Tax Estimator — Calculate Tax on Precious Metal Sales
Tax rate: 33% — fixed by law
A gain on the disposal of physical precious metals (coins, bars) is chargeable to Capital Gains Tax at 33 % (TCA 1997 s. 28).
This applies to gold, silver, platinum and palladium alike, as long as you hold them physically. Funds and most ETFs follow a separate regime of their own.
There is no holding period in Irish CGT. A gain realised after ten years is charged exactly like one realised after ten days — waiting changes nothing.
Every individual has an annual exempt amount of 1,270 € of chargeable gains (TCA 1997 s. 601). It is deducted from your net gains of the tax year before the 33 % rate is applied.
An allowance, not an exemption limit
Only the excess is charged. With 1,300 € of gains you pay CGT on 30 € — not on 1,300 €. Countries with an exemption limit work the other way round; Ireland does not.
The 1,270 € covers all your chargeable gains of a tax year taken together (shares, crypto, collectibles and metals). It is per person, not transferable between spouses or civil partners, and cannot be carried forward.
- 1. Keep the purchase invoice — Record the date, the price and the incidental costs — they reduce the chargeable gain.
- 2. Apply the FIFO rule — With several purchases of the same item, the pieces bought first are treated as sold first.
- 3. Use your losses — Allowable losses reduce the chargeable gains of the same year; anything unused carries forward.
- 4. Physical ≠ paper — Precious-metal funds and most ETFs sit in the separate fund regime, outside the 33 % CGT charge.
- 5. Silver, platinum, palladium — Investment gold is VAT-exempt (VATCA 2010 s. 90(1)); silver, platinum and palladium carry 23 % VAT.
* ETCs are usually debt securities and stay within the CGT net. Ireland has no case law on delivery-claim products — check each product before you rely on it.
What do you actually receive from a dealer after deducting the margin?
Simulate a monthly savings plan — returns with real historical prices.
Getting something out of what you see and read?
We put our whole heart into keeping preciousmetalprices.com fast, tidy and free — no paywalls, no clutter, just facts and live prices you can trust. If it’s any help to you, the nicest way to say thanks is to pass it along. Every share helps another investor find us and keeps the whole project ticking over. 💛
Getting something out of what you see and read?
We put our whole heart into keeping preciousmetalprices.com fast, tidy and free — no paywalls, no clutter, just facts and live prices you can trust. If it’s any help to you, the nicest way to say thanks is to pass it along. Every share helps another investor find us and keeps the whole project ticking over. 💛
Capital Gains Tax — TCA 1997 s. 28
Capital Gains Tax is charged when you dispose of a chargeable asset at a gain. Physical gold, silver, platinum and palladium are chargeable assets, so selling coins or bars for more than they cost you produces a chargeable gain. The rate is a flat 33 % (TCA 1997 s. 28) and does not depend on your income tax band: a standard-rate taxpayer and a higher-rate taxpayer pay the same. CGT works by self-assessment — the Revenue Commissioners do not calculate it for you.
How the chargeable gain is worked out
The gain is the consideration you receive less the cost of acquiring the asset and less the incidental costs of buying and selling. For a bullion coin that means the dealer invoice you paid, including any VAT charged on silver, platinum or palladium, plus costs such as assay fees, insured shipping or a selling commission. Everything you cannot document, you cannot deduct.
What matters is that you hold the metal itself. Financial products that merely track the metal price can fall outside CGT entirely and into the separate regime for funds — with a different rate and no annual exemption (see Physical vs. paper gold).
Investing versus trading
CGT covers investment. If your buying and selling amounts to a trade, the profit is charged to income tax under Case I instead, with USC and PRSI on top — usually a far heavier charge than 33 %, and the 1,270 € annual exemption does not apply to it. Whether an activity is a trade is judged on the well-known badges of trade, looking at the whole picture rather than any single number.
- ◆ Frequency and organisation — many transactions in quick succession, run in a business-like way, point towards trading
- ◆ How it is financed — borrowing systematically to buy stock for resale is a classic badge of trade
- ◆ Sales activity — advertising, a shop front, or regular selling at fairs looks like a business, not a portfolio
- ◆ Motive and holding pattern — buying with the intention of a quick resale, rather than to hold value, weighs against an investment
In practice: occasionally rebalancing your own holding — selling silver to buy gold, say — stays firmly on the investment side. It only becomes doubtful when short-term dealing for profit is the visible pattern, for example buying and reselling repeatedly during price swings.
Why waiting does not make the gain tax-free
Irish CGT has no speculation period and no holding period. There is no date after which a gain becomes exempt, so the familiar advice to "hold for a year" is simply wrong here. Three things do change your bill, and all three are in your hands: an unbroken record of what the metal cost you, the losses you set against the gain, and the tax year in which you realise the disposal.
Same holding period, different outcome
- ◆ Purchase: 01/15/2025
- ◆ Sale: 01/16/2026
- ◆ Held 366 days, gain 1,200 € → within the 1,270 € exemption, no CGT
- ◆ Purchase: 01/15/2025
- ◆ Sale: 01/14/2026
- ◆ Held 364 days, gain 5,000 € → 33 % on 3,730 € = 1,230.90 €
Pay first, file later: Irish CGT is paid before the return is made. For a disposal between 1 January and 30 November the tax is due by 15 December of the same year; for a disposal in December it is due by 31 January of the following year. The return itself — Form CG1, or Form 11 if you are a self-assessed taxpayer, filed through ROS — follows in the year after the disposal. A sale in the last days of December therefore buys you more than a year before payment falls due.
What actually moves the number
- ◆ Proof of what it cost you — the acquisition cost is only deductible if you can show it. Keep the dealer invoice for every purchase, above all for over-the-counter cash purchases, where it is often the only evidence that exists.
- ◆ The date of disposal decides the tax year — it is the date of the binding contract, not the date the money or the metal arrives. A sale agreed on 30 December and one agreed on 2 January fall into different years, with different payment dates and a fresh 1,270 € exemption.
- ◆ Gifts and inheritances — you do not inherit the original purchase price. As a rule the market value at the date of the gift or the death becomes your base cost, and Capital Acquisitions Tax may arise separately for the recipient. Have the valuation documented at the time.
- ◆ Pooled storage and FIFO — with unallocated or pooled holdings the first units acquired are treated as the first sold, so the oldest and usually cheapest purchase price sets the gain. Allocated storage with the bar serial numbers on your statement removes the ambiguity.
The 1,270 € annual exemption — a real allowance
Every individual may realise 1,270 € of chargeable gains a year free of CGT (TCA 1997 s. 601). It is an allowance: exceeding it does not make the whole gain chargeable, it only exposes the excess. That distinction is worth knowing, because several other countries run an exemption limit where one euro too many taxes everything.
Allowance vs. exemption limit — the difference
If it were an exemption limit (it is not)
- ◆ Exceeding it would make the whole gain chargeable
- ◆ 1,269 € gain → 0 € tax
- ◆ 1,300 € gain → tax on 1,300 €
Annual exempt amount (Ireland)
- ◆ Only the excess is charged
- ◆ 1,269 € gain → 0 € tax
- ◆ 1,300 € gain → tax on 30 € only
Worked example: what the exemption is worth
Suppose you realise a gain of 5,000 € on gold in one tax year and make no other disposals:
Without an exemption
5,000 € × 33 % = 1,650.00 €
Actually payable
(5,000 − 1,270) € × 33 % = 1,230.90 €
Two years, two exemptions: an unused annual exempt amount cannot be carried forward — at midnight on 31 December it is gone. If you plan to sell a larger holding, splitting the disposals across two tax years gives you the 1,270 € twice. Spouses and civil partners each have their own, and it cannot be transferred, so who owns which coins matters.
All disposals of the year count together
The 1,270 € applies once per person per tax year — not per transaction and not per asset class. Everything chargeable goes into the same pot:
- ◆ Physical precious metals (gold, silver, platinum, palladium)
- ◆ Cryptocurrencies — disposals are within the CGT net as well
- ◆ Art, antiques and collectibles (rare watches, classic cars)
- ◆ Shares, foreign currency and other chargeable assets
Losses come first: allowable losses are set against your chargeable gains of the same year, and the 1,270 € is applied to what remains. If losses already bring the net gain below the exemption, the exemption is simply wasted — it cannot be carried forward. Unused losses, on the other hand, do carry forward to later years, so it is worth claiming them in the return even in a year when they change nothing.
Physical vs. paper gold — the tax differences
What you pay depends heavily on the form in which you hold the metal. Physical bullion and most exchange-traded commodities are within CGT at 33 %, with the annual exemption and loss relief that go with it. Funds — including many precious-metal ETFs — sit in a separate regime of their own, with a different rate, a deemed disposal every eight years, no 1,270 € exemption and no offset of fund losses against your other gains.
How each wrapper is treated
| Type of investment | Legal basis | Taxation |
|---|---|---|
| Physical bars & coins | TCA 1997 s. 28 | 33% CGT on the gain |
| Gold ETCs with a delivery claim | TCA 1997 s. 28 | 33% CGT on the gain* |
| Gold ETCs (debt securities) | TCA 1997 s. 28 | 33% CGT on the gain* |
| Metal ETCs in fund form | Fund regime | Fund regime, no 1,270 € exemption |
| Precious-metal ETFs (funds) | Fund regime | Fund regime, deemed disposal every 8 years |
| Mining shares | Fund regime | 33% CGT on gains, dividends taxed as income |
| Cryptocurrencies | TCA 1997 s. 28 | 33% CGT on the gain |
* An ETC is normally a debt security and stays inside CGT. There is no Irish case law on delivery-claim products of the kind decided in Germany — the treatment follows the legal form of the individual product.
Where the line runs between an ETC and a fund
Ireland has no landmark ruling that puts paper gold on the same footing as bullion. What decides the treatment is the legal form of the product: an exchange-traded commodity issued as a debt security is a chargeable asset like any other, so a disposal produces a gain charged at 33 %, reduced by the annual exemption and by allowable losses.
A product constituted as a fund is taxed under the regime for investment funds instead. That regime has its own rate, applies a deemed disposal every eight years whether or not you sell, and keeps its gains and losses in a separate box: the 1,270 € exemption does not apply, and a loss inside the fund regime cannot shelter a gain on your bullion. Read the Key Information Document before you assume a product behaves like metal, and ask an adviser where it is not obvious.
Silver, platinum and palladium: only investment gold is exempt from VAT (VATCA 2010 s. 90(1), Sch. 1 para. 9(1)). Physical silver, platinum and palladium carry the standard rate of 23 %. A private buyer cannot reclaim it, so the VAT is a real part of what the metal cost you — keep the invoice that shows it, because that figure feeds straight into your base cost.
Records Revenue expects — self-assessment puts it on you
CGT is self-assessed: you compute the gain, you file, you pay, and you must be able to stand over the figures if Revenue asks. The acquisition cost is a deduction you claim, which means the burden of proof is yours. Where the cost cannot be shown, the deduction can be refused and the gain computed on the full sale proceeds — the difference between a modest bill and a punitive one.
Documents to keep
- ◆ Purchase invoices — with date, product, weight, fineness, price and any VAT charged. For online orders keep the order confirmation and the payment evidence as well.
- ◆ Sale documents — the buy-back receipt or sale confirmation showing the date and the consideration received.
- ◆ FIFO working — where you bought the same item several times, show which pieces are treated as sold and which purchase price you used.
- ◆ Storage and cost documents — vault or safe deposit agreements, and any incidental costs such as assay, insured shipping or selling commission that are allowable against the gain.
- ◆ Bank and card statements — supporting evidence for the money leaving and arriving on both legs of the trade.
How long to keep it all
As a rule, records supporting a return must be kept for six years after the end of the year to which they relate, and longer where a return was not filed or later turns out to be wrong. For precious metals the relevant document is often far older than that: a coin bought fifteen years ago is still evidenced only by its original invoice. Treat the purchase paperwork as something you keep for as long as you hold the metal, plus six years after you sell it.
- ◆ Scan everything twice — thermal till receipts fade to blank within a few years. Scan on the day of purchase and keep one copy off-site or in cloud storage.
- ◆ Photograph the serial numbers — bars and coins photographed with the number legible, filed next to the invoice, tie the document to the specific piece you later sell.
- ◆ Keep a running schedule — purchase date, product, weight, fineness, price, incidental costs and, once sold, the disposal date and proceeds. That schedule is what you will file from.
If the receipt is gone: reconstruct the cost from whatever else exists — bank or card statements showing the payment, the dealer’s own duplicate, order emails, insurance schedules or a valuation done at the time. Anything contemporaneous beats a later reconstruction. Where nothing can be produced, expect the acquisition cost to be treated as unproven and the charge to fall on the full proceeds, so replace lost paperwork now rather than in the year you sell.