Chip interest rates: every account, its boost and the standard rate underneath

What are Chip’s interest rates today?

Short answer: 4.68% AER (variable tracker) on the Smart Cash ISA, 3.81% AER (variable tracker) on Easy Access and 3.51% AER (variable tracker) on Instant Access. Each one includes a 12 months new-customer boost. Underneath, the standard rates are 3.50% AER, 3.50% AER and 3.00% AER. Prize Savings pays no interest: it enters you into a monthly prize draw instead.

Every card below shows the headline rate, the standard rate it falls back to and how long the boost lasts, because a boosted rate on its own tells you very little about what you will earn in year two. Tap a card for the full guide to that account.

Rates are variable. New-customer boosts last 12 months, then the standard rate applies.

Every Chip savings account side by side

Short answer: the Smart Cash ISA has the highest rate, Easy Access pays more than Instant Access in exchange for limited withdrawals, and only Easy Access is left out of the £50 referral bonus.

A few things the table cannot show. The Instant Access, Easy Access and Prize Savings accounts are all held with ClearBank, so they share one FSCS limit. The Smart Cash ISA is spread across a panel of UK banks including Barclays, Lloyds and HSBC. Chip savings are held with ClearBank and eligible deposits are protected by the FSCS up to £120,000 per person, shared across all your money at ClearBank. If you want the detail, our guide to whether Chip is safe walks through who holds what.

The Easy Access penalty matters more than the headline suggests. You get 3 penalty-free withdrawals in a 12-month period. Make a fourth and the rate drops by 2.10% AER, to 1.71% AER while you still have the boost, or 1.40% AER once it has ended. That is well below Instant Access, which never penalises a withdrawal. Our Instant Access vs Easy Access comparison works out which one suits how you actually use your savings.

How do Chip’s tracker rates work?

Short answer: each account’s standard rate is pinned a fixed distance below the Bank of England’s Bank Rate, which is 3.75%. When Bank Rate moves, the standard rate moves with it.

Most savings accounts are simply “variable”, which means the provider can change the rate whenever it likes and does not have to tell you why. A tracker is more predictable. Chip publishes the gap between each standard rate and Bank Rate, so you can see where your rate will go before Chip announces anything.

• Instant Access: Chip says the standard rate “tracks 0.79% under the Bank of England base rate”. That gives a standard rate of 3.00% AER.
• Easy Access: the standard rate “tracks 0.30% under the Bank of England base rate”, giving 3.50% AER.
• Smart Cash ISA: the standard rate also “tracks 0.30% under the Bank of England base rate”, giving 3.50% AER.

You may notice the sums do not quite add up if you subtract the gap from Bank Rate yourself. That is because Chip quotes the gap as a gross rate, while the account rate is shown as an AER. AER includes the effect of interest being added and then earning interest itself, so it comes out slightly higher than the gross figure. Our guide to what AER means explains the difference in a couple of minutes.

The headline rate is the standard rate plus a new-customer boost. Chip describes the Instant Access headline as “Made up of a 3.00% standard variable rate, plus a 0.51% new customer boost for 12 months”, and the Easy Access headline as “Comprised of an underlying standard AER of 3.50% … plus a 0.31% AER (0.30% gross) new customer boost applied for 12 months”. The Smart Cash ISA wording is similar: “New customers can earn 4.68% AER (variable tracker) for 12 months. Then the standard rate of 3.50% AER”.

What happens when the Bank of England changes Bank Rate?

Short answer: Chip’s standard rates move with it, by the same amount, because they are trackers. A cut means less interest; a rise means more.

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee meets eight times a year. Each decision either holds, cuts or raises Bank Rate. Because Chip’s standard rates are defined as a margin below Bank Rate, a quarter-point cut would, on the terms Chip publishes, take a quarter point off each standard rate. As Chip describes them, the headline rates are the standard rate plus the boost, so a change to the standard part would feed through to the headline too.

There can be a short delay between a decision and the new rate showing in the app. We do not try to predict the timing; we update this page once Chip’s own pages change. Each change is logged in the rate history below and gets its own dated entry in our savings news.

What happens after the 12-month boost?

Short answer: the boost simply stops, and you earn the standard rate from then on. Nothing is closed and your money does not move.

This is the single most important thing to understand about Chip’s rates, and about savings apps generally. The headline is what a new customer earns in year one. The standard rate is what you earn every year after that, for as long as you stay.

• Instant Access: 3.51% for 12 months, then 3.00% AER. The drop is 0.51% AER.
• Easy Access: 3.81% for 12 months, then 3.50% AER. The drop is 0.31% AER.
• Smart Cash ISA: 4.68% for 12 months, then 3.50% AER. The drop is 1.18% AER, the biggest of the three.

When the boost ends, you have three sensible options. Stay put if the standard rate is still competitive for an account with that level of access. Move between Chip accounts if your needs have changed. Or compare the standard rate with what other apps and banks pay and move if you can do clearly better. Our guide to introductory bonus rates covers how to make that decision without chasing every new offer.

One point in Chip’s favour: its standard rates are not tiny. Some providers drop to a fraction of the headline once a bonus ends. Chip’s standard rates track Bank Rate at a published margin, so you know roughly what year two will look like before you open the account.

Worked example: £5,000 in year one and year two

Short answer: on £5,000, the boost is worth between £16 and £59 in year one, depending on the account. These are rough figures using today’s rates.

To keep things simple, this example multiplies the balance by the AER. That is roughly what a full year at a steady rate earns, because AER already includes the effect of monthly interest. It assumes you leave £5,000 untouched all year, Bank Rate does not change and, for Easy Access, you never go over the free withdrawals.

Two things stand out. First, the Smart Cash ISA earns the most in year one but also has the biggest fall, because its boost is the largest. In year two it pays the same standard rate as Easy Access, with the advantage that the interest is tax-free and withdrawals are unlimited. Second, the gap between Instant Access and Easy Access is smaller than many people expect. Whether it is worth giving up unlimited withdrawals for is a personal call.

Want to try your own numbers, including the moment the boost ends? Our savings interest calculator does the sums for Chip and other apps, and adds in the £50 referral bonus if you qualify.

Is the interest taxed?

Short answer: not in the Smart Cash ISA. In Instant Access or Easy Access, the interest counts towards your Personal Savings Allowance.

GOV.UK sets the Personal Savings Allowance at £1,000 of interest a year for basic-rate taxpayers and £500 for higher-rate taxpayers. Additional-rate taxpayers get none. If your interest across all your savings, not just Chip, goes over that, the excess is taxable. Interest inside an ISA does not count towards the allowance at all, which is one reason the Smart Cash ISA’s standard rate is better than it first looks.

What are Chip’s Wealth Tiers?

Chip’s Wealth Tiers add +0.20% AER on the Smart Cash ISA once you hold £10,000 in eligible Chip investments, on an opt-in basis. With investments, your capital is at risk. This site covers savings only, and the Smart Cash ISA rates on this page are the ones that apply without Wealth Tiers.

How often do we update these rates?

Short answer: every month, and after every Bank Rate decision.

Every rate on this page comes from Chip’s own account pages, and each one carries the date we last checked it. In the last week of each month we re-read every Chip account page and compare the figures with our records. We also re-check within a few days of each Bank of England decision, because that is when tracker rates move. If anything changes, we update the figures here, add a row to the rate history and post a dated entry in our news section. If you spot a change before we do, the contact page has our email address.

Comparing Chip with other apps? Our best savings apps roundup puts the standard rates side by side, which is the fairer comparison once the boosts are gone.

Chip rate history

This table logs every change to Chip’s savings rates that we have recorded. It starts on the day this page was published. Future changes, whether from a Bank Rate decision or a change Chip makes to its boosts, will be added here as new rows, newest first.

Rates are variable. New-customer boosts last 12 months, then the standard rate applies.