Budget 2026: what changed for capital gains tax and investors

29 Oct 2026tax-newshmrc

Short answer: if you invest through a broker or an ISA, the Budget on 28 October 2026 changes almost nothing for you this year. Capital Gains Tax did not go up. Nothing changes before 6 April 2027, and even then most people won't notice.

If you…	What the Budget changed
sell shares, funds or crypto	Nothing. CGT stays at 18% / 24%, and the first £3,000 of gains is still tax-free.
save in a cash ISA	The cut to £12,000 is cancelled. You can still put £20,000 a year into cash.
earn interest outside an ISA	Tax on interest rises from April 2027. Most people still pay nothing on it.
hold stablecoins like USDC	Selling or swapping them stops being taxable from April 2027, if your coin qualifies.
get dividends	Nothing. Rates and the £500 allowance stay the same.
are selling your own company	The 18% relief now covers only the first £500,000 of gains, from April 2027.

CGT did not go up

Before the Budget there was plenty of talk that CGT would rise to match income tax. It didn't happen. You still pay 18% on gains if you are a basic rate taxpayer and 24% if you are a higher or additional rate taxpayer. The first £3,000 of gains each year is still tax-free (HMRC calls this the annual exempt amount). The government's own rates table shows the same numbers for 2027-28.

So if you sold anything since 6 April 2026, you work out the tax exactly as you did last year. Dividend tax was left alone too.

You can keep putting £20,000 a year into a cash ISA

Last year's Budget planned to cut how much under-65s can save in a cash ISA, from £20,000 to £12,000 a year, starting April 2027. That cut is cancelled. Anyone over 18 can still put the full £20,000 into cash. The government says the regulations go to Parliament in November 2026.

One loose end. The same plan also included a tax on interest earned by cash sitting inside a stocks and shares ISA, and a ban on moving money from a stocks and shares ISA into a cash ISA. Both existed to stop people dodging the £12,000 limit. The Budget papers don't mention either of them, so we don't know yet whether they are gone. We explain them in our post on cash in stocks and shares ISAs and will update it when HMRC confirms.

Tax on interest goes up, but most people won't pay it

From 6 April 2027 interest is taxed at 24%, 44% or 49% depending on your income band, up from 20%, 40% and 45% today. That covers bank interest, interest your broker pays on uninvested cash, and coupons from gilts and bonds.

What hasn't changed is the Personal Savings Allowance: the amount of interest you can earn each year before any tax is due. It is £1,000 for basic rate taxpayers and £500 for higher rate. Additional rate taxpayers get none. Interest earned inside an ISA doesn't count at all. By the Treasury's own maths, a basic rate taxpayer needs more than £25,000 in savings outside ISAs before paying anything.

Cash outside an ISA, 4% interest	Your income tax band	Tax now	From April 2027
£25,000 (£1,000 interest)	Basic	£0	£0
£25,000 (£1,000 interest)	Higher	£200	£220
£60,000 (£2,400 interest)	Basic	£280	£336
£60,000 (£2,400 interest)	Higher	£760	£836

The table assumes you earn a salary above £17,570, which is when the extra 0% starting rate for savings stops applying.

The difference is small unless you hold a lot of cash outside an ISA. If you do, the fix hasn't changed: move it into an ISA, up to £20,000 a year. Gilts are a separate case. Their interest is taxed but gains on them are CGT-free, which we cover in this post.

Rental income gets the same new rates from April 2027 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Crypto: stablecoin swaps stop being taxable

Today, every time you sell or swap a stablecoin, that counts as a disposal for CGT. Most of the time the gain is a few pennies, but you still have to work it out. From 6 April 2027, disposals of "eligible stablecoins" will be exempt. HMRC published this in July and the Budget confirmed it.

Which coins count isn't settled. HMRC describes an eligible stablecoin as one designed for payments, backed by other assets to hold its value, and widely available. It doesn't name USDT or USDC. Interest you earn from lending stablecoins will be taxed like bank interest. Separately, putting crypto into lending or liquidity pools stops being a disposal from the same date, as we explained here.

If you are selling your own company

This part is for business owners. If you only hold listed shares, skip it.

Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR) taxes the sale of your own trading business or company at 18% instead of 24%. From 6 April 2027 you can only use it on £500,000 of gains over your whole life, down from £1 million. Anything you have claimed before counts. A first-time claimant with a £1 million gain after that date pays £30,000 more than before the change. HMRC says 75% of the roughly 51,000 people who claim BADR are under the new limit. Signing an unconditional contract before April doesn't automatically protect you if the point was to beat the deadline. There is more in our BADR post.

There is also a new Founders' Relief: 10% on up to £10 million of gains, from April 2027. You must have owned at least 25% of the company when it started trading, and it must now have £10 million turnover, 15 staff, and must pass growth tests. HMRC expects about 600 people a year to qualify.

From April 2028 some ways of taking money out of a company that are taxed as capital gains today will be taxed as dividends instead. The draft rules are due in 2027.

All the rates in one place

item	2026-27	2027-28
CGT rates	18% / 24%	18% / 24%
CGT annual exempt amount	£3,000	£3,000
Dividend rates	10.75% / 35.75% / 39.35%	same
Dividend allowance	£500	£500
Savings interest rates	20% / 40% / 45%	24% / 44% / 49%
Personal Savings Allowance	£1,000 / £500 / £0	same
ISA allowance (all in cash allowed)	£20,000	£20,000
BADR lifetime limit	£1 million	£500,000
Founders' Relief	—	10% up to £10 million

Your 2026-27 return is due by 31 January 2028 and uses the left-hand column. Upload your broker CSV and the calculator works out each disposal and fills in the SA108 boxes.