity checks are completed, which can take up to four weeks from when the documents arrive. The person giving the gift cannot see the child's account; only the parent or guardian has access².

If you are weighing up where to put money for a child, children's savings accounts covers the wider range of options, and buying Premium Bonds for a child deals with the mechanics in more detail.

Government-backed: all £50,000 is protected, but prizes are not guaranteed

Premium Bonds are backed by the Treasury, so the money you put in is not at risk from NS&I failing. That is a different kind of protection from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which covers deposits at banks and building societies. With Premium Bonds the relevant point is simpler: the £50,000 maximum holding is the whole of what you can have in the product, and all of it carries the government guarantee¹³.

What is not guaranteed is a return. Winning is not guaranteed, and a holding can go through months or years without a prize¹⁴. The prize fund rate of 4.35% a year, variable from the September 2026 prize draw, describes the total prize pot across all holders rather than what any individual receives⁶. It is not interest and it is not paid to you; it is the share of the total value of all Premium Bonds that goes into the monthly draw.

That distinction is the one to hold on to when comparing Premium Bonds with a savings account. A savings account pays a stated rate of interest on your balance. Premium Bonds pay nothing unless your Bond numbers come up, and the outcome for any one holder over any one period can be well above or well below the prize fund rate. The Premium Bonds vs a savings account comparison sets the two side by side.

What the prize fund rate does and does not tell you

The prize fund rate is the figure most often quoted about Premium Bonds, and it is the one most often misread. At 4.35% a year, variable from the September 2026 prize draw, it is the proportion of the total value of all Premium Bonds that NS&I feeds into the monthly prize draw⁶. It is not a rate of return on your holding.

The odds figure is the one that describes your own chances. NS&I states 21,000 to 1 for every £1 Bond in the monthly prize draw, variable, from the July 2026 prize draw, down from 23,000 to 1 before that³. Because the odds apply to each £1 Bond, a £50,000 holding has 50,000 entries and a £25 holding has 25. More entries mean more chances, but the odds are long enough that a small holding can win and a large one can win nothing in a given month.

The number of prizes drawn gives a sense of scale. Across the draws, NS&I published totals of 5,864,354 prizes in the February 2025 draw and 5,901,229 in the April 2025 draw¹⁵. Those are counts of prizes across all holders, not a rate of return for any individual.

The prize fund rate is variable and has moved. NS&I raised it to 4.35% for the September 2026 draw and shortened the odds to 21,000 to 1, the second increase in 2026¹⁶. Because both figures can change, the rate and the odds you see quoted may not be the ones that applied when you bought your Bonds.

Cashing in Premium Bonds

You can cash in all or part of your Bonds at any time¹⁷. There is no notice period and no early withdrawal penalty, which is the main practical difference between Premium Bonds and a fixed-rate bond. You can take the whole holding, or take some and leave the rest in the draw.

The withdrawal process runs through your NS&I online account or by phone, and the money is paid to your bank account. If you are cashing in a large amount, it is worth checking the payment details on your account are current before you start, since the money can only go to an account in your name. The how do I cash in Premium Bonds? page walks through the steps, and how long Premium Bonds withdrawals take covers the timing.

Other NS&I products work differently. Income Bonds can also be cashed in at any time, but the minimum you can take out is £500¹⁷. Green Savings Bonds have their own terms, and the money in them becomes part of the holder's estate on death while the Bond continues to earn interest¹⁸. If you hold more than one NS&I product, it is worth checking each one's rules rather than assuming they match.

Finding your holder's number and checking for prizes

Your holder's number is the key to the prize checker. You can find it by logging in to your NS&I online service and checking your Premium Bonds account page, or by calling NS&I and asking for a replacement Bond record¹⁹. The number has either 9 or 10 digits, or 8 digits followed by a letter¹¹.

The prize checker shows any prizes you have won this month, anything you have won in the previous six draws, and any older unclaimed prizes¹¹. NS&I updates it on the day after the first working day of each month, so there is a short wait after each draw before the results appear¹¹.

Unclaimed prizes are a real problem rather than a rare one. There are 2,817,080 unclaimed prizes worth £123,537,625 waiting to be claimed, according to the latest NS&I data²⁰. Prizes go unclaimed when NS&I cannot reach the holder, usually because they have moved house or lost touch with the holding. If you think you may have an old holding, the how to trace lost NS&I savings and Premium Bonds page sets out how to start, and how to claim unclaimed Premium Bonds prizes deals with the claim itself.

What happens to Premium Bonds when the holder dies

Premium Bonds cannot be transferred to beneficiaries after the holder has died. Instead they have to be cashed by the executor of the will¹⁶. NS&I's own guidance is that the Bonds cannot be passed on: they must be cashed out by the executor, or left for another 12 months after the holder dies²¹.

That is a different outcome from some other NS&I products. With Green Savings Bonds, the money becomes part of the holder's estate and the Bond continues to earn interest¹⁸. The difference matters for anyone planning what happens to a holding, because Premium Bonds cannot simply be handed on to a spouse, a child or anyone else named in a will.

The value of the holding forms part of the estate for inheritance tax purposes. Prizes themselves are tax-free, but that is a separate question from whether the Bonds count towards the estate¹⁶. Where a holding is large, the executor will need the holder's number and the account details to cash it in, so keeping those records with other financial paperwork saves time later.

Where to get help

NS&I handles Premium Bonds directly, through the online service and by phone, and it publishes the current limits, odds and prize fund rate on its own pages. If you have lost touch with a holding, NS&I has a tracing service for Premium Bonds¹⁹.

For free, impartial guidance on savings more generally, MoneyHelper is the government-backed service. If a complaint about an NS&I product cannot be resolved directly, the Financial Ombudsman Service considers complaints about financial firms, and NS&I sets out its own complaints process. For anyone weighing Premium Bonds against other savings, the savings accounts guide covers the full range of account types, and how Premium Bonds work explains the draw itself.