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How to Convert an IRA to Gold

To convert an IRA to gold, open a self-directed IRA with a custodian that holds precious metals and ask for a trustee-to-trustee transfer from your current IRA. Because there's no distribution to you, the transfer is tax free, with no withholding, no 60-day deadline and no limit on how many you make. The new IRA then buys gold that meets the tax code's rules.

Converting Changes the Custodian and the Asset, Not the Account

"Convert" isn't the IRS's word for this move. Your account stays the kind of IRA it already is, whether traditional, Roth, SEP or SIMPLE, and the IRS says the investment restrictions apply equally to all types of IRAs. What changes is the institution holding the account and the asset inside it.

You need a different institution because of what custodians will hold. In the Securities and Exchange Commission's definition, a self-directed IRA is one whose custodian permits a broader set of assets than most IRA custodians do, metals included. Sellers call the result a gold IRA. Under the tax code, it's an ordinary IRA that owns metal.

So the tax question is how the money gets from the old custodian to the new one. Between two IRAs, the IRS recognizes a trustee-to-trustee transfer and a 60-day rollover, and only the rollover puts the money in your hands.

How a Trustee-to-Trustee Transfer Works

A transfer takes four steps, and you don't hold the money during any of them.

1. Open the receiving IRA. Make it the same type as the IRA you have. IRS Publication 590-A says the trustee or custodian must be a bank, a federally insured credit union, a savings and loan association or an entity approved by the IRS. To check a company that isn't a bank, look for it on the IRS's list of approved nonbank trustees and custodians.
2. Request the transfer for the amount you choose. Ask for the funds to move from your current trustee directly to the new one.
3. Read the payee line on any check. If the old trustee gives or mails you a check, look at who it's payable to. Under Publication 590-A, the move still counts as a transfer when the current trustee issues a check to the new trustee but gives it to you to deposit. A check payable to you personally is a distribution, and the rollover rules below apply.
4. Direct the new IRA to buy the gold. With the cash in the account, you instruct the custodian to purchase IRA-eligible gold. Publication 590-A says an IRA can invest in 1, 1/2, 1/4 or 1/10 ounce U.S. gold coins, which are the American Gold Eagles, and in certain gold, silver, platinum and palladium bullion. The same account can hold IRA-eligible silver too. Confirm the exact product with the custodian before the order goes in, because IRA trustees may impose additional restrictions on investments.

Because a transfer isn't a rollover, the rules that cause trouble don't reach it. The IRS says you can avoid withholding taxes by choosing a trustee-to-trustee transfer, and it names trustee-to-trustee transfers among the moves the one-per-year limit doesn't cover. The IRS has held that a direct transfer isn't a rollover since Revenue Ruling 78-406.

The 60-Day Rollover and Its Three Traps

In a 60-day rollover, your current IRA pays you and you deposit the money in the new IRA yourself. Done once and on time, the rollover isn't taxable. It's also the route where the deadline, the withholding and the once-a-year limit apply.

The Deadline Starts the Day You Receive the Money

You must make the rollover contribution by the 60th day after the day you receive the distribution. Any amount that isn't back in an IRA by then is taxable. If you're under age 59 1/2, it also generally carries a 10% additional tax on top of regular income tax.

You can sometimes repair a missed deadline. The IRS allows an automatic waiver when a financial institution caused the error, subject to other conditions, and IRS Topic no. 413 describes self-certifying that you qualify for a waiver under Revenue Procedures 2020-46 and 2016-47. Both cover only specific circumstances.

The Old Custodian Withholds 10% Unless You Opt Out

Your old custodian withholds 10% of an IRA distribution paid to you unless you elect out of withholding or choose a different amount. Take a $10,000 distribution with no election made: 10% x $10,000 = $1,000 goes to the IRS, and $9,000 reaches you. The IRS says that if you later roll the distribution over, you must use other funds to make up for the amount withheld. You'd deposit the $9,000 plus $1,000 of your own money within the 60 days. Deposit only the $9,000, and the missing $1,000 is a distribution you didn't roll over.

One Rollover in 12 Months, Counted Across Every IRA

Since 2015, you can make only one rollover from an IRA to another IRA in any 12-month period, however many IRAs you own. The count pools SEP, SIMPLE, traditional and Roth IRAs as if they were one. The period begins on the date you receive the distribution, not the date you redeposit it. A 60-day rollover you made between two other IRAs earlier in the same 12 months blocks one into gold now, while a transfer stays open to you.

Articles written before 2015 describe a limit that applied IRA by IRA. That reading ended when the Tax Court decided Bobrow v. Commissioner in 2014.

Break the limit, and you must include the second distribution in your gross income. You may also owe the 10% early withdrawal tax on it. Leaving the money in the new IRA adds a second cost. An improper rollover contribution is an excess contribution, and the IRS taxes excess contributions at 6% per year for each year they remain. To avoid the 6% tax, withdraw the excess and any income it earned by the due date of your tax return, including extensions.

What a Penalty-Free Conversion Requires

A conversion that triggers no tax or penalty meets five conditions:

• The money goes from trustee to trustee, or any check you handle is payable to the receiving IRA.
• If the old IRA paid the money to you, the full amount, including anything withheld, is back in an IRA within 60 days, and you made no other IRA-to-IRA rollover in the previous 12 months.
• The new IRA buys only metal the tax code allows. If an IRA invests in a collectible, the IRS treats the amount invested as distributed in the year invested.
• The metal stays with the trustee. The IRS says the exception for bullion applies only when it's in the physical possession of a bank or an IRS-approved nonbank trustee.
• You report a rollover even though you owe no tax on it. When you rolled over all of a distribution, Publication 590-A has you enter the total on Form 1040 and zero as the taxable amount.

Gold You Already Own Can't Go Into the IRA

Two separate rules block it. IRS Publication 590-A says contributions must be in the form of money, not property. Section 408 of the tax code says the same thing: apart from rollover contributions, "no contribution will be accepted unless it is in cash." You can't sell your coins to the account either. The IRS lists selling property to an IRA among prohibited transactions, and an account involved in one stops being an IRA as of the first day of that year.

The IRA has to buy its gold with IRA money, from a seller other than you. Moving existing IRA money doesn't use your annual contribution room. For 2026, the cap on new contributions to all your traditional and Roth IRAs is $7,500, or $8,600 if you're age 50 or older, and the IRS says that limit doesn't apply to rollover contributions.

A Roth Conversion Is a Different Transaction

The IRS does use the word "conversion," for a different event: moving money from a traditional IRA into a Roth IRA. That move is taxable. A conversion to a Roth IRA results in taxation of any untaxed amounts in the traditional IRA, and you report it on Form 8606.

Transferring a traditional IRA to another traditional IRA that buys gold isn't a conversion in that sense. If your money is in a traditional IRA and you want the gold in a Roth IRA, you're making two decisions, and the Roth one brings a tax bill whatever the account ends up holding.

Accounts and Situations With Their Own Rules

A SIMPLE IRA has a waiting period. Until you've participated in the SIMPLE IRA plan for 2 years, the money can't move to a traditional IRA, and a distribution in that window carries a 25% additional tax in place of 10%.

You can't roll over an IRA inherited from someone other than your spouse, in either direction. Publication 590-A still permits a trustee-to-trustee transfer, as long as the trustee sets up and maintains the receiving IRA in the name of the deceased owner for your benefit as beneficiary.

Metal already in an IRA follows the same-property rule. If the IRA distributes coins or bars to you, the rollover is tax free only if the property you contribute is the same property you received. You can't keep the metal and deposit cash in its place. To change custodians without selling, have the metal itself moved: Publication 590-A allows a tax-free transfer of assets, money or property, from one trustee to another.

IRA-Eligible Gold on Our Marketplace

Once your custodian is ready to buy, the metal can come from our catalog. Many of our products are eligible when they meet IRS requirements, and we can help you choose a custodian and storage option before you start the transfer. Our precious metals IRA page is where to begin. We're not a registered investment advisor and can't give individual investment or tax advice, so speak with a tax professional or financial advisor before you sign a transfer request.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I convert my IRA to gold?

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) notes that precious metals don't pay dividends or compound and that their prices are as volatile as those of other assets. The SEC says self-directed IRA fees may be significantly higher than those of other accounts, and that alternative assets can be hard to sell when you have to take required minimum distributions. The CFTC's advice is to talk to a qualified financial planner, investment advisor or accountant first.

Can I convert only part of my IRA to gold?

Yes. The rules describe moving money, not closing accounts. IRS Publication 590-A covers a transfer of funds in your traditional IRA from one trustee to another and a rollover of "all or part of the assets." With a transfer, whatever you leave behind stays invested as it was. With a 60-day rollover, any part of the withdrawal you keep is generally taxable.

Can I convert a Roth IRA to gold?

Yes, into another Roth IRA. The IRS says a Roth IRA rolls over only to another Roth IRA, and the investment restrictions are the same for every type of IRA. Changing custodians doesn't reset your holding period. Under Publication 590-A, when you roll over an amount from one Roth IRA to another, the 5-year period used to determine qualified distributions doesn't change.