When are premium bonds drawn?

Jamie Holmes By JAMIE HOLMES
19th February 2024

Lottery Balls

Premium bond prizes are drawn on the first working day of the month. High value prize lists are published on the same day, with all prizes available to check on the NS&I prize checker the following working day.

Next prize draw: March 2024
Prizes drawn: 1st March 2024
Prizes available online: 4th March 2024

Waiting with bated breath to hear the good news from NS&I? Hoping you might be one of next month's major prize winners? Read on to find out all the details of the monthly premium bond prize draw.

When are premium bonds drawn?

The prize draw process actually starts towards the end of the previous month, with NS&I employees confirming that at least a few of the high-value prizes are drawn early. This is so that the winners of the highest-value prizes can be notified before the details are published online for all to see. Exactly how a high-value prize winner is notified depends on the magnitude of the prize won - those lucky enough to win the £1 million jackpot can expect an in-person visit from Agent Million at their house, whilst other high-value prize winners may get a letter from NS&I ahead of time asking them to call back.

Winners for the remaining undrawn prizes will then be chosen at the start of the official prize month.

When can I find out if I've won?

NS&I publishes the official list of all high-value prize winners (that is, everyone who has won £5,000 or more) on the first working day of the month. Note that the first working day is not always the first calendar day - unfortunately, weekends and bank holidays mean you may need to wait that little bit longer! Refer to our handy table at the top of this page to see when the next prize draw results are set to be published.

On the first day it's only the high-value prizes that are published, and to check if you've won at this stage you'd need to look up the results by bond number.

The rest of the prize results are published on the second working day of the month. This is when the NS&I prize checker tool on their app and website becomes available - and is the date when most winners will find out about their prizes.

If you don't get around to checking online then you'll also receive an email (or physical letter, if you haven't registered online) to alert you to any winnings. This is usually sent a couple of days after the prize results are published.

How can I check if I've won?

Once the prize results for the premium bond prize draw are published (on the second working day of the month) you have a few different options to check whether or not you've won. These include:

Who is eligible for the prize draw?

It's important to remember that only premium bonds held for the full month preceding the draw are eligible to be entered for prizes. For example, if you buy some bonds on the 10th of April then the first draw they would be entered into would be the one at the start of June. You should time your purchase of bonds to be toward the end of a month so that you don't miss out on too much interest from an alternate savings account.

This also means that the practice of drawing high-value prizes towards the end of the previous month isn't actually unfair; all bonds that would be eligible to win would have had to have been bought in the preceding month anyway. Later purchases aren't eligible to win a prize, no matter exactly when it's drawn.

How much might I win?

Whilst the £1 million jackpot certainly sounds tempting, the unfortunate reality is that with over 60 billion bonds bought we don't have much chance of nabbing it. If you're curious what the odds say you're likely to win then take a look at our premium bond calculator and see what you might expect over the coming months and years.