How to check for Premium Bonds prizes

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Premium Bonds are one of the nation’s most popular savings products, with Brits holding more than £134.6 billion in them, as of December 2025.

Rather than earning guaranteed interest on the savings, you are entered into a monthly prize draw, where you get the chance to win up to £1 million.

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The total prize fund for the February 2026 prize draw was more than £408 million. There were more than 6.18 million tax-free prizes.

How to check for Premium Bonds

There are a number of ways to check for prizes – both online and by post.

NS&I website or app

The easiest way is through the nsandi.com prize checker or the official prize checker app, available on either Android or iOS. Both of these methods will show you the prizes on offer that month and any winnings you may have had over the past six draws as well as any unclaimed prizes.

You will need your Premium Bonds holder’s number to use the website and your NS&I number or holder’s number to check via the prize checker app – it has either 9 or 10 digits, or 8 digits followed by a letter. If you don’t have your Premium Bonds number to hand, do not worry. You can use your NS&I number on the app to check for prizes – it is 11 digits long and starts with an 11, 21, 31 or 41.

Use your Amazon Alexa

You can also use your Alexa-enabled device to check if you’ve won, so long as you have a supported device and have successfully set it up. Once given the command, Alexa will be able to tell you whether you have won a prize and how much it's worth, as well as details for any upcoming draws.

To get it set up, you’ll need to activate the NS&I Premium Bonds prize checker skill on your Alexa app and enter your NS&I number. After that, you will be able to use your smart speaker to stay updated on all things Premium Bonds.

How to check for unclaimed Premium Bonds prizes from years ago

As there is no time limit for investors to claim prizes from Premium Bonds, you may find that you have some long-forgotten rewards left from years ago.

Beyond using NS&I’s website, app or Alexa to check for prizes, there are some other ways of finding out whether you have any cash waiting to be claimed.

If you’re registered for online or phone services, you can call NS&I for free on 08085 007 007.

If you aren’t registered, you can write to NS&I and ask if you have any unclaimed prizes. To help them track any potential prizes down for you, your letter must include:

Premium Bonds holder's number
Your current name
Any previous names
Your current address
Any previous addresses where Bonds may have been registered
Your signature

Send your letter to: NS&I, Sunderland SR43 2SB.

Any prizes will then be sent to your home address. They cannot be sent directly to your bank account.

How will my prize be paid?

Your prizes will be paid according to your preference. For example, those who have opted for automatic payments will get their cash prizes paid into their bank account. Alternatively, you might have set your winnings to be reinvested.

NS&I says more than nine in 10 prizes are paid directly into winners’ bank accounts or automatically reinvested into more Premium Bonds.

If you haven’t opted for either, you will receive a cheque – so it’s worth checking your address is updated. You can change your payment method on the NS&I website if you wish.

How many lost Premium Bonds prizes are there?

While NS&I has successfully paid out over 99% of all Premium Bonds prizes to winners since 1957, there are still a small minority of bonds that are still unclaimed.

As of February 2026, there are 2,713,707 unclaimed Premium Bonds prizes worth £114,769,950.

Unclaimed Premium Bonds will never expire, meaning that if you think you may have some unclaimed prizes from years or even decades ago it is still worth tracking them down.

It is also worth doing this sooner rather than later as your winnings do not earn an interest rate while left unclaimed, meaning they will be slowly eroded away by inflation.

Thankfully, this process is quite straightforward provided you have the right documentation with you.

In the 2024/25 financial year, 43,827 lost Premium Bonds accounts were successfully traced, worth £120,353,224, according to NS&I. These were reunited with their owners through NS&I’s own tracing service, as well as My Lost Account.

Meanwhile, more than 192,081 previously unclaimed Premium Bonds were paid out to 51,310 winners, totalling more than £6.2 million, in the same time period.

Andrew Westhead, NS&I’s retail director, said: “Every pound we reunite is money that rightly belongs to our customers or their families, whether it’s Premium Bonds savings, unclaimed prizes or forgotten accounts.

“These figures are a timely reminder to update your details, talk to your loved ones about your savings and make sure your money stays firmly in your hands, both now and in the future.”

How to avoid unclaimed Premium Bonds prizes

NS&I notifies Premium Bonds prize winners via their chosen communication method, such as email or text, if they have registered their contact details.

However, prizes can end up unclaimed if someone relocates or changes contact or bank details and forgets to update NS&I with the new details.

NS&I says the best way to avoid prizes going unclaimed is to choose for them to be paid directly into your bank account or automatically reinvested into Premium Bonds. You can do this up to the £50,000 holding limit, and automatically reinvested prizes are immediately eligible for the next draw.

How to check for Premium Bonds

You can check for lost Premium Bonds by going to NS&I’s website and finding the ‘Form to track down lost savings’. It will be included on this page: nsandi.com/forms.

Customers can complete the form online or they can download it and print out a physical copy to complete by hand.

If doing the latter, send your completed form to: Tracing service, NS&I, Sunderland SR43 2SB

Once completed, NS&I will be in contact and tell you whether you have any lost Premium Bonds.

Alternatively, you can use mylostaccount.org.uk. This is a free service from UK Finance and the Building Societies Association that helps you track down lost accounts or savings. The service is not only for NS&I products, so it may be worth a visit if you have other lost accounts.

If you’re trying to track down Premium Bonds on behalf of someone else, then make sure you are legally entitled to act on their behalf, for example under a Power of Attorney or as an Executor. NS&I suggests calling them for advice on how to trace someone else’s accounts or investments.

Premium Bonds can still be owned by people who live abroad so it is still worth checking whether you have any unclaimed prizes or lost Premium Bonds even if you have left the UK.

If you need more help or guidance, NS&I has a helpful list of contacts who may be able to steer you in the right direction.

You can rest assured that your Premium Bonds are safe with NS&I as the money is 100% backed by the Treasury.

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Daniel is a financial journalist at MoneyWeek, writing about personal finance, economics, property, politics, and investing.

He covers savings, political news and enjoys translating economic data into simple English, and explaining what it means for your wallet.

Daniel joined MoneyWeek in January 2025. He previously worked at The Economist in their Audience team and read history at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, specialising in the history of political thought.

In his free time, he likes reading, walking around Hampstead Heath, and cooking overambitious meals.