Premium Bonds have been around since 1956 and pretty much everyone in the UK has heard of them.
Your nan probably has some. Your parents might have bought you a few when you were born.
But in 2026, with rates moving fast and NS&I pushing the prize fund rate up to 4.35% from the September draw, it’s worth asking whether they’re still a smart place to put your money – or just a bit of a lottery ticket dressed up as savings.
The good news? Your money is completely safe, you can take it out whenever you want, and you might just win £1 million.
The not-so-good news? Around 63% of holders have never won a single penny.
So let’s cut through it.
Here’s everything you need to know about Premium Bonds in 2026 – how they work, what your chances of winning actually are, and whether you’d be better off putting your cash somewhere else.
Table of Contents
What are premium bonds?
You might not know this, but premium bonds are the most significant savings product in the United Kingdom. National Savings & Investments (NS&I) premium bonds are basically savings accounts.
They are a little bit different to traditional savings accounts though. You can put money in and take it out when you want.
However, instead of interest being paid on the money you put in, there are monthly draws where your bonds can win prizes. All bonds have an equal chance of winning, so the more you buy, the more chances of winning you have.
Furthermore, there is no start-up fee or handling charge to pay, with no minimum or maximum time limit for holding premium bonds. The minimum amount you can pay in is £25, with the maximum you can hold being £50k.
NS&I promote the monthly draws on their website, with a big countdown feature counting the days until the next draw. You must hold the bonds for a full month before they become eligible to win. So if you pay £25 on April 15th, it wouldn’t be part of the draw until June.
Where can you buy premium bonds?
If you want to get your hands on some premium bonds and fancy being part of the monthly draw, you need to know where to buy them from.
The best place to go is the NS&I website where you can set up an account and start buying your premium bonds.
You can also top up your premium bonds account via bank transfer from your bank account.
You can also set up a standing order so you buy your premium bonds weekly, monthly or whatever time period works for you.
You must be at least 16 to buy them yourself. Parents or guardians can hold them for under-16s.
What are the benefits of premium bonds?
There are a couple of benefits of premium bonds. Firstly, they are provided under a Government guarantee to buy them back at the price you paid for them.
So if you bought £1000 of premium bonds, you could get £1000 back in a year’s time. There is no risk of them going down in value or you being charged for withdrawing your money.
Of course, we’ll get onto potential prizes in a moment. However, anything you win through your premium bonds is tax-free.
This means that any money that your money makes is completely tax-free. At one point, this was a huge benefit of premium bonds however these days, most savings are tax-free anyway.
Premium bonds are 100% secure savings and investments backed by HM Treasury. So when you ask if premium bonds are safe, yes, your money is safe.
What can you win with premium bonds?
There are monthly premium bond draws with prizes available to lucky winners. If you have active and eligible premium bonds, they are automatically part of the monthly draws.
There are prizes available between £25 all the way up to £1 million. How do you fancy a bit of that action? You might even need to speak to a financial advisor if you won the big prize!
Here’s the full prize breakdown for the September 2026 draw, next to August so you can see what actually changed:
| Prize | August 2026 | September 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| £1,000,000 | 2 | 2 |
| £100,000 | 83 | 95 |
| £50,000 | 165 | 192 |
| £25,000 | 331 | 382 |
| £10,000 | 827 | 954 |
| £5,000 | 1,654 | 1,909 |
| £1,000 | 17,347 | 19,892 |
| £500 | 52,041 | 59,676 |
| £100 | 1,931,214 | 2,366,135 |
| £50 | 1,931,214 | 2,366,135 |
| £25 | 2,289,959 | 1,717,659 |
| Total prizes | 6,224,837 | 6,533,031 |
Worth spotting that the number of £25 prizes actually falls, from 2,289,959 to 1,717,659. The growth is all in the £50 and £100 tiers and above, which is where the extra £63 million ends up.
What are your chances of winning something?
You aren’t guaranteed to win anything. In fact, the odds are firmly against you.
Each £1 bond has a 1 in 21,000 chance of winning a prize each month from the September 2026 draw. That is an improvement on the 1 in 22,000 odds that applied up to August.
Prizes range from £25 up to £1 million, with two jackpot winners picked every single month. In 2025, NS&I paid out nearly £5 billion across 71.7 million prizes – so people are definitely winning. But with hundreds of billions of eligible bonds in the draw, your individual odds remain slim.
A Freedom of Information request found that around 63% of Premium Bond holders have never won a single penny.
The average holding for people who’ve never won? Just £106.
The average for winners? £23,397. More bonds genuinely does make a difference.
So ask yourself – are premium bonds worth it for you?
When are premium bonds drawn?
The draw takes place and results are published on the first working day of each month. By the latest, results are available by the 3rd.
Here are the upcoming draw dates:
| Month | Draw Date |
|---|---|
| September 2026 | Tuesday 1st September |
| October 2026 | Thursday 1st October |
| November 2026 | Monday 2nd November |
| December 2026 | Tuesday 1st December |
| January 2027 | Monday 4th January |
| February 2027 | Monday 1st February |
| March 2027 | Monday 1st March |
| April 2027 | Thursday 1st April |
NS&I glams up the draw by giving its random number generator a name: ERNIE (Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment).
It’s been drawing winners since June 1957 and has now created over 568 millionaires since the £1 million jackpot launched in 1994.
How to do premium bond prizes get paid?
You can choose for your prices to be paid directly into your bank account, an NS&I Direct Saver account or have them reinvested into more premium bonds. The latter would give you more chances of winning again the following month.
However, if you won one of the top prizes, you’d probably want to get your hands on the money. If you are one of the lucky winners, you will be informed by text or email about your success.
You can also check if you have won any prizes by using the prize checker on nsandi.com or by downloading the official prize checker app. This is available on both the App Store & via Google Play.
Unfortunately, sometimes people move house or change details without updating their NS&I information. This can lead to winners not being notified about their winnings.
Be sure to update your details if needed, so you can be kept in the loop about your premium bonds. Some people choose to receive their prize via cheque which can lead to prizes being left unclaimed.
What happens to unclaimed premium bonds prizes?
Significantly, there are lots of prizes that remain unclaimed. In fact, some of them are from many years ago.
Presently, there are big prizes left unclaimed too.
The current figure is around 2.6 million unclaimed prizes worth £111 million.
Make sure your details are up to date and correct. Don’t risk leaving your premium bond prizes unclaimed.
How long to withdraw premium bonds?
If you need your money back, NS&I will typically get funds to you within 3–5 working days.
Prize money is usually in your account by the 7th working day of the month, if you’ve elected to receive it rather than reinvest.
Average premium bond prize rates?
The prize fund rate for Premium Bonds rises to 4.35% from the September 2026 draw, up from 3.80%. That is the equivalent interest rate NS&I uses to fund the monthly prize pot, and it is the highest it has been since December 2024.
It is the second increase this year. The September prize pot grows by around £63 million to just over £497 million, with more than 6.5 million prizes up for grabs, over 308,000 more than in August.
One catch if you are tempted to top up now: bonds have to be held for a full calendar month before they become eligible. Anything you buy in August will not be entered until the October draw.
But here’s the thing you need to understand. That 4.35% doesn’t mean you’ll earn 4.35% on your money.
It’s an average across all holders. The smallest prize is £25. So on a £1,000 holding, most people win nothing in any given month, while a few get lucky. The mean average works out to 4.35%, but the median — what a typical person with average luck actually wins — is often zero.
If you held £1,000 in Premium Bonds for a full year, you might get nothing at all. Or you might win £25. It’s genuinely random.
Compare that to a top easy-access savings account today, which is paying around 4.5–5% guaranteed. Your £1,000 would grow to roughly £1,045 after a year with zero luck involved.
NS&I has moved on its other accounts too. Direct Saver and Income Bonds both pay 3.75% AER, and the one-year British Savings Bond is now at 4.82% fixed. Worth checking the wider market before you commit though, because the best easy-access accounts still beat NS&I’s Direct Saver.
That said, if you’re a higher-rate taxpayer who’s used up your Personal Savings Allowance, the tax-free prize angle becomes more interesting. It’s all about your situation.
So, are premium bonds worth it?
The question is are premium bonds worth it? Hopefully, by reading through this blog post you will get a feel for whether or not premium bonds are for you.
If you are happy for your money to sit there and potentially make no money, whilst having a slim chance of winning big money, they could be a great option for you. There will be winners, but the odds are against you being one of them.
Remember, the money in your premium bonds account is 100% secure and backed by HM Treasury. So you could try it for a while, knowing you can withdraw it at any point. Or it could be a great place for that annual bonus to go every year.
In conclusion, do your research, get a feel for what is right for you and make sure you are happy with where your money is
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Disclaimer: Content on this page is for informational purposes and does not constitute financial advice. Always do your own research before making a financially related decision.
