Current Account Switch Service (CASS) 2026: How to Switch Banks in 7 Days and Claim £200

The Current Account Switch Service launched in September 2013 and is run by Pay.UK, the not-for-profit operator of UK retail payment systems. More than 50 banks and building societies participate, covering virtually every personal current account brand in Britain.

The guarantee you sign when you trigger a switch commits those banks to four things:

1. The switch completes in seven working days — not calendar days. You pick the switch date; everything must be live by end of business on that date. Pay.UK's latest dashboard (issue 49, January 2026) reported a 99.2% seven-day delivery rate for Q4 2025 switches.
2. Your old bank closes the old account — you do not have to call them, write to them, or visit a branch.
3. All direct debits, standing orders, and your balance transfer automatically — and for 36 months after the switch, any payment sent to your old account number (by an old employer, HMRC, a forgotten subscription) is redirected to your new one.
4. You are refunded any charges or interest that result from a mistake by either bank — if a direct debit bounces on switch day because the old bank did not forward it, you claim compensation through the new bank and the service reimburses you in full.

The Q4 2025 dashboard recorded 350,114 switches — the busiest quarter of the year — and public awareness now sits at 77%. Customer satisfaction with the service has climbed to 93%, and 91% of recent switchers say they would recommend it. Cumulative switches since launch crossed 12.4 million by December 2025.

Annual switching fell 11.4% year on year — 1,054,521 in 2025 versus 1,190,676 in 2024, which itself was 18% below 2023's record 1,457,165. The direction is not a sign the service is failing. It is a sign banks offered smaller cash incentives for most of 2025, and switching volumes track bonus size almost perfectly. When banks compete hardest, volumes spike — and Q4 2025's jump to 350,114 followed exactly that pattern, as Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest and Santander all ran simultaneous £150–£200 offers through the quarter.

The switching journey is simpler than any comparable financial product transfer. Here is what happens day by day once you click 'switch' in your new bank's app:

Day 0 (you open your new account): You apply through the new bank's website or app. Identity verification takes minutes for UK residents with a clean credit file. You tick a box confirming you want a full CASS switch, give the sort code and account number of your old account, and pick a switch date that is at least seven working days ahead.

Days 1–6 (new bank prepares the switch): The new bank shares your switch request with the old bank via Pay.UK's central switching system. It asks the old bank for your direct debits, standing orders, and current balance on the switch date. You do not need to do anything — but check the new bank's app for any messages asking for additional ID documents.

Switch date (day 7 or later): Early in the morning, your balance transfers from old to new. All direct debits are redirected. Your old account is closed. The new bank notifies anyone who has set up a direct debit to you (salary, pension, HMRC credits) of the new sort code and account number — though the 36-month redirection means even if they miss the memo, the money still reaches you.

Days 8–90 (monitor for gaps): Manually update any standing orders you make to other accounts (rent to a landlord, transfers to savings), any online retailers that stored your old card details (Amazon, Tesco, Netflix), and any payee lists at your mortgage provider or HMRC Self Assessment account. CASS covers direct debits and standing orders pulled from your account; it does not force merchants with stored payment details to update their own records. That last category is the single biggest source of post-switch inconvenience — budget an hour over the following fortnight.

Months 1–36: The payment redirection stays live. If a tax refund or a pension instalment gets sent to the old sort code by mistake, it lands in your new account.

One tip worth £0 but saves real hassle: pick a switch date at least three working days after your salary lands in the old account. Salary and direct debit clashes on switch day are the most common cause of temporarily unavailable funds, even though CASS ultimately refunds any charges.

As of April 2026, five major UK banks have active switching offers on the table. Nationwide's £175 offer — which drove +41,450 net gains in Q3 2025 — closed on 4 March 2026 and has not been replaced, trimming the market from six paying banks to five. Bonuses this size exist because current accounts are the anchor product: once you are with a bank, you are statistically unlikely to move your credit card, savings, mortgage, or investments elsewhere. The lifetime value of a new current account customer vastly exceeds £200, which is why the cheques are real.

Barclays — £200. Open a Barclays Bank Account through the Barclays app, complete a full CASS switch with at least two active direct debits, and pay in £2,000 within 30 days. Offer runs 10 March to 28 May 2026. No Blue Rewards sign-up is required (the 2025 version of this offer required it; the 2026 version does not). Paid within 45 working days. Barclays switch terms.

Lloyds — £200 Club Lloyds / £500 Club Lloyds Premier. Switch via CASS including three active direct debits, spend £100 on the new debit card within 35 days, and start the switch by 30 April 2026. Reading this after that date? Assume it has closed. Excludes anyone who has had a switching bonus from Lloyds, Halifax or Bank of Scotland since 1 January 2023 — these three brands share a single FSCS authorisation, and the bonus rule treats them as one group. Paid within 45 days.

Santander — £180. Available to both new and existing customers switching their main bank account into Everyday, Edge, Edge Up, Edge Explorer or Private accounts. Notable because Santander posted net losses of -19,989 in Q3 2025 — the biggest loser of any major UK brand — and the £180 bonus is the bank's direct response to that outflow.

First Direct — £175. Plus up to £35 extra if you route the application via Quidco or TopCashback — roughly £210 in total. First Direct also runs a 7% AER regular saver capped at £300 per month on a 12-month term. That is the highest rate on the UK market for a regular saver linked to a current account; if you max it across the year, you earn another ~£97 in interest on top of the bonus.

NatWest — £150. Switch into a Select or Reward current account. Open to customers who did not hold a NatWest current or savings account on 17 February 2026 and have not previously received a NatWest switching incentive. Includes access to a 6% Digital Regular Save rate on up to £150 per month.

A rational serial switcher can realistically rotate through four of these five bonuses per tax year without breaking any terms, because the 'new customer' restriction is per-banking-group, not sector-wide. We cover the economics of that strategy in our guide to the five banks paying switching bonuses, our joint account switching guide, and our optimizer's guide to high-interest current accounts — the short answer is roughly £700–£900 of bonus income in a single tax year, provided you meet each bank's minimum deposit and direct-debit requirements.

Switching bonuses are taxable income in the eyes of HMRC. That sentence worries people, but the practical effect is almost always zero tax for anyone earning normal employment income.

There are two possible HMRC classifications for a bank switching bonus:

1. Savings income (interest-like). Some banks report the bonus as interest paid on the account. In that case, it falls under your Personal Savings Allowance — £1,000 tax-free for basic-rate taxpayers, £500 for higher-rate, and £0 for additional-rate taxpayers (HMRC PSA guidance). With the Bank of England base rate at 3.75% and best-buy easy-access accounts around 4.5% gross, a basic-rate taxpayer can earn up to roughly £22,000 in an interest-bearing savings account before using up any of their £1,000 PSA. A £200 switching bonus barely moves the needle. See our cash ISA vs savings account guide and the ISA hub for how PSA interacts with ISA allowances.

2. Miscellaneous income. Other banks report the bonus as 'other income'. This falls under the Miscellaneous Income and Trading Allowance of £1,000 per tax year (HMRC trading allowance guidance). You can earn up to £1,000 in casual income — matched betting, side-hustle fees, and bank switching bonuses — before owing any tax. Most serial switchers stay comfortably under £1,000 per year, particularly because you rarely hit the full headline bonus on all five accounts in the same tax year.

If you do exceed the allowance — say you rotate through five bonuses averaging £180, totalling £900 — you stay inside the £1,000 allowance. At £1,100 total, the excess £100 would cost £20 at basic rate or £40 at higher rate. Still worth it.

Worked example for a basic-rate taxpayer

Switch to Barclays (£200), hold for 31 days, switch to Santander (£180), hold, switch to First Direct via TopCashback (£210), switch to NatWest (£150). Total gross bonus: £740.

• Under the Miscellaneous Income Allowance, the first £1,000 is tax-free. Tax due: £0.
• Net bonus income: £740.
• Time commitment: roughly 30 minutes per switch, 2 hours total over the year. That is £370 per hour, tax-free. Few side activities clear that rate, and the only marketable skill required is the ability to follow on-screen instructions.

The figures change for higher-rate taxpayers only once annual bonus income passes £1,000 per tax year. Our savings guide hub has the full PSA interaction rules if you also hold interest-paying accounts close to the threshold.

The marketing makes switching look like free money, and for most readers it is. There are three specific situations where switching either costs money or triggers a hard rejection of the bonus, and they are all avoidable once you know them.

The overdraft trap. If you use an arranged overdraft regularly, check the representative APR on your new bank before you switch. UK arranged overdraft APRs cluster between 35% and 49.9% at the major banks after the FCA's 2020 overdraft reforms made them uniform — but there is still meaningful variation. Switching from a 35% APR bank to a 39.9% bank on a £500 average overdraft balance adds roughly £25 in interest over a year, wiping out a £150 bonus after six years of use. Nationwide's FlexDirect offers a 0% overdraft for the first 12 months on qualifying new customers, which is the standout if you genuinely need the facility. Starling and Monzo publish arranged overdraft rates between 15% and 35% depending on a soft credit check. If your bonus hunting leads you to an account with a materially higher overdraft rate and you use it, you lose.

Mortgage application in progress. Do not switch your main current account in the six weeks before a mortgage application completes, and ideally not during the application itself. Lenders want to see three to six months of stable income deposits into a single account. A fresh account with two weeks of deposit history creates underwriting friction. You may be asked for additional bank statements, or in borderline cases a lender may delay the decision. Wait until after the mortgage completes, then switch — see our remortgage timing guide for exactly how far ahead to start planning.

Packaged account fees you are still paying for. If your old account is a packaged account (monthly fee, usually £10–£18, in return for travel insurance, breakdown cover, and mobile phone insurance), a CASS switch closes it. That is usually good news — most packaged accounts are poor value for people who do not actually use the insurance. But if you are mid-claim on any of those policies, resolve the claim before switching; the insurance typically terminates when the account closes. See our standard vs packaged account comparison for the full cost-benefit breakdown.

Direct debit qualification. Every switching bonus requires you to bring two or more active direct debits across in the switch — Lloyds now requires three, which is the strictest on the market. If your old account only has one direct debit, set up extras (a charity donation of £5 a month, a magazine subscription) at least a week before the switch so they count. Bonuses forfeited for failing this single condition are the most common complaint on consumer forums.

Cross-reference: our joint bank accounts guide covers the specific rules for switching a joint account, which require both account holders to consent, and our challenger bank comparison covers what the app-only banks do and do not pay.

Opening a new current account creates a hard credit search on your file. That is the only credit-file event CASS triggers, and its effect is real but small and short-lived.

A single hard search typically drops your credit score by 5–10 points on each of the three UK bureaux (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion), recovers within three to six months, and stops being visible to most lenders after 12 months. The closure of the old account — which CASS handles automatically — does not directly damage your score, because current accounts are not revolving credit facilities; closing one does not change your 'credit utilisation ratio' in the way closing a credit card would.

When this matters:

• Never switch inside a 12-week window before a major credit application — mortgage, car finance, a credit card with a specific 0% promotional offer — if you can avoid it. Lenders see recent searches on your file, and while one switch is forgivable, a pattern of multiple accounts opened in the same quarter looks like financial distress.
• Serial switchers with 4–5 bonuses per year do appear on credit files as 'frequent new account openers'. This does not disqualify you from mortgages or prime credit, but it means scheduling bonus hunts around known upcoming credit events. Plan a switch drought of 3–6 months before you apply for the mortgage, then resume after completion.
• Thin credit files (under-25s, new arrivals to the UK, anyone with fewer than three active credit accounts) are more sensitive. A hard search on a thin file can drop the score more meaningfully. If that is you, stick to one or two switches per year.

What CASS does not affect:

• Your credit utilisation ratio (unchanged).
• Your length of credit history (CASS does not reset this — the old account's contribution to your file remains).
• Any direct debit payment history (transfers to the new account intact).
• Your mortgage or other credit account statuses (untouched).

If you are actively rebuilding a damaged credit file, the money is better spent on clearing existing debt than chasing switching bonuses. See our banking overview for the full list of current account types by use case.

CASS offers two modes and the distinction matters mainly for one obscure scenario.

Full switch. The default and what every switching bonus requires. Your old account is closed, everything transfers, payment redirection activates for 36 months, CASS guarantee applies in full. This is what you want 99% of the time.

Partial switch. You keep the old account open. You choose which direct debits, standing orders, and balance amounts to move to the new account. The 36-month redirection is not activated because the old account still exists. The CASS seven-day guarantee still covers the transferred items.

Partial switch is useful in exactly two situations:

1. You have an overdraft on the old account that the new bank will not take on. You can move your salary and most direct debits to the new account while keeping the old account (and its overdraft) open until you clear the balance.
2. You want to keep a long-standing savings rate or perk that is tied to the old current account, such as a legacy linked regular saver paying above-market rates.

In almost every other case, partial switching costs you the bonus (which requires a full switch) and creates the ongoing admin of maintaining two current accounts. Unless you have a specific reason, choose full switch.

One often-missed detail: if your old account has a direct debit for a utility that charges extra for not paying by direct debit, make sure the utility company is told about the new account promptly after the switch. CASS forwards the direct debit instruction, but if the utility's internal systems have a delay, you might temporarily revert to card payment and lose a £30/year direct debit discount for a month. Keep an eye on the first post-switch utility bill.

The Current Account Switch Guarantee is backed by a concrete compensation mechanism — not a vague promise. If anything breaks during or after your switch, you claim through the new bank, not the old one, and they are contractually required to make you whole.

Specifically, the guarantee covers:

• Charges and interest — overdraft fees, late payment fees, interest on payments that failed because of the switch. You get the full amount back, not a goodwill gesture.
• Reputational restoration — if a payment defaulted because of the switch (a direct debit for a mortgage, council tax, or rent), the banks must liaise with the recipient to remove any missed-payment marker from your credit file.
• Out-of-pocket costs — the reasonable cost of getting your account back in order if something goes wrong, such as phone calls to utilities.

How to claim if something breaks:

1. Contact your new bank within a reasonable time of discovering the problem (days, not months).
2. Provide evidence — the charge on your account, the failed payment, the letter from the counterparty.
3. The new bank will investigate via Pay.UK's central switching system.
4. Compensation is credited to your new account, typically within 15–30 days.

If your new bank drags its feet, escalate to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Bank switching complaints fall within FOS jurisdiction. The FOS decision is legally binding on the bank up to £455,000 per complaint (the 2026/27 limit for acts on or after 1 April 2019).

The dashboard data suggests the system works: 99.2% of Q4 2025 switches completed within seven working days, 93% of customers are satisfied with the process, and 91% say they would recommend it. Those numbers come straight from Pay.UK's latest dashboard and represent an industry quality metric most UK consumer services would kill for.

The two things the guarantee does not cover:

• Retailers with stored card details that did not update them (Amazon auto-top-ups, subscriptions that pull from a card rather than a direct debit).
• Changes to your credit file caused by the hard credit search at account opening, which are a normal part of applying for credit and not a 'switching problem'.

For a broader view of what UK regulated financial protection looks like, see our FSCS deposit protection guide.

The short answer is yes, but understand where the protection actually comes from. The CASS guarantee covers the process; the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) covers the money.

The FSCS protects up to £120,000 per depositor per authorised firm for UK-authorised banks and building societies. The limit was raised from £85,000 to £120,000 on 1 December 2025 following the PRA's first periodic review of the regime since 2017 — a near 41% uplift that most UK savers are still unaware of. FSCS guidance covers the new rules; the Bank of England explainer walks through the policy rationale.

On switch day: your balance is moved from the old bank to the new bank in a single electronic transfer. For a few hours on switch day, the funds are in transit — but FSCS protection is not interrupted because both the sending and receiving banks are FSCS-registered institutions. If either failed on switch day, the FSCS would cover the balance. This is a theoretical scenario — no UK CASS-participating bank has failed on a switch day since the service launched — but the protection is structural.

After the switch: you have a new single FSCS counterparty, and the £120,000 limit applies to the aggregate of all your deposits at that banking group. Be careful of banks that share an FSCS licence — Lloyds, Bank of Scotland, and Halifax are all covered under the same licence, so £120,000 total across the three brands, not £120,000 each. The same applies to HSBC and First Direct (same licence), and RBS, NatWest and Ulster Bank (same licence). Switching between two brands of the same banking group can silently reduce your effective FSCS coverage if you also hold savings at the other brand.

Temporary high balances — from a house sale, inheritance, divorce settlement or redundancy payout — are protected up to £1.4 million for six months. That is new coverage that arrived with the December 2025 reforms, and it genuinely changes the calculus for anyone expecting a large one-off credit in the near term.

If you hold more than £120,000: split the excess across banking groups before you switch. Our savings hub and FSCS deposit protection guide cover the major banking groups and their FSCS arrangements.

Base rate context: the BoE base rate is 3.75% (held in March 2026 after six cuts since August 2024). Best-buy easy-access accounts pay around 4.5% gross, and best-buy one-year fixed bonds up to 4.4%. Holding £120,000 in cash in a mainstream current account paying 0–1% in-credit interest costs roughly £4,200–£5,400 per year of forgone interest at current best-buy rates. A £200 switching bonus is not a substitute for moving excess cash into a savings account or cash ISA; it is a small one-off top-up.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. You should seek independent financial advice before making any investment decisions.

Switching bonuses and bank accounts involve individual circumstances — credit history, tax status, existing product relationships — that affect the right choice for each person. Rates, bonus amounts, and promotional offers change frequently; check the official bank websites and the Current Account Switch Service before acting on any figures in this article. For regulated financial advice tailored to your situation, consult an FCA-authorised financial adviser.