How to find lost shares

Billions of pounds worth of shares and dividends are waiting to be claimed by investors who have forgotten about them.

An eye-watering £2.5 billion remains unclaimed according to recent figures from Gretel, a free service to help trace investments, pensions and savings. An estimated 2 million people are due a windfall of an average £1,250, though this figure could be much higher for some.

There can be many reasons behind people losing touch with shares and dividends belonging to them.

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“Company takeovers is a common factor,” said Duncan Stevens, chief executive of Gretel. “People also lose track of windfall shares given when a company is converted from being member-owned, such as a mutual life insurance company, to a limited company owned by shareholders. This is known as demutualisation.”

Stevens points out that, in the 1980s, buying shares in companies became very popular, with a big drive to get people buying shares.

“There were huge advertising campaigns in the newspapers which attracted many first-time shareholders. In the meantime, companies such as British Gas have since been broken up and many people have simply forgotten that they had shares – or have lost track of them.”

Losing paper share certificates and having no record of holdings is a common mistake.

Here’s what you need to do to be reunited with shares and dividend payments you have lost touch with.

How to track down lost shares

If you think you have lost track of any shares, you can sign up to a share tracing service such as Gretel in a few minutes.

You need to register by entering an email address and setting up a password. Then add your name, address and date of birth and it will create a search. You can also add any previous addresses not showing as well as names you’ve previously been known as, such as a maiden name.

Gretel keeps searching every time it adds new partners so even if you don’t get success straight away you might have a nice surprise in months that follow as it will flag new accounts as they are identified.

Searches won’t just look for shares as its database covers the whole financial industry in the UK including bank accounts, pensions, child trust funds, premium bonds, investments and life insurance policies. By registering you might find some money that belongs to you lurking elsewhere.

You can search for lost shares belonging to others as long as you have a power of attorney.

It’s also possible that a family member who has passed away had shares you didn’t know about.

To trace lost shares you can also approach the share registrars – Computershare, Equniti and MUFG. If you know the company you own the shares with, contact them directly.

Watch out for companies who charge to search for lost shares which might not be worth the money. They might not even provide a genuine search.

How to find lost dividends

Where any lost shareholdings belonging to you are found in a search, you will also be able to find out what, if any, backdated dividend payments are owed to you.

These dividends – earnings that a company distributes among its shareholders each year – will be taxable if they exceed the annual allowance. In the current tax year, 2025/26, the first £500 of dividends are tax-free.

Bear in mind that some companies impose a 12-year time limit on dividend claims.

Own a paper share certificate?

While most shares now exist in digital – rather than paper – form, the latest estimates suggest there are around 10 million paper share certificates still in existence.

Many of these become lost, but ownership will exist on the share register if you trace them.

Once you are reunited with your shares – and pay for a duplicate certificate – you might consider converting the shares into digital ownership.

There is a government initiative to get shares moved to being all digital. If you want to retain (rather than sell) your newfound holdings, going digital will save time, as trading is faster with electronic transactions. It could also save money because costs are lower.

Holding shares electronically also allows you to see how many shares you hold, and what they’re worth at the tap of a screen. You can sell online in seconds, and have the money transferred to a nominated bank account in two working days.

As these accounts do not require the physical share certificates for proof of ownership, being stored online makes them very difficult to lose.

A more fundamental drawback to paper shares is that you cannot hold paper shares in a tax-free wrapper such as an ISA or self-invested personal pension (SIPP).

Most online brokers will be able to convert shares held on paper into digital versions which can then be transferred to an ISA or a SIPP.

Savers are not allowed, under current ISA rules, to transfer existing holdings directly into the ISA. The shares need to be sold and bought back inside an ISA – a process known as Bed and ISA. The sale of the shares could trigger a capital gain, which is taxable and there might be stamp duty to pay.

Depending on the value of the shares and the costs involved, you can judge whether converting them to digital form is the right move, or if it’s best just to sell the shares. For smaller amounts it must just be simpler to sell.

Going digital alters the way the shares are held. If you hold shares in a company via a paper certificate you are the legal owner of the shares, and your name is on that company’s register. As a shareholder you will get correspondence from the company and have the right to attend meetings such as the annual general meeting (AGM), as well as take part in company votes. You’ll also receive dividends directly from the company.

Shares held digitally are ‘nominee shares’ and means that you only have a beneficial interest in the securities and no direct relationship with the company. You will need an online broker to help convert the shares to digital ones.

If you already hold any share certificates, it’s crucial to keep them somewhere safe. For back-up it’s a good idea to take a photo and email it to yourself so that you don’t lose the information, even if the paper certificate goes walkabout. As well as being lost, paper certificates can easily be damaged or even stolen.

Hold shares in the most tax-efficient way

Once reunited with your shares, unless you plan to sell them, the most tax-efficient way to hold shares is in a tax-free wrapper such as an ISA or self-invested personal pension (SIPP).

Investments held in an ISA are free of tax on any capital gains or income from dividends.

If you have a paper certificate, a fundamental drawback to paper shares is that you cannot hold these in an ISA or SIPP. You will need to convert the shares to digital ones to effectively get the shares into an ISA using Bed and ISA – as long as you have any unused ISA allowance for the current tax year.

Savers are not generally allowed to transfer existing holdings directly into an ISA. So the shares need to be sold and bought back, this time inside an ISA – known as Bed and ISA.

The sale of the shares might trigger a capital gain, which is taxable if the gain is over the annual tax-free allowance of £3,000 for the current tax year 2025/26.

Shares passed between spouses are done so on a no gain/no loss basis for capital gains tax purposes. This means if you hand over shares to a husband, wife or civil partner you can utilise both capital gains tax allowances totalling £6,000 in the current tax year.