General investment account

Anyone who’s over 18 and lives permanently in the UK can open an Investment Account with us. You also can if you or your spouse or civil partner works overseas for the UK Government. Then you just need to commit to paying in at least £25 a month, or £500 to start you off.

You’ll need to be comfortable managing your account and investments online, and understand that the value of your investment can go down as well as up and you could get back less than you paid in.

There’s no cost to get started, other than the amount you want to invest – and there’s usually a minimum single amount to pay in to get started or a regular amount to commit to over the year. There'll be an Aviva charge one month after your account has started. We've detailed these on our charges page.

There’s a minimum amount to open it in the first place, which is either a one-off £500, or your commitment to pay in at least £25 every month. If you want to pay more in, there’s no line drawn, no limit on how much you can invest. Just remember that you may need to pay tax on your returns, depending on how much they add up to and any other income you have.

Returns are how we talk about the change in value of investments, and a positive return means your investment has gone up in value.

Dividends are when a company pays out an amount of its profits to some or all of its shareholders.

Interest is the rate at which your cash will grow in certain savings or current accounts, or how much it will cost you to borrow money, such as through credit cards, mortgages or other loans. It's calculated as a percentage of the overall amount you've borrowed or have in savings.

Funds that mainly hold equities (like shares) can make dividend payments and funds that mostly hold bonds can make interest payments. You'll find this information on the fund factsheet. Any dividends paid by companies in a fund are usually paid into the fund, rather than directly to investors. This means the price of the fund will increase as a result.

You may need to pay income tax or capital gains tax on any returns or income you make from an investment account, unlike a stocks and shares ISA. How much you’ll pay will depend on your personal situation.

Money held in your cash account (which is where you’ll transfer money ready to be invested, and where any money will go once you sell any investments) may earn interest. Where this is the case, we'll pay this interest to you gross, which means no income tax is deducted. You'll have to settle any tax liability on interest income to HMRC.

We won’t make any deduction for Capital Gains Tax, but you may have Capital Gains Tax to pay (through self-assessment to HMRC) if your total gains in a tax year are higher than your annual allowance.

How tax rules apply to you depends on your individual circumstances, so if you need a recommendation based on your personal tax position, you should speak to a professional financial adviser. Visit our Investment Advice page for more information. We’ve based our information on current UK legislation, but this may change in the future.

Learn more about tax on investment accounts.

Any dividends we pay you from your investment will have no tax taken off yet. Usually in the UK, you get a dividend allowance every year. For the 2025/2026 tax year the dividend allowance is £500. Any dividend amount above the dividend allowance will be taxable, and it’ll be up to you to let HMRC know through your tax return.