Stocks and shares Isas give you the opportunity to grow your money on the stock market while sheltering your gains from capital gains, dividend and income taxes.

However, with so many providers desperate to hold your cash, it can be difficult to choose the best one for you.

Here, Telegraph Money picks some of the best stocks and shares Isas available in 2026, whether you’ve been investing for a while or are an absolute beginner.

What is a stocks and shares Isa?

What are the different types of stocks and shares Isa?

Best stocks and shares Isa providers: self-select Isas

Best stocks and shares Isa providers: ready-made services

Stocks and shares Isas FAQs

Each year you can invest up to £20,000 in a stocks and shares Isa, which is a type of investment account that shelters your money from tax. There will be no dividend tax to pay on income generated by your pot, and no capital gains tax when you come to sell your investments either. If you hold money in cash, interest will not incur income tax.

You’ll need to choose which investments to hold in your account. The most comprehensive self-select Isas will offer access to thousands of investments, including mutual funds, investment trusts as well as shares and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). However, some providers may only offer a more limited selection of investments.

You can access money in a stocks and shares Isa whenever you wish, although stock market-linked investments are not normally recommended if you are likely to need your money within five years.

Many banks offer stocks and shares Isas alongside cash Isas, but online investment platforms tend to be cheaper and offer more choice to private investors.

There’s a wide choice of stocks and shares Isas on the market, but they can broadly be split into two types:

DIY stocks and shares Isas: These Isa accounts let you choose (self-select) your own investments, whether that’s individual shares and bonds or pooled investments such as funds, investment trusts and ETFs that give you access to a basket of holdings. This option will appeal to confident and experienced investors but with many platforms offering guidance and expert recommendations, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be considered by beginners as well.

Ready-made Isas: These include so-called “robo-advice” services where your money is invested in one of a number of portfolios based on your objectives and attitude to risk. Alternatively, you may come across “off the shelf” managed or ready-made Isa portfolios designed by experts. These services are often best suited to new investors as well as those who don’t want to make any investment decisions themselves.

To confuse matters, many self-select Isas – which offer a huge choice of investments – will offer ready-made portfolios, too.

In addition to standard stocks and shares Isas, it’s also possible for those aged under 40 to save for a house deposit or later life by opening a stocks and shares Lifetime Isa. Parents can also open a junior stocks and shares Isa on behalf of their children.

The best stocks and shares Isa provider for you will largely depend on the type of investor you are – whether you want to choose your own investments or favour a ready-made solution, for example – and the amount of money you have to invest.

A platform that offers the lowest fees to an investor with a reasonable amount stashed away may not offer such good value to one that’s just starting out.

To pick our best stocks and shares Isa providers, in the self-select area, we have used cost analysis from consultancy The Lang Cat – compiled on behalf of Telegraph Money – that shows the cost of 12 trades a year on a variety of platforms with different-sized sums invested.

The green shading indicates the least expensive providers, with the most expensive in red.

Fees for all providers are correct as of Feb 25, apart from Hargreaves Lansdown, whose fees include the new pricing introduced on March 1.

Our table below shows the cheapest and most expensive places to invest 100pc in funds, from £5,000 to £1m in an Isa. Remember, you will pay fund management fees on top.

As the table shows, the cheapest option for those with £5,000 portfolios is TrinityBridge (formerly Close Brothers) and Barclays, which both charge £13, or 0.25pc, for the trades we’ve specified.

For larger balances of £50,000 to £100,000, you can look to Scottish Widows Share Dealing (previously iWeb), Halifax Share Dealing, Interactive Investor’s core option and Vanguard for cheaper fees – all of which are under £150.

Meanwhile, for those with £1m to invest, Scottish Widows Share Dealing is the cheapest at just £60. Halifax Share Dealing’s flat fee of £150 also works out cheap for larger portfolios, as does Interactive Investor Plus’s £180 charge.

For these larger portfolios, Hargreaves Lansdown is the most expensive, charging £2,773, or 0.28pc. This includes a £1.95 charge per trade – if you were to set up regular monthly trades, the price would fall to £2,750, as it’s free to buy funds in this way.

Note that these prices are only for those invested in funds, and prices may be different for other types of investment. For example, from March 1, Hargreaves Lansdown’s fees will be charged at 0.35pc, capped at £150 a year for holding shares in an Isa.

For our ready-made picks we used cost examples from Boring Money.

While it’s important to understand how much you will pay for your stocks and shares Isa, you shouldn’t overlook the service and functionality it will deliver. For this reason we have also used wider analysis from Boring Money, covering a broad range of criteria, including website and app testing, customer reviews and brand longevity.

Also note that our cost examples only provide a guideline of costs for a “typical” customer. The actual charges that you pay for your stocks and shares Isa will depend on the type of investments you choose and the frequency with which you trade.

This means that when you are choosing a stocks and shares Isa and comparing costs, you need to keep in mind how you will probably invest. Share-trading costs, for example, will be particularly important if you are likely to trade regularly or don’t plan to invest in funds.

Cost: £31 for £5,000, £81 for £25,000 and £143 for £50,000

Boring Money rating: 4.5/5

Boring Money describes AJ Bell as a “good all-rounder”. Although it isn’t always the cheapest stocks and shares Isa in this category, its pricing is competitive – particularly for accounts in the £15,000 to £25,000 range.

For example, at £25,000, the cost of 12 fund trades a year is £81, compared with £88 with Fidelity, £100 with Willis Owen and £200 with Bestinvest.

AJ Bell’s platform charges are also capped. With no platform charges payable on funds over £500,000, this keeps prices down for larger investors. This means the maximum charge for our example investor is £893.

The diverse choice of investments offered by AJ Bell makes it a good option for experienced investors who want to build their own portfolios. However, its affordable ready-made portfolios and its high-quality content mean it shouldn’t necessarily be overlooked by new or aspiring investors.

All AJ Bell customers also get access to Shares Magazine.

Cost: £180 (flat fee)

Boring Money rating: 4/5

Interactive Investor has revisited its prices recently, with its ii Core option charging a flat fee of £88 for portfolios up to £100,000. Its ii Plus Isa has a flat fee of £180, which is expensive for anyone with less than £50,000 to invest, but it offers much better value for larger portfolios.

By comparison, if our 12-trades-a-year investor racks up £1m in their Isa, charges would be £881 a year with AJ Bell, £2,000 with Bestinvest and Fidelity, or £2,758 with Hargreaves Lansdown.

Interactive Investor was praised for its wide range of investments – over 40,000, in fact.

The Plus option charges a monthly fee of £14.99 and includes one free trade a month (as well as free regular trades). As part of the payment plan, account holders can also open a junior Isa for each of their children.

However, while there is no arguing with the very low costs it offers larger investors, Boring Money noted that the platform could be overwhelming for beginners. It also suggested that its website and app may not feel intuitive to less experienced investors.

Described as “solid and reliable”, Barclays Smart Investor gets a mention for its transparent costs and ability for customers to hold their Isas alongside current accounts for minimal fuss.

Charges are pretty cheap, especially for those with smaller portfolios – based on our example investor, someone with a £5,000 portfolio making four trades a year would be charged just £13, rising to £900 for anyone with £1m. Boring Money notes that it has the largest range of investment options of any high-street bank, but it could be tricky for beginners to navigate.

Elsewhere, Hargreaves Lansdown received praise for offering a premium service with top-notch investing education to help you make the best decisions.

As we’ve mentioned, some investors might end up paying more for this premium experience. We’ve heard from numerous readers who have decided to move their money somewhere cheaper, but you might decide it’s worth it.

Cost: £48.50 for £5,000, £242.50 for £25,000 and £485 for £50,000 for fully managed portfolio

Boring Money rating: 4.5/5

Previously known as Nutmeg, JP Morgan Personal Investing offers a range of ready-made portfolios that make it well-suited to less confident investors – and perhaps those who hold the provider’s Chase current account.

There are six investment styles to choose from, which include income investing, fully managed and fixed allocation. Within these, you can select the risk option you’re most comfortable with.

Each option comes with different fees and minimum investment requirements. The prices we’ve quoted above are for its fully managed portfolio – its most popular option, and one of its cheapest.

Sticking with the £50,000 portfolio as an example, you’d pay £320 for fixed-allocation investments, where a mix of assets is set once a year, compared with a £595 annual charge for income investing, which requires a minimum investment of £10,000 but seeks to provide a monthly payout.

Vanguard’s LifeStrategy range of ready-made funds are popular with beginners, and it achieved a score of 4/5 from Boring Money.

The portfolios contain up to 20,000 shares and bonds, with different splits between shares and bonds to help you find one that suits your risk appetite: the 80pc fund is the most adventurous, while the 20pc fund is the most cautious.

However, as you can only use Vanguard’s own funds, it has received criticism for offering limited choice and not being suited to active traders.

Despite being a good option for beginners, the fees are not the cheapest for those with smaller portfolios. Someone with £5,000 in a LifeStrategy fund would expect to pay a £4 monthly account fee, and an average fund management fee of 0.24pc, coming to around £60 a year.

The account fee changes to 0.15pc (capped at £375) for portfolios of more than £32,000, so someone with £50,000 invested would be charged around £195 a year.

But, if you don’t know how – or don’t want – to manage your portfolio yourself, it may be worth paying for.

The return you get on your stocks and shares Isa will depend on where you decide to invest your contributions, and how your chosen investments perform.

However, as a guide to UK investment returns, the FTSE 100 delivered a 21.5pc return in 2025, and over the past decade has enjoyed an average of around 8pc a year.

Each year you can pay up to £20,000 into Isas. This can be paid into one or more stocks and shares Isas or spread across other types of Isa, such as cash Isas, Lifetime Isas and Innovative Finance Isas.

The Isa allowance has been frozen at £20,000 until 2030.

Yes – you can pay into both a cash Isa and a stocks and shares Isa, so long as you don’t pay in more than £20,000 in total each tax year.

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