How much cash should you keep at home in the UK?

On 22 October 2026 the Cabinet Office launched Be Ready, a three-year campaign asking households to prepare for three days without normal services. Cash sits on its checklist next to bottled water and a torch, but the government does not say how much. This guide does the sums, explains the law and the insurance limits, and is honest about where gold does and does not fit.

How much cash should I keep at home in the UK?

Enough to buy essentials for three days if cards, cash machines and online banking all stop working. That is a much smaller sum than many people imagine. The aim is not to replace your bank account. It is to buy food, medicine and perhaps fuel while systems are down.

To put a number on it, we used two official data sets. Defra's Family Food report found the average household spent £35.94 per person per week on food and drink for the home in the year to March 2024. The ONS Family spending survey found the average household spent £96.40 a week on transport in the year to March 2025. We took three sevenths of each (three days out of seven) and added a £50 buffer for things like a pharmacy trip or a taxi. The buffer is our own assumption, not an official figure.

How we worked it out: food = £35.94 x people x 3 / 7. Transport = £96.40 x 3 / 7, the all-household average, used for every size as a rough guide. Defra figures are for April 2023 to March 2024 and prices have risen since, so round up rather than down.

Adjust for your own life. If you rely on a car, have a baby who needs formula, or take regular medication you pay for, add those costs. If you live in a city and walk everywhere, you may need less for transport. Some families keep a little more than three days' worth because shops may not be able to give change, and because restocking cash takes time once machines are working again.

Why does the government say to keep cash at home?

Because card payments depend on electricity, phone networks and the internet. The Cabinet Office says the most likely emergencies are severe weather that can knock out power, water, phone and internet services, citing last winter's storms and this summer's wildfires. If a shop's card terminal is offline, cash may be the only way to pay.

The official advice does not mention cyber attacks or bank failures. But it is the same practical point: any outage that stops cards working for a few days is easier to ride out with notes in a drawer. For what happens to your bank balance in an IT failure or a bank collapse, see what happens if a UK bank fails or goes offline.

Public interest has grown. In May 2026 a YouGov survey of more than 2,100 people for LINK, the UK cash machine network, reported that 17% of people keep a stash of cash at home for a major disruptive event, and 56% saw cash as vital if digital payments go down (LBC, 11 May 2026). Searches for "keeping cash at home" rose sharply that month.

Cash is one item on a longer list. Our UK emergency kit checklist covers the rest of the Be Ready list, from water to a wind-up radio.

Which notes and coins should you keep?

Keep mostly small notes. In an outage a corner shop may run short of change, so a £50 note is far less useful than five £10s. A sensible mix for a household is mainly £5, £10 and £20 notes with a few pounds in coins for parking meters or vending machines.

• Polymer only. The Bank of England says all four current denominations (£5, £10, £20 and £50) are printed on polymer.
• Old paper notes do not count. The paper £20 and £50 lost legal tender status after 30 September 2022. The Bank of England will still exchange old notes with no deadline, and your bank or the Post Office can usually help, but you cannot spend them in a shop.
• Both monarchs are fine. Queen Elizabeth II notes remain legal tender alongside King Charles III notes, which started circulating on 5 June 2024.

Check any cash you have tucked away for years. An envelope of paper £20s found during an emergency is no help.

Is it illegal to keep cash at home in the UK?

No. There is no limit on how much cash you can hold at home, and you do not have to tell anyone about it.

The rules people worry about apply to cash linked to crime. Under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, police can seize cash of £1,000 or more only if they have reasonable grounds to suspect it is the proceeds of crime or is intended for use in crime. The College of Policing guidance says that carrying £1,000 is not, on its own, suspicious. A magistrates' court must be asked to approve continued detention within 48 hours, and the owner can challenge it.

The other place questions come up is when you pay a large amount of cash back into a bank. Banks must follow money laundering rules and may ask where money came from. Keeping the withdrawal slips or bank statements that show you took the cash out makes that conversation simple.

Will home insurance cover cash at home?

Only a small amount. Home contents policies usually have a separate, low limit for "money", which often includes cash, gift vouchers and stamps. Two examples from documents we read in October 2026:

Limits come from the published policy documents linked in our sources. Your own policy may differ; check the money limit in your schedule or booklet.

So the three-day emergency sums above sit comfortably inside a typical limit. A few thousand pounds in a biscuit tin does not. Anything above the cap is uninsured if it is stolen or burnt.

What is the safest place to keep cash at home?

• A fixed safe. A safe bolted to the floor or a wall is far harder to carry off. A fire-resistant model also protects documents.
• Not the obvious places. Bedroom drawers, freezers, under the mattress and the cookie jar are the first places burglars look.
• Split it. Keep a small amount with your grab bag and the rest locked away, so one theft or one lost bag does not take everything.
• Keep it dry and sealed. A zip bag inside a tin protects notes from damp.
• Stay quiet. Do not mention home cash on social media, and tell only one trusted person where it is.

What does keeping cash at home cost you?

Cash in a drawer earns nothing, while prices keep rising. Consumer prices rose 3.5% in the 12 months to September 2026, according to the ONS. At that rate, £150 of emergency cash buys about £5 less in a year's time, and £5,000 would lose about £175 of buying power. For a small emergency fund that is a fair price for peace of mind. For larger sums, a savings account that pays interest and carries FSCS protection usually makes more sense.

Cash, savings or gold: how do they compare?

Where does gold fit in?

Gold is not emergency spending money. You cannot buy bread with a Sovereign, and selling gold quickly needs a dealer and working payment systems, which are exactly what an outage takes away. If your goal is to get through three days of disruption, cash is the tool.

Where gold can play a part is over years, not days. It is a physical asset that you can own outright, outside the banking system, which is why some people turn to it when trust in banks or currencies is low. It also has real drawbacks: no interest, a price that can fall sharply, dealer mark-ups when you buy and sell, and the same theft and insurance problems as cash if you keep it at home. Our guide to whether gold is a safe haven looks at how it has behaved in past crises, and our UK gold storage guide compares home safes, bank boxes and vaults.

If you are building a broader plan, our UK prepping guide puts cash, supplies and longer-term savings in order. For buying gold in Britain, start at our UK gold hub.

This guide is general information, not financial advice. Cash amounts are worked examples based on official averages; your household's needs may be higher or lower.

Not financial advice. GoldVetted provides general information to help you compare options. It is not personal financial, tax or legal advice. Gold prices go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you pay. Check tax rules with the official source or a qualified adviser before you act.