Gold IRA pros and cons: what you gain and what it costs

At a glance

Main advantage	Physical metal with IRA tax treatment
Main drawback	Costs: dealer premiums, custodian and storage fees, and a spread when you sell
Income	None
Storage	With the custodian’s depository, never at home
Cheaper alternative	A bullion-backed gold ETF in a regular IRA

The advantages

• You own the metal itself. A gold IRA holds coins or bars in a depository in your account’s name. With segregated storage, the specific bars or coins you bought are set aside for you.
• The usual IRA tax treatment. Buying and selling inside the account isn’t taxed. In a traditional IRA, tax is deferred until you take money or metal out, and withdrawals are generally taxed as ordinary income, not at the collectibles rate. In a Roth IRA, qualified withdrawals are tax-free. Outside an IRA, gains on gold are taxed as collectibles, at a top federal rate of 28% for metal held more than a year, plus the 3.8% net investment income tax for some higher earners and any state tax, as our guide to how gold is taxed explains.
• Diversification. Gold has often held up when stocks fell. In 2008, U.S. stocks lost 36.6% with dividends while gold gained 4.3%, and in 2022 stocks lost 18.0% while gold was about flat. Our gold vs. stocks guide has the full record.
• You can fund it from savings you already have. A direct transfer from another IRA moves the money without tax when both accounts are the same type, and so does a direct rollover from a workplace plan, if the plan lets you take money out. Many plans allow that only after you leave the job or reach 59½. Our rollover guide covers the steps.

The drawbacks

• Costs. You pay the dealer’s premium over spot when you buy. In our September 2026 premium check, 1 oz gold coins and bars from three large online dealers cost 2.8% to 5.9% over spot, and proof or “limited edition” coins cost far more. Then come custodian and storage fees, about $215 to $335 a year for an account under $15,000 at the two custodians in our fee guide, and more for larger accounts at custodians that charge by account value. When you sell, dealers pay less than they charge: at one dealer we checked, buying a Gold Eagle and selling it straight back would have cost about 7% of the price.
• No income. Gold pays no interest or dividends, so your return depends entirely on the price. That price can fall a long way and stay down: gold lost almost half its value from the end of 1979 to the end of 2001, and in late September 2026 it was more than 20% below its January record.
• Strict rules. Bullion has to meet the tax code’s purity standards, and a few coins the law names, such as American Gold Eagles, qualify separately. The metal has to stay with the IRA’s trustee or custodian, and keeping IRA gold at home can be treated as a taxable distribution, as our home storage guide explains. Collector coins generally aren’t allowed.
• Required minimum distributions. From a traditional gold IRA you’ll eventually have to take RMDs. The amount is worked out separately for each IRA you own, but the total can come from any one or more of them, so another IRA can cover the gold IRA’s share. Otherwise you sell metal or take coins or bars out at their market value. Roth IRAs have no RMDs during the owner’s lifetime, and inherited IRAs follow different rules. Our guide to gold IRA withdrawals goes through the options.
• Selling takes time. You sell through the custodian and a dealer, which can take several days, not minutes.
• Sales practices. The CFTC, FINRA and state securities regulators have warned about precious metals IRA pitches, the SEC has warned about fraud in self-directed IRAs, and regulators have taken action against dealers that charged huge markups, often on retirement savings.

A gold IRA or a gold fund in an ordinary IRA?

	Gold IRA	Bullion-backed gold ETF in a regular IRA
What you own	Coins or bars in a vault	Shares of a fund that holds gold bullion
Cost to buy	Dealer premium, a few percent for common bullion and far more for proof coins	Usually no commission, plus a small bid-ask spread
Yearly cost	About $215 to $335 in custodian and storage fees for an account under $15,000 at the two custodians we checked	An expense ratio: for example, 0.25% a year for IAU and 0.40% for GLD; other funds differ
Selling	Through the custodian and a dealer, at the dealer’s buyback price, which is below what it charges that day	Shares sell on an exchange during market hours
Taking the metal out	Possible, as an in-kind distribution, taxed like a cash withdrawal	Ordinary shareholders sell shares for cash; only large authorized dealers can exchange GLD or IAU shares for gold

A gold ETF gives you gold’s price for much less, but you own fund shares, not metal. We compare the two in Gold ETFs vs. physical gold.

Who a gold IRA can suit

A gold IRA can make sense if you specifically want physical metal in a retirement account, your account is large enough that fixed fees are a small share of it, you don’t need income from the money, and gold would be a modest part of your savings. Our fee calculator shows how much gold would have to rise to cover the costs over the years you’d hold it.

It’s usually a poor fit for small balances, for money you may need within a few years, or when a salesperson is pushing you to decide quickly. If you do go ahead, our checklist for choosing a gold IRA company covers what to check first.

Frequently asked questions