Lifetime ISA Transfers: Why the Best Rates Take the Least

Here's an oddity we spotted while updating our Lifetime ISA table: rank the nine cash LISAs on the market by interest rate, then rank them by which transfers they'll accept, and you get almost exactly the same list — upside down.

The accounts paying the most take the least. The accounts paying the least take almost anything. And the account at the very bottom of the rate table won't take your existing money at all.

If you already hold a LISA and you're thinking about moving it, this matters more than the headline rate — because the rate you see advertised isn't always the rate a transfer actually gets.

The two league tables

By rate:

By what they'll accept in a transfer:

Skipton pays less than half what Moneybox does, and accepts four times as many transfer types. Nottingham, second from bottom on rate, is the only provider that accepts none — it's new contributions or nothing, which makes it hard to see who it's for.

Why this happens

It's not an accident — it's two different business models wearing the same product.

The app providers at the top of the rate table are buying customers. That 4.25% at Moneybox is really 2.80% with a 1.45% sweetener stapled on for twelve months, and it's for new customers only — hold a Moneybox LISA before and you're not eligible. Boosted rates are customer acquisition spend, and acquisition spend is aimed at the simplest customer to onboard: someone opening fresh with a standing order. A Stocks & Shares LISA transfer, with its selling-down of investments and weeks of provider-to-provider paperwork, is expensive admin for the same bonus cost. So they don't offer it.

The building societies at the bottom aren't competing on rate at all. They're serving members who value a branch, a phone line, or simply not having their house deposit inside a fintech app. Accepting every transfer type costs them little and suits savers consolidating older products — which is exactly who walks into a branch.

Neither approach is wrong. But it means "best LISA" has two completely different answers depending on whether your money is new or already sitting somewhere.

The Plum trap

One to watch closely. Plum advertises 4.20% — second-best on the market — and accepts LISA transfers. But transfers don't go into the 4.20% account. They go into a separate product paying 3.76%.

Same base rate underneath (3.11%), smaller bonus on top (0.65% instead of 1.09%). So if you're transferring and you've mentally ranked Plum second, re-rank it: for your money, Plum sits fifth, below Tembo and barely above Paragon. On a £10,000 pot, the gap between the rate you thought you were getting and the rate you actually get is £44 in year one.

Moneybox, by contrast, takes LISA transfers at the full headline 4.25%. For a straightforward cash LISA transfer, that makes the real top two Moneybox and Tembo — not Moneybox and Plum.

What the gap is actually worth

Say you opened a Skipton LISA years ago — a perfectly reasonable choice at the time — and you've built up £15,000 with contributions, bonuses and interest.

At Skipton's 2.05%, that earns about £308 a year. Transferred to Moneybox at 4.25%, it's roughly £638 — £330 more in the first year, for filling in one transfer form. Even after Moneybox's boost expires and you're on 2.80%, you're still ahead of where you were, and free to move again.

The people with the most to gain are the ones who've held LISAs longest — bigger pots, and disproportionately parked at the building societies that were the only game in town when LISAs launched. Which is precisely the money the top-paying providers make hardest to attract, and the reason this quirk of the market persists.

Escaping a Stocks & Shares LISA

If your LISA is invested rather than in cash and you want out of the market — closer to buying, perhaps, and no longer keen on your deposit moving daily — your options narrow to three: Bath BS at 2.60%, Skipton at 2.05%, and Newcastle at 1.95%. None of the top four cash rates will take a Stocks & Shares LISA transfer.

That's a genuinely awkward trade-off: security of cash, but at less than two-thirds of the best cash rate. Bath is the pick of the three on rate, and one of the few LISAs you can manage in a branch. The workaround — transfer S&S LISA to Bath, then later transfer cash LISA to Moneybox — works, but each transfer takes weeks, so plan it well before you need the money for an exchange deposit.

Still holding a Help to Buy ISA?

Skipton is the only Lifetime ISA on the market accepting Help to Buy ISA transfers. If you've been sitting in a legacy H2B ISA weighing up the switch to a LISA's better bonus terms (25% on £4,000 a year versus 25% on £2,400, and a £450,000 property cap everywhere rather than £250,000 outside London), Skipton is the only direct route. One caveat: money transferred in from a Help to Buy ISA counts towards your £4,000 annual LISA allowance, so a large H2B balance may take more than one tax year to move across.

The same allowance rule applies to Skipton's acceptance of ordinary Cash ISA transfers. LISA-to-LISA transfers, by contrast, don't touch your allowance at all — you can move the whole pot in one go.

Three rules before you move anything

Never withdraw and re-deposit. Taking money out of a LISA for any reason other than a first home or turning 60 triggers the 25% government charge, which costs you 6.25% of your own money. Always use the new provider's transfer process — a transfer isn't a withdrawal.

Your 12-month clock travels with you. You must have held a LISA for 12 months before using it towards a first home, but the clock runs from when you first opened one — transferring doesn't reset it.

Allow four to six weeks. Tembo quotes 4–6 weeks for transfers in, and that's typical across the market. If completion is on the horizon, don't start a transfer you might need to interrupt.

The verdict

For a cash LISA transfer, Moneybox at 4.25% is the clear winner — full headline rate on transferred money, with the usual caveat that 1.45% of it evaporates after a year, so diarise a re-check for month eleven. For a Stocks & Shares LISA, Bath BS at 2.60% is the best cash home available. For a Help to Buy ISA, Skipton is the only door in.

And whatever you do, don't judge a LISA by the number at the top of the advert. As this market proves rather neatly, the biggest rate and the best deal for your money are frequently not the same account.

All rates verified against provider terms on 12 August 2026. Compare every cash Lifetime ISA on the market, including transfer acceptance, on our Lifetime ISA comparison page.