Gold, silver, platinum, and palladium are the four IRA approved precious metals, but only when the specific bar, round, or coin meets a federal purity standard or falls under a narrow statutory exception for certain government-minted coins. Everything else is treated as a collectible, and buying a collectible inside an IRA is treated as a taxable distribution of the purchase amount.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 408 – Individual Retirement Accounts The rules trace back to the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, which carved out the bullion and coin exception that makes these accounts possible in the first place.2govinfo. Public Law 105-34 – Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997
The Purity Thresholds That Decide Eligibility
Under 26 U.S.C. § 408(m)(3), bullion qualifies for an IRA only if its fineness meets or exceeds the minimum required for physical delivery on a regulated futures contract market.3Legal Information Institute. 26 USC 408(m)(3) – Exception for Certain Coins and Bullion Those thresholds come from COMEX, operated by CME Group:
- Gold: 0.995 fineness (99.5% pure)4CME Group. What Is the Precious Metals Delivery Process?
- Silver: 0.999 fineness (99.9% pure)5CME Group. Chapter 112 Silver Futures
- Platinum: 0.9995 fineness (99.95% pure)4CME Group. What Is the Precious Metals Delivery Process?
- Palladium: 0.9995 fineness (99.95% pure)
Metal that falls below its threshold is a collectible in the IRS’s eyes. The purchase becomes a taxable distribution equal to the cost of the item, and if you are under 59½, a 10% early withdrawal penalty applies on top of the ordinary income tax.6Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Exceptions to Tax on Early Distributions You keep the metal. You lose the tax shelter for that purchase.
The point of tying eligibility to fineness is to keep IRA assets valued by weight and purity against the global spot price, rather than by rarity, condition, or collector demand. Bullion is easy to price. Numismatics are not.
Coins Approved by Name
Congress wrote a specific carve-out for certain U.S. gold, silver, and platinum coins that would otherwise fail the fineness test.
American Eagles
The American Gold Eagle is 22-karat, about 91.67% pure gold, well below the 99.5% bullion threshold. It qualifies anyway because 26 U.S.C. § 408(m)(3) explicitly excludes gold coins described in 31 U.S.C. § 5112(a)(7) through (10) from the collectible definition.3Legal Information Institute. 26 USC 408(m)(3) – Exception for Certain Coins and Bullion That covers the one-ounce ($50), half-ounce ($25), quarter-ounce ($10), and tenth-ounce ($5) Gold Eagles.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 USC 5112 – Denominations, Specifications, and Design of Coins The American Silver Eagle and American Platinum Eagle receive statutory exemptions under the same provision.
Foreign Sovereign Coins
The statute also permits coins issued under the laws of any state, which reaches foreign sovereign mints as long as the coin hits the fineness minimum. The Canadian Maple Leaf in gold and silver and the Australian Kangaroo are common choices at 0.9999 fineness. The Austrian Philharmonic qualifies at 0.9999 gold.
Bars and Rounds
For bars and rounds, the product needs to meet the COMEX fineness standard and come from a refiner or manufacturer accredited by a recognized body such as COMEX, LBMA, or NYMEX. Johnson Matthey, PAMP Suisse, and Valcambi are among the common accredited brands. Each piece needs a hallmark or assay certificate documenting its purity.
What Doesn’t Qualify
The South African Krugerrand is the most familiar disqualified coin. It contains one troy ounce of gold, but it is alloyed to 22-karat (91.67% pure) and has no statutory exception, so it fails the 99.5% bullion test and counts as a collectible.
Pre-1965 U.S. silver coins — dimes, quarters, and half-dollars — are 90% silver rather than the required 99.9%, so they are out. British Sovereigns and older European gold coins are similarly below the 99.5% line with no carve-out. Proof coins and limited-edition numismatic releases that carry premiums for rarity or condition fail even when the underlying metal is pure enough, because their value is driven by collector demand rather than metal content.
Buying any of these through an IRA turns the full purchase price into a taxable distribution.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 U.S. Code 408 – Individual Retirement Accounts Most self-directed IRA custodians publish a pre-approved product list to prevent exactly that outcome, and staying on the list is the simplest guardrail.
Who Has to Hold the Metal
Approved metal held the wrong way produces the same tax result as unapproved metal. Federal law requires that IRA-owned bullion remain in the physical possession of the IRA trustee or custodian.3Legal Information Institute. 26 USC 408(m)(3) – Exception for Certain Coins and Bullion Standard brokerage IRAs don’t accept physical assets, so you need a self-directed IRA with a custodian that does.
Trustees must be banks, savings institutions, credit unions, or entities that have been approved by the IRS under Treasury Regulation § 1.408-2(e).8Internal Revenue Service. Approved Nonbank Trustees and Custodians Nonbank custodians go through a formal application process.9Internal Revenue Service. Application Procedures for Nonbank Trustees and Custodians In practice, custodians contract with specialized depositories to hold the metal on the account’s behalf. You cannot store IRA metal at home, in a personal safe, or in a bank safe deposit box; doing so is treated as a distribution.10Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Prohibited Transactions
Depositories generally offer two arrangements. Segregated storage keeps your specific bars and coins separately identified, so the exact items come back to you. Commingled storage pools your holdings with other investors’ metal of the same type and returns the same weight and purity, but not necessarily the same serial numbers. Segregated storage costs more. Annual storage fees typically run $100 to $300 and usually include insurance for theft and natural disaster. Custodian fees generally run $50 to $300 per year.
Prohibited Transaction Traps to Avoid
The eligibility rules exist alongside a broader prohibition on self-dealing. If you or a disqualified person engages in a prohibited transaction, the IRA loses its tax-exempt status as of January 1 of that year, and the full balance is treated as a taxable distribution.10Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – Prohibited Transactions Disqualified persons include you, your spouse, your parents, your children and their spouses, any IRA fiduciary, and anyone providing services to the account.
A few violations come up repeatedly with precious metals accounts:
- Taking personal possession of IRA-owned coins or bars, even temporarily, is a distribution.
- Selling gold you already own into your IRA is self-dealing, even at fair market value.
- Buying coins out of your IRA for personal use before taking a formal distribution is self-dealing.
- Pledging the account or its contents as collateral for a personal loan disqualifies the account.
- Personally transporting metal to a depository can count as providing services to your own IRA.
Under the SECURE Act 2.0, a prohibited transaction now disqualifies only the specific IRA involved rather than every retirement account you own.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4975 – Tax on Prohibited Transactions That limits the damage but does not undo it. The cleanest approach is to let the custodian and depository handle every step of buying, holding, and selling, and to keep your hands off the metal until you take a formal distribution.