Can anyone tell me if I can transfer my uk. isa's to a similar tax free scheme in Canada.

The Canadian equivalent is a Tax Free Savings Account. From 2009 you get $5,000 a year ($5,600 this year) contribution room for every year you are tax-resident in Canada.

Thanks for your answer Jonboy,maybe I didn,t put it too well.What I was meaning is can I transfer the total amount that I have in isa,s to a scheme here like I would be able to in the uk,it is a sizeable amount as I have been buying them for many years.Can I tranfer the lump sum or as it to be $5000 only per year. If so I may as well leave it in the uk but will I have to declare it as foreign income even though the interest earned does not come to Canada.

I couldn't find any way to transfer it when I arrived. And if you leave it in the UK a) you might be violating the ISA terms by not being resident and b) you will need to pay tax in Canada on interest in the UK.

I just closed mine and put it in a normal savings account here, where it's slowly going into the TFSA $5,000 at a time.

When you file your tax return your notice of assessment will tell you how much TFSA contribution room you have.

No, to cut a long story short.

ISAs are only used by UK tax residents, the rough equivalent in Canada is the TFSA, you can put $5,500 in each year but you have to start from scratch.

Might be more logical to look at setting up an RRSP though.

Basically the idea with the TFSA was to make it like an ISA and it was a gimmick the tories campaigned with. So it was enacted in 2007 and the general idea was to start out with a low limit of $5,000 and see how things went. And then the economy went down the toilet, but they couldn't repeal something they just enacted so now it is has been left at this low limit ever since, indexed with inflation.