Current Gold Price and Gold Rate with Charts & Calculators
The gold price is the most important indicator in the precious metals market and is closely watched worldwide as a barometer of economic uncertainty. Here you will find the current price per troy ounce in euros and US dollars, updated live during trading hours. The interactive chart shows price development from intraday data to maximum history. The performance table, seasonality analysis and heatmap calendar provide additional perspectives on trends and patterns. With the historical price calculator, you can look up the gold price for any past date. In the comprehensive guide below, learn why central banks hoard gold, how inflation and interest rate policy affect the price, and what to look for when buying bars and coins.
Here you see the current Gold price per troy ounce (31.1 g) in your selected currency, including daily change in percent and absolute.
Below you find the current exchange rate and the price in the second currency. At the bottom are the prices per gram, troy ounce and kilogram.
Tip: When the market is open, the price updates automatically every minute.
Gold price details →
Source: Spot
Every point on this curve is a recorded Gold quote from the window you have chosen. Run the pointer along the line and the tooltip reveals the exact level reached on that particular trading day.
The buttons above switch the window, running from Today through to Max. Drag across a stretch of the curve to magnify it. Beneath the chart, three summary cards report the peak, the trough and the net move.
Tip: Choose Today and the series resolves down to a single reading per minute.
(24/08/26)
(21/08/26)
(23/08/26)
(23/08/26)
(29/01/26)
Name a date and the lookup returns what Gold was worth on it: the opening and closing levels, the extremes reached in between, and the equivalent figures per gram and per kilogram.
Tip: Pick your date. Should London have been shut that day, the lookup falls back to the closest session it holds.
| 08/21/2026 | GBP | USD |
|---|---|---|
| Open | 3,311.74 £ | 4,518.87 $ |
| High | 3,394.27 £ | 4,631.81 $ |
| Low | 3,303.52 £ | 4,510.27 $ |
| Close | 3,374.32 £ | 4,603.89 $ |
Source: Spot
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Enjoying what you see and read?
We pour our heart into keeping preciousmetalprices.com fast, clean and free — no paywalls, no clutter, just reliable facts and live prices. If it helps you, the nicest way to say thank you is to pass it on. Every share helps a fellow investor discover us and keeps the project going. 💛
Here you can see the current gold price converted to different weight units: gram, troy ounce (31.1 g) and kilogram.
The second row shows the price in the other currency for comparison.
Tip: A troy ounce is the international trading unit for precious metals and equals 31.1035 grams.
1 Troy Ounce = 31.1035 Grams
This table shows the current price per gram for various Gold alloys. The fineness indicates how much pure Gold is contained in 1000 parts.
Example: : 750/1000 means 75% pure Gold (for gold this equals 18 carat). The price per gram is calculated according to the fineness.
| Fineness | Carat | Price / Gram |
|---|---|---|
| 333/1000 | 8K | 36.21 £ |
| 585/1000 | 14K | 63.61 £ |
| 750/1000 | 18K | 81.55 £ |
| 833/1000 | 20K | 90.57 £ |
| 900/1000 | 21,6K | 97.85 £ |
| 916/1000 | 22K | 99.59 £ |
| 999/1000 | 24K | 108.62 £ |
| 999.9/1000 | Fine Gold | 108.73 £ |
The performance table shows how the Gold price has developed over various time periods: from today to 5 years.
You can see the absolute change in both currencies as well as the percentage change. Green values indicate gain, red values indicate loss.
Tip: Compare the EUR and USD performance to identify the impact of the exchange rate.
| Period | GBP | % GBP | USD | % USD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Today | -32.67 £ | -0.82 % | +0.00 $ | +0.00 % |
| 7 Days | +129.14 £ | +3.39 % | +187.38 $ | +4.24 % |
| 30 Days | +443.42 £ | +12.67 % | +551.36 $ | +13.61 % |
| since Jan 1 | +176.59 £ | +4.69 % | +242.34 $ | +5.56 % |
| 1 Year | +1,002.65 £ | +34.10 % | +1,198.99 $ | +35.21 % |
| 5 Years | +2,385.36 £ | +153.16 % | +2,800.29 $ | +155.26 % |
Twenty years of Gold data, averaged calendar month by calendar month and condensed into a single bar chart.
Bars in green mark months that averaged a gain; those in red averaged a loss.
Tip: Averages describe the past. They carry no promise about the months ahead.
One square per trading session, Monday through Friday, shaded by the daily move in the Gold price.
Sessions that closed up appear green, sessions that closed down appear red.
Point at a square to read the level and the move behind it.
Here you can find a quick overview of the current prices of the other precious metals. The percentage shows the daily change.
Tip: Click on a metal to go directly to its detail page.
What Is the Gold Price?
The gold price is the market value of a single troy ounce of pure gold, 31.1035 grams, quoted in US dollars and dealt continuously somewhere in the world at almost any hour. British buyers pay in pounds, of course, so the figure that matters here is the dollar quote translated at the prevailing GBP/USD rate, which means every sterling holder is running two positions at once whether they intend to or not.
Gold has served as store of value, means of exchange and monetary anchor for something over five thousand years, a record no other asset comes close to. It circulated in pharaonic Egypt and imperial Rome, and it underpinned the international monetary order well into the twentieth century, with the pound itself tied to it for most of that period.
Good to know: Under Bretton Woods, agreed in 1944 with Keynes leading the British delegation, the dollar was fixed to gold at 35 US dollars an ounce and every other currency was fixed to the dollar. President Nixon suspended convertibility on 15 August 1971 — the Nixon Shock — and the gold price has floated freely ever since.
The reference price is set twice a day in London through the LBMA Gold Price. The auction is administered by the ICE Benchmark Administration and runs at 10:30 am and 3:00 pm, with accredited banks and trading houses submitting buy and sell interest in successive rounds until the two sides balance. The resulting figure settles gold contracts, values exchange-traded funds and prices central bank business across the globe, which makes London rather more than a convenient time zone for this particular market.
Spot, the Troy Ounce and the Sterling Quote
The spot price is what gold fetches for immediate delivery, and it is formed continuously rather than at fixed moments: over the counter in London, on COMEX in New York, on the Shanghai Gold Exchange and in Zurich. Where the LBMA auction produces a single number twice daily, spot moves second by second and is the price you will see quoted on any live screen, this one included.
The unit of trade is the troy ounce, exactly 31.1035 grams. The name comes from Troyes in Champagne, whose medieval fairs drew merchants from across Europe and whose weight system for precious metals outlived the fairs by seven centuries. It is emphatically not the avoirdupois ounce of 28.35 grams used for groceries; confusing the two overstates a holding by roughly a tenth.
Because the metal trades in dollars, the sterling price is arithmetic: divide the dollar spot by GBP/USD. A weaker pound lifts the price in sterling even when the dollar quote has not moved at all, which is why gold has repeatedly done its job for British holders at precisely the moments the currency was under pressure. The reverse also holds, and a recovering pound will quietly erode a return that looks perfectly respectable on an American screen.
Gold Price History at a Glance
When the dollar's convertibility into gold was cut in 1971, an ounce changed hands for 35 US dollars. It has since fetched more than 2,800 at times. Nothing about that climb was orderly: violent rallies, brutal corrections and stretches of years in which the price went nowhere at all. Read the history and the forces moving the quote on your screen today stop looking mysterious.
Compounded from 1971 onwards, gold has returned somewhere near 8 per cent a year. Its real usefulness shows up in the wreckage, however: in eight of the ten worst equity bear markets since 1970 the metal either gained ground or stood still whilst shares fell away.
Historical Milestones
The historical price calculator allows you to look up the gold price on any date in the past. The official reference is the LBMA Gold Price, which is set twice daily through an electronic auction process: the AM Fix at 10:30 AM and the PM Fix at 3:00 PM London time (11:30 AM and 4:00 PM CET). The PM Fix is considered the authoritative daily closing price and is used globally as the settlement basis for ETFs, central bank transactions, and industrial contracts. Our database contains historical prices in USD, EUR, GBP, and CHF, allowing the gold price to be queried directly in the relevant currency.
For a UK seller the first question is which coins are involved at all, because British legal tender coins — sovereigns struck from 1837 onwards and Britannias — are recognised as sterling currency and therefore fall outside Capital Gains Tax altogether, no matter how large the profit. Everything else, from bars to foreign coins, is chargeable on the gain at 18 % or 24 % depending on the seller's income band, with an annual exempt amount of £3,000 of gains and no reduction whatsoever for long ownership. That is exactly why the acquisition cost matters so much on this side of the line: the price on the day of purchase is what turns a sale figure into a gain, and looking it up here is a starting point rather than a substitute for your purchase records or an adviser's view. The historical price on the date of transfer is also relevant for the valuation of inherited or gifted gold — the tax authorities base the value on the date of inheritance or gift. A helpful anchor point for long-term analysis is the historical Bretton Woods price of 35 USD per troy ounce (1944–1971), which strikingly illustrates the enormous appreciation of gold since the price was set free.
By comparing different dates, you can also identify trends and cycles: what was the gold price one year ago, five years ago, ten years ago? How did gold perform during specific crises — for example after the Lehman Brothers collapse (September 2008), at the start of the COVID pandemic (March 2020), or after the beginning of the Ukraine war (February 2022)? These comparisons help place the current gold price in its historical context and make well-informed investment decisions. Particularly revealing is the parallel comparison in USD and EUR: in some years, performance diverged considerably, as the exchange rate effect can distort the gold return for European investors by up to 10 percentage points.
Gold Price by Weight and Unit
International bullion dealing is conducted in troy ounces and nothing else. Everyday life is not: bars, coins and jewellery are bought and valued by the gram or the kilogram, so the arithmetic has to be done somewhere. It is simple enough — divide the ounce price by 31.1035 and you have the price per gram in whichever currency the quote is running.
The troy ounce is a survivor from the fairs of Troyes in Champagne, which drew merchants from across Europe through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and left behind a weight system for precious metals that has outlasted every currency of the period. At 31.1035 g it is heavier than the avoirdupois ounce of 28.3495 g used for everything else sold by weight in Britain, and confusing the two overstates a holding by around a tenth.
Bar and Coin Sizes in Common Use
- ◆ 1 gram bar — The way in for small sums, though the percentage premium is punishing once minting and dealing costs are spread over so little metal
- ◆ 1 troy ounce (31.1 g) — The standard investment unit, available as a bar or as a coin, the Britannia and the Krugerrand being the familiar examples on this market
- ◆ 100 g and 250 g bars — A workable middle ground: cheaper per gram than small bars, still divisible enough to sell in stages
- ◆ 1 kilogram bar — The lowest premium available to a private buyer, at the price of holding a single indivisible lump
- ◆ 400 oz bar (about 12.4 kg) — The LBMA Good Delivery bar, the unit that moves between bullion banks and central banks and sits in the Bank of England's vaults
The Coins You Will Be Offered
Each of the classic bullion coins holds exactly one troy ounce of fine gold, at 999 fineness or better, whatever the total weight of the finished piece:
- ◆ Britannia (United Kingdom, from 1987) — 999.9 since 2013 and carrying the Royal Mint's layered security features. Sterling legal tender at £100, which takes it outside Capital Gains Tax for UK residents
- ◆ Sovereign (United Kingdom, from 1817) — 7.32 g of fine gold at 22 carat rather than a full ounce; struck from 1837 onwards it is likewise legal tender and likewise free of CGT
- ◆ Krugerrand (South Africa, from 1967) — The first modern bullion coin, 916.7 fine: one ounce of gold hardened with copper, 33.93 g all told
- ◆ Maple Leaf (Canada, from 1979) — 999.9 fine, with radial line machining and a laser-micro-engraved privy mark against forgery
- ◆ Vienna Philharmonic and American Eagle (Austria, from 1989; United States, from 1986) — 999.9 and 916.7 respectively; widely traded here, but foreign coin and therefore chargeable to CGT
Format is a tax decision in Britain as much as a practical one. A sovereign or a Britannia is sterling currency and falls outside Capital Gains Tax under TCGA 1992 s.21(1)(b), no matter how large the gain; an ounce bar of the very same metal is chargeable at 18% or 24% depending on your income band, with only the £3,000 annual exempt amount to set against it and no reduction for however long you have held it. Gram prices remain the working unit of the jewellery and scrap trade, but for investment the issuer on the coin matters quite as much as the weight.
Troy Ounce Converter
1 troy ounce = 31.1035 grams
Common Investment Products
Key Drivers of the Gold Price
The gold price is shaped by a complex interplay of macroeconomic, geopolitical, and market-structural factors. Unlike industrial commodities, physical demand from industry plays only a minor role -- gold is primarily sought after as a monetary metal and store of value.
Central Banks and Gold Reserves
Since 2010, central banks worldwide have become net buyers of gold -- after two decades as net sellers. The People's Bank of China (PBOC), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and the Central Bank of Turkey (TCMB) in particular have massively expanded their gold reserves. In 2022 and 2023 alone, central banks each purchased over 1,000 tonnes of gold -- a historic record.
Behind these purchases lies the trend towards de-dollarisation: many emerging economies are diversifying their foreign exchange reserves away from the US dollar and into gold, which carries no counterparty risk and is not subject to sanctions. The United Kingdom sits well down that league table: HM Treasury sold roughly half of the national reserves between 1999 and 2002, and around 310 tonnes remain at the Bank of England -- a fraction of the 8,133 tonnes held by the United States.
Inflation, Real Interest Rates, and Fed Policy
Gold is traditionally regarded as an inflation hedge, since unlike fiat currency it cannot be created at will. What matters most for the gold price, however, is not nominal inflation but real interest rates (nominal rate minus inflation). When real rates are negative -- meaning investors are losing money in real terms on bonds -- the appeal of gold, which yields no interest, increases.
The monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve (Fed) has the single strongest impact on the gold price. Rate hikes tend to strengthen the dollar and raise the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding gold. Rate cuts and quantitative easing (QE) have the opposite effect, pushing gold prices higher.
Geopolitical Crises
Gold is the ultimate safe haven in times of geopolitical uncertainty. Wars, terrorist attacks, and diplomatic crises regularly trigger flights into gold. Recent examples include Russia's invasion of Ukraine (2022), the escalation in the Middle East (2023/2024), and the growing trade conflicts between the United States and China.
US Dollar and Exchange Rates
Since gold is priced in USD, there is a pronounced inverse correlation between the Dollar Index (DXY) and the gold price. A weaker dollar makes gold cheaper for buyers in other currencies, driving demand higher. For a sterling investor the GBP/USD rate matters twice over: it shapes the dollar gold price in the first place, and it then decides what that price converts to in pounds.
Jewellery and Industrial Demand
Approximately 50% of annual gold demand comes from the jewellery industry, led by India and China. Seasonal factors play a significant role: the Indian wedding season (October-December), the Diwali festival, and Chinese New Year regularly create demand spikes.
Industrial gold consumption accounts for only about 7-10% of total demand. Gold is used in electronics (contacts, circuit boards, connectors), medical technology (dental prosthetics, diagnostics), and aerospace (reflective coatings).
Gold Performance and Seasonality
Performance Table
Go to tableThe performance table sets gold's price movement side by side across a series of windows: today's change, then 7 days, 30 days, the year-to-date figure, and finally the 1-year and 5-year returns. Gold is the least excitable of the precious metals over short horizons, and a daily move beyond 1% counts as an event rather than a routine. Stretch the horizon and the picture changes: since the end of Bretton Woods in 1971 the metal has compounded at roughly 8% a year and has held or gained ground through every serious financial crisis of that period, which is the single reason most British holders own any at all.
The column worth studying hardest is the sterling return set against the dollar return. Gold is quoted internationally in US dollars, so the price in pounds falls out of the dollar price and the prevailing GBP/USD rate. Whenever sterling weakens, the gold price in pounds climbs even if the dollar quote has not budged. British investors have seen this at its starkest twice in living memory: after the referendum of June 2016 the pound dropped sharply and gold in sterling rose far faster than gold in dollars, and the same mechanism repeated during the gilt turmoil of autumn 2022. The currency effect can add or subtract several percentage points in a single year, so a strengthening pound quietly erodes a return that looks perfectly healthy in dollars.
Percentage changes in the table are calculated from the LBMA PM price, the London benchmark that serves as the official daily close. Green figures mark advances, red figures declines. Reading the table sensibly means not fixating on the short columns: gold is a long-duration store of value and its case is made over years, not sessions. The 5-year column is the useful one for judging whether today's price sits in line with the medium-term trend or has run well ahead of it. Note as well that any gain shown here is a gross figure; what a UK seller actually keeps depends on whether the item disposed of is a British legal tender coin or not.
Seasonality (20 Years)
Go to chartGold's month-by-month pattern has been documented across several decades and rests on two very different foundations: cultural buying in Asia and the calendar habits of institutional money. The strong run opens in September and carries through to February. From September the Indian jewellery trade begins stocking for the autumn wedding season and for Diwali, and with Indian consumption running above 700 tonnes a year, gold's role as dowry and festival gift produces a demand impulse you can almost set a watch by. A second wave follows in January and February, when Chinese New Year buying arrives from the largest gold market of all.
Running alongside that, the year-end rebalancing undertaken by asset managers, pension schemes and family offices does its own work. Allocations are reset in the final quarter and gold weightings are frequently nudged upwards as insurance for the year ahead, which puts a floor under the price from October to December. Central banks show a comparable tendency, concentrating reserve purchases towards the year end so that their programmes are completed on schedule.
The weakest stretch normally falls between March and June. Once the winter buying has worked through, physical offtake fades noticeably; the Indian hot season brings fewer weddings, institutions have already placed their opening allocations, and profit-taking sets the tone. July and August generally bring thin volumes and drift, with the City half empty. Experienced holders have long treated that lull as an accumulation window ahead of the autumn.
Performance Calendar (Heatmap)
Go to calendarThe performance calendar, or heatmap, lays gold's daily moves out as a grid of coloured cells. Set against the other precious metals, gold is the quiet one: it carries the lowest day-to-day volatility of the four, with a typical session shifting it about ±0.5% and even a lively day rarely pushing past 1.5%. The grid reflects that with washed-out greens and reds rather than the vivid extremes silver or palladium throw up.
What repays study are the runs of consecutive green or red cells, because they map out the market's trend phases. Several green days in a row usually mean an intact advance, fed by central bank buying, a geopolitical flare-up or the expectation of rate cuts. Red runs mark the corrections, and they tend to follow strong American data, a hawkish Federal Reserve or a firming dollar. The official close feeding the grid comes from the London PM auction at 3:00 pm, set a short walk from the Bank of England.
The calendar also exposes weekend gaps. Gold trades around the clock, but Asian dealing reopens on Sunday evening before London gets going, so news breaking over a Saturday can leave a visible step in Monday's cell. For anyone holding for the long term, the grid answers a simple question quickly: has this month been steady or choppy, and is the prevailing trend gathering pace or running out of it?
Investing in Gold
Gold can be acquired in several ways -- each with its own advantages and disadvantages regarding costs, security, liquidity, and tax treatment. The right choice depends on the investment amount, time horizon, and personal preferences.
Physical Gold: Bars and Coins
Buying physical gold bars and coins offers the advantage of direct ownership with no counterparty risk. Judge a supplier by what can actually be checked rather than by reputation: is the refiner named on the LBMA Good Delivery List, are bid and offer rates published on every trading day, is the buy-back undertaking set out in writing, is the firm entered on a public companies register, and does it belong to a recognised trade organisation?
- ◆ Premium: Selling price above spot price -- typically 2-4% for 1 oz bars, up to 15-20% for 1 g bars
- ◆ Storage: Home safe (tell your contents insurer, or the cover may not respond), a safe deposit box (roughly £100-300 a year), or a professional high-security vault — insist on metal allocated to you individually instead of a pooled holding, written evidence of insurance, an independent audit of the stock, delivery on demand and a named place of jurisdiction
- ◆ Liquidity: Investment coins and LBMA bars can be sold at any time through dealers or online, typically with a spread of 1-3%
Gold ETCs and ETFs
Exchange-traded gold securities let you take a position through an ordinary dealing account, with no vault or safe to organise. A whole family of them is listed on the London Stock Exchange, and they differ in three respects that matter more than the ticker:
- ◆ Allocated or unallocated backing -- the better products hold numbered London Good Delivery bars in a named London vault, with the bar list published daily
- ◆ Ongoing charge -- typically 0.12–0.40% a year, deducted by selling a sliver of the underlying metal, so your ounces per unit slowly shrink
- ◆ Sterling or dollar share class -- a sterling-quoted line still leaves you exposed to the dollar unless it is explicitly currency-hedged
Worth knowing: an ETC is a security, not coinage. It therefore cannot inherit the Capital Gains Tax exemption that British legal tender coins enjoy, and any gain falls within the ordinary CGT rules of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992. Whether a specific product is eligible for a tax wrapper such as an ISA or a pension depends on that product; check the issuer’s documentation and current HMRC guidance rather than assuming.
Gold Mining Stocks and Funds
Shares in gold producers such as Barrick Gold, Newmont, Agnico Eagle, or Franco-Nevada offer leveraged exposure to the gold price: rising gold prices disproportionately increase profit margins. However, mining stocks carry additional risks -- operational problems, political risks in producing countries, rising production costs, and general equity market risk.
Gold vs. Silver and Other Precious Metals
Gold occupies a unique position among precious metals as a monetary metal. While silver, platinum, and palladium are heavily dependent on industrial demand, gold is primarily sought as a store of value and a hedge.
| Criterion | Gold | Silver |
|---|---|---|
| Industrial share | 7-10% | ~55% |
| Volatility | Medium | High |
| VAT (UK) | Exempt (investment) | 20% on the full price |
| Relative storage cost | Low | High |
| Gold/silver ratio | Historically 40-90, currently around 80-85 | |
| Portfolio recommendation | 5-15% of portfolio | 0-5% of portfolio |
Gold Alloys and Purity
Fine gold at 999.9 parts per thousand is far too soft to survive being worn. Mixing it with other metals hardens it, makes it wear better and changes its colour, which is why almost nothing in a jeweller's window is pure. Two systems describe the result. Fineness states the gold content in parts per thousand, the figure British assay offices actually punch into the metal, whilst the older carat scale divides purity into twenty-four parts.
The Carat Scale
- ◆ 24 carat (999.9) — Fine gold. Investment bars and modern bullion coins. Marks easily with a fingernail
- ◆ 22 carat (916) — Crown gold, the standard of the sovereign since 1817 and of the Krugerrand. Traditional Indian and Middle Eastern jewellery too
- ◆ 18 carat (750) — The quality benchmark for fine jewellery here and abroad; the usual choice for engagement rings of any ambition
- ◆ 14 carat (585) — A recognised British standard, though far more often met on imported Continental and American pieces than on the high street
- ◆ 9 carat (375) — The British workhorse. The lowest fineness that may lawfully be described and hallmarked as gold in the United Kingdom
- ◆ 8 carat (333) — Not a legal standard in this country. It cannot be hallmarked or sold as gold here, and turns up only on older Continental imports
Colour and What Creates It
The alloying metals do more than add hardness; they set the colour, and that is what the trade sells on:
- ◆ Yellow gold — The traditional mix, roughly equal parts copper and silver added to the gold
- ◆ Rose or red gold — Copper-heavy, giving the warm pink cast that has dominated the last decade of British retail
- ◆ White gold — Alloyed with palladium (better, and nickel-free) or with nickel (cheaper, and a common cause of skin reactions); nearly always finished in rhodium
- ◆ Green gold — Silver-rich, producing a faint greenish tint. Rarely seen outside studio work
Hallmarking in the United Kingdom
Britain runs one of the oldest and strictest hallmarking regimes anywhere. Under the Hallmarking Act 1973 it is a criminal offence to describe an article as gold in the course of trade without a UK hallmark once it exceeds one gram, and the mark is struck only after the metal has been independently assayed at London, Birmingham, Sheffield or Edinburgh. Three elements are compulsory: the sponsor's mark identifying who submitted the piece, the fineness figure in parts per thousand, and the assay office town mark. For bars rather than jewellery the equivalent assurance is LBMA Good Delivery accreditation, which certifies the refiner rather than the individual item.
Worth knowing before you buy: Investment-grade gold is free of VAT in the United Kingdom under VATA 1994 Sch. 9 Group 15, which covers bars and coins of the required fineness. The tax question that matters far more here, though, is on the way out: a gold Britannia or a sovereign struck from 1837 onwards is sterling legal tender and therefore outside Capital Gains Tax altogether under TCGA 1992 s.21(1)(b), whilst an identical weight of bar is chargeable on the gain. The alloy is nearly the same; the tax treatment is not.
How Gold Is Taxed in the United Kingdom
Two separate questions decide what gold actually costs a British investor: whether VAT is charged when you buy, and whether HMRC takes a slice of the gain when you sell. Gold answers both far more kindly than any other metal on this site -- and for one particular family of coins the second question does not arise at all.
VAT: Gold Is Exempt
Investment gold carries no VAT in the United Kingdom. The exemption sits in Group 15 of Schedule 9 to the Value Added Tax Act 1994 and is explained in HMRC’s VAT Notice 701/21. It covers:
- Gold bars and wafers of an accepted weight and a fineness of at least 995/1000, typically from LBMA-accredited refiners
- Gold coins struck after 1800, at least 900/1000 fine, legal tender in their country of origin and sold at no great premium to their metal value
Britannias and Sovereigns qualify, as do the Krugerrand, Maple Leaf, Philharmonic and Eagle. Silver, platinum and palladium enjoy no such relief: they attract the standard rate of 20%, which is the single biggest reason gold dominates British bullion buying.
Capital Gains Tax – and the Coins That Escape It
There is no holding period in British law: selling after twenty years is treated exactly like selling after twenty days. What matters instead is which gold you sold. Sovereigns struck from 1837 onwards and every Britannia are sterling legal tender, and disposing of currency is not a chargeable disposal at all – the point rests on section 21(1)(b) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 and is spelled out in HMRC’s Capital Gains Manual at CG78305. Bars, and coins denominated in someone else’s currency, are ordinary chargeable assets. For those, the Annual Exempt Amount is set against your total gains for the tax year first and only the excess is charged, at 18% or 24% depending on where the gain sits relative to the basic rate band. Anything payable is declared to HMRC through Self Assessment:
Paper Gold: What Changes
No coin exemption for securities: the relief that keeps Sovereigns and Britannias out of CGT comes from their status as sterling currency, not from the metal behind them. An ETC, a fund or a mining share cannot borrow it, however the product is backed – a gain on paper gold is a chargeable gain under the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 like any other. Buying through a tax wrapper is the usual answer, but eligibility varies by product and the rules change; confirm it against current HMRC guidance before you rely on it. VAT does not arise here, since no metal changes hands.