What is a gold IRA account?

A self-directed IRA that holds physical precious metals instead of, or alongside, stocks and funds. It has the same contribution limits and distribution rules as any other IRA. What differs is the structure: three separate companies are involved, a custodian who holds legal title, a dealer who sells you the metal, and a depository that stores it.

Can I keep the gold from my IRA at home?

No. The metal must be held by the trustee. Home storage arrangements were rejected in McNulty v. Commissioner, 157 T.C. No. 10 (2021), where the court treated the coins as a taxable distribution in the year they were received. Anyone marketing a home storage gold IRA is selling you a tax bill.

What does a gold IRA account cost?

There are two layers. The visible layer is account fees: setup, an annual custodian fee, and storage, typically a few hundred dollars a year in total. The layer that actually decides your outcome is the spread, the difference between what you pay the dealer for the metal and what the metal is worth. That one is rarely quoted and can run from a few percent on standard bullion to well over thirty percent on graded coins.

Gold IRA Account: How One Actually Works

The three parties, and why it matters

With a normal IRA you deal with one company. With a gold IRA account there are three, and almost nobody explains this clearly because the company explaining it is usually one of the three.

1. The custodian holds legal title

A bank, a credit union, or an IRS-approved nonbank trustee. This is the entity whose name your account is actually in. Banks and federally insured credit unions qualify automatically; everyone else has to appear on the IRS list of approved nonbank trustees, which is public and free to check. Most people never look, and it takes a minute.

2. The dealer sells you the metal

The company whose advert you saw. They are not your custodian and they do not hold your account. They sell you coins or bars and set the price. Every enforcement action we have documented is about this party and about that price.

3. The depository stores it

An insured vault. Worth knowing: there is no IRS list of approved depositories. That phrase is marketing, not a legal category. The law requires the trustee to have possession, so the real question is which trustee holds it and whether that trustee is on the IRS list. See our why storage location is the wrong question.

The gap that costs people everything

You send money to the dealer. The custodian is supposed to end up holding what that money bought. If nobody checks that the second half happened, the gap can stay open for a long time.

That is not hypothetical. It is what customers describe in the Oxford Gold Group collapse: funds left a retirement account, reached the dealer, and the metal never arrived at the custodian. The company is now in Chapter 7. After every purchase, log in to the custodian directly, not to the dealer's portal, and confirm the specific coins or bars are listed. If the custodian cannot show it, you do not own it yet. That habit costs nothing and is the single most useful thing on this page.

What it costs

Two layers, and only one of them gets quoted.

Account fees. Setup, an annual custodian fee, and storage. Usually a few hundred dollars a year in total. These are visible, comparable and honestly not the thing that decides your outcome. Details on our fees page.
The spread. The difference between what you pay the dealer and what the metal is worth. A few percent on standard bullion. Well over thirty percent on graded or commemorative coins, which is what regulators have repeatedly pursued. This is rarely quoted and it is the number that matters. See the enforcement dossier for what happens when it is hidden.

One consequence people miss: on a small balance the fixed account fees are a large percentage. Our honest assessment page runs the arithmetic, and on $10,000 over twenty years the total cost drag reaches roughly 65 percent of the balance. That is why the companies with $25,000 and $50,000 minimums are not simply being difficult.

The rules that actually bite

Not every metal qualifies. The often-quoted ".999 IRS requirement" is not in the tax code. 26 U.S.C. 408(m)(3) names specific coins and separately sets a fineness floor tied to futures delivery standards. The American Gold Eagle is .9167 and qualifies only because Congress names it; the Krugerrand is the same fineness, is not named, and does not qualify. Details on IRA approved gold.
You cannot store it at home. Rejected in McNulty v. Commissioner, 157 T.C. No. 10 (2021). See home storage gold IRA.
Moving money the wrong way is taxable. A direct trustee-to-trustee transfer avoids the mandatory 20 percent withholding that applies when a plan pays you personally, and the 60-day clock is unforgiving. Rollover guide.
Required distributions meet an indivisible asset. From 73 you must take annual distributions, and a one-ounce coin cannot be halved. Either you sell part each year and pay the spread again, or you take metal in kind. A Roth has no lifetime required distributions, which removes the problem entirely.

How to open one

Choose the custodian first, not the dealer. Check them against the IRS approved nonbank trustee list. Our custodian comparison explains how.
Open the self-directed IRA and fund it by direct transfer from the existing account.
Choose the metal and, before agreeing, get the price above spot in writing as a dollar figure and a percentage, plus today's buyback price.
Confirm delivery at the custodian, not at the dealer.

Is it right for you

We are not going to tell you whether to own gold, because that is an investment question and we are not advisers. What we will say plainly is that this account type is a poor fit below roughly $25,000, that the spread matters more than anything else on this page, and that three of the eight dealers we examined have a documented regulatory history while several others have none at all. Those differences are checkable and we have done the checking: the enforcement dossier and the dealer reviews.

Before that money moves

If you are reading this because a rollover is imminent, the mechanics below are the part that costs people money. Whatever you decide to hold afterwards, the rules on how the transfer is done are the part that costs people money: a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer avoids the mandatory 20% withholding that a distribution paid to you does not, and the 60-day clock is unforgiving.

Augusta publishes a free guide covering the mechanics. It is written by a company that sells precious metals, so it argues for their product, and you should read it with that in mind. We link it because the procedural part is accurate and because most readers at this stage have not seen it laid out anywhere. Our own rules pages carry no sales pitch at all if you would rather start there.

Get the free rollover guide

This is a paid link. If you request the guide we may earn a commission at no cost to you, and Augusta will have your contact details. Their minimum is $50,000, so below that they will decline you and this is not worth your time. See our affiliate disclosure.

Written & Researched By

•How we research

Thomas Richardson

The byline we publish our retirement research under. We are not licensed advisers. We read the primary sources, compare what companies publish, and write down what we find, including where a figure could not be verified.

Primary sources citedAffiliate ties disclosed

Fact-checked by Sarah Mitchell, CPA — Licensed CPA with 15 years in retirement tax planning

Fact-checked contentNo paid placementsUpdated monthly

Gold IRA account: how one actually works