Someone tell me what I’m supposed to do with these ISAs?

[Unintunr]

I really don’t understand ISAs and it’s driving me crazy.

I have one standard ISA and one stocks and shares ISA

How do I know when the term ends?
When it ends what do you do? What I mean is…if it ends and the ISA turns automatically into a standard saver, then do you lose that as ‘ISA money’ ie do you need to move it before the ISA ends and if you do it the day before then how can you open a new ISA when the old one is still in place? As you can only have one?

I don’t get it and it’s driving me mad!

Usually, it stays in the ISA-wrapper that is you can transfer it to another ISA. You can have several ISAs if you open them in different tax years. So if you open a product that allows transfers in then you can transfer the "old" ISA into the new ISA. If you buy stocks, shares or funds then they usually don't have an expiry date and you can just keep them as long as you wish (but of course this may or may not be a good financial decision depending on the shares you have and the market).

Ask for this to be moved to the finance section, you’ll get more appropriate help

I stand corrected

apologies

Contact the ISA provider.

Ask for any maturity date

Diarise

Act to transfer ISA to another ISA on maturity

If no maturity, diarise for 6 monthly checks to check on % rates and to see if any change is needed

I get contacted by the bank about a month before any ISA matures.

Check MoneySavingExpert for the best ISA rates and transfer your existing ISA. The new bank’s website will have instructions on how to do this.

If investment for the long term, I.e. 5+ years, consider equity based funds, e.g. index trackers - UK, European and/or Whole World. Watch out for fees/charges - Vanguard is generally cheaper.

Meant nicely
you need to educate yourself on your finances, no one else is going to do it for you. Start by reading things written by Martin Lewis, he's really helpful for beginners

Is it definitely fixed rate?

If it is fixed rate, IN MY EXPERIENCE they will write to you before maturity asking what you want to do. Often the options are:
Withdraw to your normal account (you will lose your ISA wrapper)
Take up another of that providers fixed rate products (so it's locked away again)
Let it mature into an easy access variable ISA (on a crap rate, but in an ISA wrapper and accessible).

I chose to let mine mature into the easy access while I set up my new ISA with a new lender, and then applied to have it moved across which was very easy. This keeps it in an ISA wrapper but you can chose an account that suits your needs/better rate etc.

You can have more than one ISA by the way, you just can't exceed the annual savings allowance (without paying tax), so you could in theory set up your new one in anticipation.

I agree with looking at MSE because it's very likely that the ISAs question isn't the only gap in your personal finance knowledge.

As well as the website they also do a personal finance for beginners course and a schools textbook, which is free and probably a good reference for anyone who's unsure about anything money related.

Your standard isa is called a cash isa. It might have a term or it might not. The term is the length of time a fixed interest rate applies for.
For example you might have opened your isa in April 2025. You chose an isa with an interest rate of 4%, which was fixed for a year (the term). When the term ends in April 2026 the interest rate might drop to 0.5%. It will still be a isa, not a savings account. But the interest rate is would be rubbish. At that point you would be sensible to transfer the money to another isa with a better interest rate. Importantly Do NOT withdraw the money from the old isa to your bank account. Instead, the new isa company you choose sorts the transfer so the money never enters your hands. Some cash isas do not accept transfers from old isas, so check this when shopping around.

Your stocks and shares isa does not have a term. Again the money in there will always be in an isa until you take it out. In this type of isa, you pick funds to invest in. Your money grows with the stock market. It does not earn interest. Importantly make sure that the money you have put in your stocks are shares isa is actually invested in one or more funds and not sitting as cash doing nothing

Transfer to another ISA, if you want to. Theres no restrictions on transfers. If you aren't going to need the money, in the short term. then look around for a good fixed rate/fixed time ISA.

If you want to move your money from your normal access one to another for better interest, whatever you do don't do it as a normal transfer yourself. Open the new account and request an ISA transfer, it's like a bank account switch and makes sure you don't loose the tax free allowance. You can also only pay into one person tax year and this gets around that.

Also, you can open as many ISAs as you like in a single tax year. You just can't put more than 20k in total across all your ISAs in a year.

This isn't true, you can only pay into one savings ISA and one stocks and shares in any 1 tax year.

That's how it used to be, but now you can have multiple ISAs as long as you keep under the total 20k limit.

It is true, the limit now is on the amount of ££ only

I agree with PPs @Unintunr you really need to make sure understand the basics of personal finance. There is so much information available online, if Martin Lewis isn't for you Google a few others and see if you like their style better