Two New Premium Bonds Millionaires This Month — Here's How to Check If You've Won

NS&I's August 2026 Premium Bonds prize draw has produced two new £1 million jackpot winners, plus a string of smaller but still life-changing prizes — and if you hold Premium Bonds, it's worth two minutes to check whether one of your numbers came up.

Who won this month

One jackpot winner is from Kent, and had only bought their winning bond six months ago, holding £21,000 in Premium Bonds in total. The second jackpot went to a saver in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, who had a longer wait — their winning bond was originally bought back in 2022. Beyond the two £1 million prizes, a saver in Tyne & Wear picked up a £100,000 prize from a holding of just £650, having bought the winning bond as recently as March.

These stories illustrate something important about how Premium Bonds work: unlike a regular savings account, there's no guaranteed interest. Instead, NS&I puts money that would otherwise be paid as interest into a monthly prize pool, and every eligible £1 bond number has an equal chance of being drawn, regardless of when it was bought or how large the saver's total holding is.

How the odds actually work

Every Premium Bond number is entered into each month's draw for as long as you hold it, up to the maximum holding of £50,000 per person. The prize fund rate — currently used to calculate the odds and total pool of prizes — determines how many prizes of each size are given out each month, from £25 up to the two £1 million jackpots. Because the draw is entirely random (generated by NS&I's ERNIE random number generator), there's no strategy that improves your odds beyond holding more bonds, and even then, winning any given month is still a matter of luck rather than certainty.

Checklist: how to check if you've won

• Go to the NS&I Prize Checker and enter your holder's number, which you can find on your annual statement or by logging into your NS&I account.
• Check every month — unclaimed prizes don't expire, but you won't get notified unless you've registered for email or text alerts, or opted for prizes to be paid directly into your bank account rather than reinvested.
• If you've inherited Premium Bonds or hold very old bonds, you can still check them — NS&I holds unclaimed prizes indefinitely and has an unclaimed prizes search tool for older winnings.
• Consider registering for automatic prize payment to your bank account instead of reinvestment, so winnings don't sit unnoticed within your holding.
• Remember Premium Bonds prizes are entirely tax-free, so there's no need to declare them on a Self Assessment return.

Is it worth holding Premium Bonds at all?

For context, the effective average return across all Premium Bonds holders, based on the prize fund rate, competes with — but doesn't always beat — the top easy-access savings rates, which currently range as high as 5% AER on some accounts. The appeal of Premium Bonds isn't the average return; it's the tax-free status (valuable for higher-rate taxpayers who've used up their Personal Savings Allowance) combined with the lottery-style chance of a large tax-free win, which a standard savings account simply can't offer.

How this compares internationally

Government-backed prize-linked savings aren't unique to the UK. In the US, several states run "prize-linked savings" programmes through partner credit unions, and Sweden's Premiepension and various European "savings lottery" bonds follow a similar principle — pooling would-be interest into prize draws rather than paying it out as guaranteed interest to everyone.

Key Numbers

• August 2026 jackpots: two £1 million prizes (Kent and Hampshire & Isle of Wight)
• Notable smaller prize: £100,000 from a £650 holding (Tyne & Wear)
• Maximum Premium Bonds holding per person: £50,000

Sources

• Premium Bonds August 2026 winners — GB News
• NS&I Prize Checker — August's high value winners
• NS&I — Premium Bonds
• FDIC — prize-linked savings accounts

Educational content only — not financial advice.