The FCA Says 750,000 Young People Have Unclaimed Money. Is Some of It Yours?

If you were born in the UK between 1 September 2002 and 2 January 2011, the government opened a savings account in your name — whether your family ever touched it or not. This September the FCA became the latest regulator to sound the alarm: around three quarters of a million of those accounts have matured and never been claimed, with an average of roughly £2,200 sitting in each one. Here’s how to find out in about ten minutes whether one of them is yours.

What a Child Trust Fund actually is

Child Trust Funds (CTFs) were the government’s baby-bond scheme. Every eligible child got a voucher — usually £250, or £500 for lower-income families — paid into a long-term, tax-free account. Some families added to it and moved it to better providers. Many never did anything with it, and plenty of accounts were opened by HMRC automatically when the voucher went unused.

That last group is the heart of the problem: if HMRC picked a provider for you, your family may never have known the account existed — and neither do you. The money has been sitting there, growing quietly, waiting for you to turn 18.

Why this is in the news right now

Two pushes landed in 2026. In the spring, the Treasury launched a campaign to reunite young adults with their money, with HMRC writing directly to 21-year-olds. And this September, the FCA urged young adults to check for unclaimed accounts — along with a warning that matters just as much as the money itself.

The warning: third-party “claim firms” are charging young people for something that is free. The FCA has seen cases where a firm took hundreds of pounds — in some cases around £400 — simply to locate an account that HMRC’s own tool would have found at no cost. On an average pot of £2,200, that’s a huge slice of your money for filling in a form.

How to find yours in three steps

1. Check your birth window. 1 September 2002 to 2 January 2011. Born in that range and lived in the UK? You almost certainly have one.
2. Ask HMRC where it is. Use the free “find a Child Trust Fund” service on GOV.UK. You’ll need your National Insurance number and a Government Gateway login (you can create one in minutes). HMRC normally tells you the provider within about three weeks. Our CTF Finder walks you through each step of the official process.
3. Contact the provider and choose what happens next. Once you know who holds it, you can take the money out, move it into an ISA, or leave it invested — it stays tax-free until you decide.

What to do with it once you’ve found it

£2,200 at 18 is a genuinely useful sum, and what’s right depends on what the next few years look like for you:

• Need it soon? Rent deposit, laptop, driving lessons — spending it on things that move your life forward is a perfectly good outcome. That is what the scheme was for.
• Building a safety net? A matured CTF can seed an emergency fund in one move — the single most calming thing a young adult can own.
• Don’t need it for five-plus years? Moving it into an ISA keeps it tax-free, and time is the one advantage you have over every older investor — see why in our compound interest guide. If a first home is the goal, a Lifetime ISA adds a 25% government bonus on top.

Common questions

My family never opened anything. Do I still have one?

Very likely yes — that’s exactly the group with unclaimed money. If the voucher was never used, HMRC opened an account for you automatically. The tracing service will tell you where it ended up.

I’m under 18 — can I do anything?

You can take over managing the account at 16, but the money unlocks at 18. Finding out where it is now means no detective work on your eighteenth birthday.

Is there a deadline?

No — the money stays yours and stays tax-free until you claim it. But unclaimed accounts often sit in cautious investments with fees quietly nibbling at them, so there’s little reason to leave it unexamined.

This is education, not financial advice. Check the current position on GOV.UK before acting, and remember that investments can go down as well as up.