Hargreaves Lansdown presents to pay as much as £8,000 cashback because it shakes up charges
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The UK’s best-known investment platform, Hargreaves Lansdown, has launched a duo of cashback deals worth up to £8,000 in total.
One doles out cash for opening a stocks and shares Isa, while the other pays for opening a self-invested personal pension (Sipp).
Cashback scales from £75 to £4,000 for each offer, and you must have a minimum of £10,000 per account to be eligible for cashback – and move a lot of money to claim the maximum.
Bagging the full bonus will require moving £1million pots, but those with far more modest investments can still claim some money.
Platforms regularly run deals before the end of the tax year to encourage investors to switch.
These offers from Hargreaves Lansdown end on 5 April, with the platform’s big fee shake-up landing in the middle of the promotion period on 1 March.
We examine how to qualify for the deals below, plus what to look out for with the new fees.
> Find out more about the deal at Hargreaves Lansdown*
Hargreaves Lansdown has launched its cashback offer for tax-year end
How to get cashback from Hargreaves Lansdown
To qualify for cashback, you must be a new Hargreaves Lansdown customer with a minimum of £10,000 to deposit or transfer per account.
Of course, there’s no requirement to take up both – it’s just that the terms don’t rule it out.
The cashback tiers look the same for each offer and you need to transfer a huge sum to get the full £8,000 – a cool million for both your Isa and pension.
| Deposit or transfer amount | Cashback |
|---|---|
| £10,000 – £19,999 | £75 |
| £20,000 – £99,999 | £200 |
| £100,000 – £249,999 | £750 |
| £250,000 – £499,999 | £1,500 |
| £500,000 – £999,999 | £2,500 |
| £1,000,000+ | £4,000 |
If you want to transfer funds to take advantage of a deal but don’t think you’ll be able to do so before the closing date of 5 April, you can apply for an extension that gives you until 5 July.
> Find out how to open an account with Hargreaves Lansdown and earn cashback*
Watch out for: The deals aren’t applied automatically, and Hargreaves Lansdown requires you to explicitly sign up for them. You can do this by using an online form, or by messaging or calling the customer service team.
You need to keep the money in your account until 28 February 2027 to qualify for the cashback, so it won’t be a quick earner.
The cashback starts to become very lucrative once you have larger amounts to deposit – £200 back on £20,000 is a good return, for example, and beats the Sipp transfer deal that Interactive Investor is running.
But to earn the maximum £8,000 you need £2million, which is out of reach for most.
For an alternative, Freetrade* is paying 1 per cent on a minimum of £10,000, also with two separate deals for an Isa and a Sipp. The maximum you can earn is £5,000 per offer. This beats Hargreaves Lansdown, with the percentage-based rather than tiered cashback meaning the more money you have, the more you’ll earn.
> Open an account with Freetrade*
Make sure you read all the terms and conditions of any deal before going ahead, to check you qualify. And don’t choose a platform based on cashback alone. You should make sure it suits your needs first and foremost.
What’s happening with Hargreaves Lansdown’s fees?
Hargreaves Lansdown is lowering its headline account fee from 0.45 per cent to 0.35 per cent on 1 March, which is broadly positive news.
But as ever, the devil is in the detail. The platform is updating many of its other charges too, so whether it works out better for you depends on the type of investor you are.
For example, funds will no longer be free to trade, instead costing £1.95 per deal.
Hargreaves Lansdown is also hiking the cap for holding shares, investment trusts and ETFs in an Isa from £45 to £150.
We examined the fee changes when first announced, and Jeff Prestridge has been hearing from customers who are furious about the updates.
You can read our guide to the best investment platforms to find out which platform might suit you best, considering features such as fees, customer service and investment choice.
We also have separate guides to the best stocks and shares Isas and the best Sipps.
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