Buying gold in the United Kingdom

Three facts shape gold buying in this country, and none of them travels well across the Channel. The wholesale market that sets the price sits in London. Two British coins are legal tender and therefore fall outside capital gains tax entirely. And the trade in physical metal is not a regulated financial activity, so the buyer carries risks that a saver never meets. Everything below follows from those three.

Why gold, and what actually counts as bullion

People buy gold here for the same reasons they always have: it is nobody's promise, it survives the failure of institutions that issue paper claims, and it moves out of step with equities often enough to be useful as diversification. Those are arguments for holding a minority share of a portfolio in metal, not for holding a portfolio of metal. Gold pays no coupon and no dividend, and it can go nowhere for years, which is why it works as a safe haven rather than as an engine of return.

What matters at the point of purchase is the distinction between three kinds of gold that look similar in a shop window. Investment gold is priced off the metal it contains, with a modest mark-up on top, and it is the only category this guide is about. Jewellery gold is an alloy sold for its design and workmanship, carries VAT at the standard rate and rarely returns more than its material value. Collector pieces belong to numismatics, where rarity and condition drive the price and the metal is almost incidental; that premium is a market opinion, and market opinions change. The live gold price is the yardstick for the first category only.

The British peculiarity: coins that are free of capital gains tax

Start here, because in the United Kingdom the choice of coin decides more money than the choice of dealer. There is no holding period in British tax law. A gain realised after a fortnight is treated exactly like a gain realised after twenty years — nothing becomes tax free with the passage of time. Capital gains tax runs at 18 per cent within the basic rate band of £37,700 and 24 per cent above it, against an annual exempt amount of £3,000 for the tax year that runs from 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027. That allowance is a genuine allowance, applied to the gain.

Against that background one rule stands out. Under TCGA 1992 s.21(1)(b), sterling is not a chargeable asset, and British bullion coins are legal tender by virtue of Coinage Act 1971 s.2(1). A gain on such a coin is therefore not a chargeable gain at all, whatever its size and whenever it is realised. A Sovereign minted from 1837 onwards and the gold Britannia both qualify. A Krugerrand does not, and HMRC says so in terms.

For a buyer who expects to hold a meaningful position, that single distinction usually outweighs the difference in premium between one coin and another. The tax estimator shows the effect on a specific disposal, and the dedicated precious metals tax guide works through reporting, losses and inheritance in detail.

What HMRC has actually named, and what it has not

Precision matters here, because the claim is repeated loosely. The HMRC Capital Gains Manual page CG78305 names the Sovereign from 1837 and the gold Britannia as exempt, and it names the Krugerrand as chargeable. Those are the coins with explicit official cover. The Royal Mint states more broadly that its bullion coins are free of capital gains tax, applying the same legal-tender reasoning to its newer series. That reasoning is sound on its face, but it is the mint's position rather than an HMRC assurance, and it has not been confirmed coin by coin. Where the exemption is the reason for buying, the two named coins carry no argument with them.

Two further points follow. Sovereigns struck before 1837 are no longer legal tender, so they fall outside s.21(1)(b) and are taxed like any other chattel. And every foreign bullion coin is chargeable: a Maple Leaf or a Vienna Philharmonic is metal, not sterling, however familiar it may be in the British market. None of this makes foreign coins a poor purchase — they are often cheaper per ounce and are recognised worldwide — but the after-tax comparison has to be made before, not after.

Bars are chattels, and that changes the arithmetic

A gold bar is tangible movable property, so the chattels rules in TCGA 1992 s.262 apply to it. A disposal for £6,000 or less produces no chargeable gain, and just above that threshold the tax is capped at five thirds of the excess over £6,000, which softens the cliff edge. Pieces that form a set and are sold to the same buyer, or to connected buyers, are treated as one disposal, so a matched series cannot be broken up to stay under the limit.

The trap sits in s.262(6), which disapplies the chattels rules for currency in any form. A Krugerrand or a Maple Leaf is currency in its country of origin, so the £6,000 shelter does not reach it: a gain on a foreign bullion coin is chargeable from the first pound, with only the annual exempt amount in front of it. The result is a three-way split worth keeping in mind — British legal-tender coins outside the charge entirely, gold bars inside it but with the chattels cushion, and foreign coins inside it with no cushion at all. The gold calculator converts any holding into a current disposal value so the thresholds can be tested against real numbers.

VAT: gold is exempt, silver is not

Investment gold is exempt from VAT under VATA 1994 Schedule 9 Group 15, which is why a British buyer pays close to the metal value rather than a fifth above it. The VAT exemption is defined, not general. Bars and wafers qualify at a fineness of 995 or better. Coins qualify where they were minted after 1800, have a fineness of at least 900, are or have been legal tender in their country of origin, and are sold at a price that does not exceed 180 per cent of the open market value of the gold they contain. That last criterion is the one that quietly excludes heavily marked-up commemoratives: once the collector premium is large enough, the piece stops being investment gold for VAT purposes and the standard rate applies to the whole price.

Silver, platinum and palladium have no equivalent relief and are standard-rated at 20 per cent. Since the United Kingdom left the single market, that rate also arrives as import VAT on silver brought in from the European Union, which is the main reason the white metals behave so differently here. The silver price has to be read with that surcharge in mind, and the silver buying guide sets out what it does to the break-even point; the same applies to platinum and palladium.

Bars or coins, and where the premium comes from

At the same fine weight the metal is identical. What differs is the premium — the mark-up above the pure metal value that pays for refining, minting, distribution, insured transport and the seller's margin — and the spread, the gap between the price a dealer sells at and the price the same dealer buys back at. The spread decides how far the market must move before a position is level, and it is wider on small or unusual items.

Bars generally carry the lower premium, and the larger the bar the lower it gets per gram. Minted bars are stamped from rolled strip and come sealed in a certified blister with a serial number; cast bars are poured, look rougher and are usually a little cheaper. Coins cost more per gram but divide a holding into saleable portions, are checked in seconds by any dealer, and in this country may carry the tax status described above. Weighing a lower premium against a chargeable gain is the specifically British version of this decision. The premium calculator shows how far a given offer sits above the current metal value, which is the only way to compare two different products honestly.

Choosing a unit size

The cost of turning metal into a saleable object barely changes with the amount of gold inside it, so the smaller the piece, the larger that fixed cost looms in percentage terms. A fractional coin is materially more expensive per gram than a full troy ounce, and the curve flattens out above the ounce rather than continuing to fall steeply.

The opposite consideration is divisibility. A single large bar cannot be part-sold: raising a modest sum means disposing of the whole thing at whatever price prevails that week, and taking the entire gain into one tax year. Smaller units cost more to buy and give flexibility in return, and in the United Kingdom they also allow a disposal to be spread across tax years so that more than one annual exempt amount is used. Most holdings end up as a mixture — the bulk in larger units for the best price per gram, a handful of smaller pieces as a divisible reserve. Whichever mix is chosen, what is being bought is fine weight rather than gross weight — the two differ on every 22 carat coin — and the unit converter translates between ounces, grams and the older weights still stamped on some bars.

No FCA regulation, no FSCS, no ombudsman

This is the part most new buyers get wrong, and it deserves to be stated flatly. Physical bullion is not a regulated investment. A dealer selling gold coins is not carrying on a regulated activity and is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. There is no Financial Services Compensation Scheme cover for money paid over, and the Financial Ombudsman Service has no jurisdiction over the complaint. If a firm collapses between payment and delivery, the buyer is an ordinary unsecured creditor of a failed company.

The confusion is understandable, because the FCA does appear elsewhere in this market. The London benchmark process run by ICE Benchmark Administration is a regulated benchmark under FCA supervision, so the benchmark price itself is overseen even though the trade in the metal is not. Operators of private vaults likewise register with the FCA, but only for money laundering supervision, which says nothing about the quality of their product. The price guide explains how the London benchmarks are set and why they matter to a retail quote.

What consumer law does give you

Financial regulation being absent, ordinary consumer law does the work. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires goods sold to a consumer to be of satisfactory quality, as described and fit for purpose, in sections 9 to 11. A short-term right to reject runs for 30 days from delivery, and a coin that is not what the listing said it was — wrong year, wrong fineness, wrong weight — is a straightforward breach.

What does not apply is the distance-selling cancellation right. Regulation 28(1)(a) of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 removes the fourteen-day right to change your mind for goods whose price depends on fluctuations in the financial market outside the trader's control, and bullion is exactly that. Auction purchases are excluded separately by Regulation 28(1)(g). In practice this means an online gold order is binding from the moment the price is locked, which is why reputable sellers state the price fixing time explicitly and why an order should be placed only once the figures have been checked.

Hallmarking and the four assay offices

British hallmarking is the oldest form of consumer protection in the country, and it deliberately does not cover bullion. The Hallmarking Act 1973 excepts bars in Schedule 1 Part II paragraph 7, and current or formerly current coin in paragraph 3. Compulsory marking begins at 1.0 g for gold, 7.78 g for silver, 0.5 g for platinum and 1.0 g for palladium, and it is aimed at articles such as jewellery and silverware rather than at investment metal.

The practical consequence is worth spelling out, because it worries people: a gold bar bears no hallmark, and that is the law working as intended, not a defect or a sign of a counterfeit. What a bar does carry is the refiner's mark, a statement of fineness, a serial number and, for larger pieces, an assay certificate. Four assay offices operate in the United Kingdom — London, Birmingham, Sheffield and Edinburgh — and their marks are what to look for on a piece of jewellery or a silver article being bought for its metal, where a fineness stamp alone is far weaker evidence.

Paying cash and the high value dealer rules

There is no legal ceiling on cash payments in the United Kingdom. The European cash cap taking effect in 2027 does not apply here, and paying a large sum in notes is lawful. What the amount changes is the compliance burden on the seller. Since 30 June 2026 the threshold set by SI 2026/621 is £10,000, replacing the previous euro figure; a dealer who accepts cash at or above it must be registered with HMRC as a high value dealer and must carry out customer due diligence before completing the sale. Expect to show photographic identification and evidence of address.

Structuring does not work. Linked transactions are aggregated, so several payments that together cross the threshold are treated as one, and a pattern of purchases just below the line is itself a reporting trigger under the money laundering rules. Two side notes belong here. The Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013 and its ban on cash payments do not apply to gold and silver at all, by virtue of section 21(7), so the high value dealer regime is the operative one. And in Scotland a second-hand dealer's licence under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 may be required of the seller, which is a licensing matter rather than a limit on the buyer.

Taking metal and money across a border

Two regimes operate inside the same country, and confusing them is easy. Entering or leaving Great Britain, a declaration is required for cash of £10,000 or more, and gold is not caught: the duty covers notes, coins used as currency, bankers' drafts and cheques, not bullion. Metal can therefore be carried without a declaration, though carrying it uninsured is another matter.

Northern Ireland follows a different rule as a consequence of the Windsor Framework. There the threshold is €10,000 and gold is expressly included — coins with a gold content of at least 90 per cent and bars, nuggets or similar of at least 99.5 per cent count towards the total alongside cash. A journey from Belfast that would be unremarkable from Birmingham can therefore trigger a declaration. Anyone moving metal in either direction should keep purchase invoices with it, both for the border and for the eventual capital gains computation. The rules on importing precious metal set out what is covered.

Judging a dealer when nobody names one

No seller is recommended in this guide. These are neutral tests that can be applied to any of them in about ten minutes.

• Companies House. Look up the registered company, its incorporation date, its registered office and whether accounts are filed on time. A trading name with no company behind it, or a filing history full of gaps, is a reason to stop.
• Two-way prices, published. A serious bullion dealer quotes both a selling price and a buy-back price for the same item and does so publicly. A firm that publishes only what it sells at is hiding the number that will matter most on the way out.
• Market-consistent quotes. The offer should sit close to the current metal value. A price noticeably below the spot price is a warning, not a bargain.
• Honest use of LBMA terminology. Good Delivery is a wholesale standard for large bars of roughly 350 to 430 ounces held in the London network; it describes the refiner's accreditation, not a retail product. Treat Good Delivery claims about small coins as marketing.
• A stated buy-back policy. How quickly, on what evidence, and at what discount to spot.
• No advance payment to a personal account, no countdown offers, no unsolicited calls and no price predictions. Delivery should be insured and tracked, with a stated procedure if a parcel goes missing.

Checking that a piece is genuine

Gold is unusually dense and is not attracted to a magnet, and those two properties catch most fakes without any equipment. Common bullion coins are struck to fixed specifications, so if diameter, thickness and weight all match the reference values, the space left for a counterfeit alloy is very small. The magnet test is the crudest check and still worth doing; measured density is the strongest single test a buyer can run at home, because almost no cheap alloy can match gold's mass in the same volume.

The exception is tungsten, whose density is close enough to gold's to defeat a simple weigh-and-measure check, which is why large bars deserve more care than coins: keep the blister sealed, check the serial number against the certificate, and for significant sums use ultrasonic testing or X-ray fluorescence, both non-destructive and widely available. Three tools cover the routine work: the coin authenticity checker compares a piece against stored specifications, while the coin weight checker and the coin size checker handle mass and dimensions separately. A caliper and a jeweller's scale cost very little next to a single ounce.

Buying in instalments rather than timing the market

No forecast appears in this guide, and the reason is not modesty: nobody times this market reliably. The usual way around the problem is to buy in instalments, so that the same monthly sum buys more metal when the price is low and less when it is high. That is pound cost averaging, and a gold savings plan is simply a formalised version of it; a lump sum split into several tranches achieves the same effect without any product wrapper. The savings plan calculator shows how an averaged entry price develops.

For a buyer whose money is sterling, there is a second moving part. Gold is quoted in US dollars, so the sterling price combines the metal move with the pound-dollar rate: a falling dollar gold price can still be a rising price in pounds if sterling weakens at the same time, and the reverse happens just as often. The exchange rates page makes that layer visible, the historical prices put the current level in a long context, and the seasonality view shows how ordinary a given monthly move really is. None of the three is a prediction.

Gold in a pension, but not in an ISA

Two British wrappers are worth knowing about before buying. An ISA cannot hold physical gold: the list of qualifying investments is exhaustive and bullion does not appear on it, so the metal has to be held outside any ISA regardless of the amount involved.

A self-invested personal pension is the exception. Gold bars and wafers of a fineness of at least 995 are permitted investments under SI 2006/1959 Article 2, as HMRC confirms in its pensions manual at PTM125100. Coins do not qualify, however British and however pure, and neither does silver. The metal must be acquired and held through the scheme administrator, not delivered home, which means storage and administration fees. Since gains inside a SIPP are outside capital gains tax anyway, and since a Sovereign or a Britannia is already free of it outside, the pension route mainly suits bar holdings bought with pension money rather than a rearrangement of metal already owned.

Storing what you have bought

Storage is a full subject of its own and is covered in the storage and insurance guide; three points belong here because they influence what is bought. First, home storage usually needs a safe certified to EN 1143-1 or EN 14450 and an explicit conversation with the insurer, because contents policies commonly limit valuables far below the value of even a small holding. Second, bank safe deposit boxes have largely disappeared from the high street, contents are not insured by the bank, and the FSCS does not cover them — its deposit protection applies to account balances only.

Third, professional storage comes in two forms with very different consequences. Allocated metal is held under bailment, so specific bars remain the customer's property, but insurance is generally the customer's responsibility rather than the operator's. Unallocated metal makes the customer an unsecured creditor of the provider, which undoes much of the reason for buying physical gold in the first place. A bonded warehouse is the standard route for larger holdings and for silver, where the VAT treatment matters. Burying metal, which comes up regularly, has legal problems of its own and is treated in the guide on burying precious metals.

Selling again, and the records that decide the price

Selling is the mirror of buying, and two things determine the outcome: liquidity and paperwork. Standard bars and the best-known coins are bought back fastest and at the smallest discount to spot, because the dealer can move them again immediately; unusual formats take longer and cost more. Compare several buy-back quotes rather than one, since dealer buying prices differ far more between firms than selling prices do, and the premium calculator gives a realistic expectation before the first enquiry.

The records are what turn a good sale into a defensible one. Keep the invoice showing the date, the item, the fine weight and the price paid, together with the certificate and the original packaging — sealed blisters raise the buy-back price because they cut the dealer's own testing cost. For tax, the acquisition cost has to be evidenced to compute the gain at all. Report through Self Assessment where the gain exceeds the £3,000 annual exempt amount or where proceeds exceed £50,000 in the tax year, by 31 October on paper or 31 January online, or use the real-time capital gains tax service instead. Losses are worth reporting even when nothing is payable, because that is what carries them forward. The tax estimator runs an individual case, and the full tax guide covers inheritance, gifts and the rest.

In short: in the United Kingdom the coin decides the tax, the unit size decides the premium, and the absence of financial regulation decides how carefully the counterparty has to be checked. Buy investment gold rather than jewellery or collector pieces, know before you pay whether the piece is sterling or metal for capital gains purposes, and keep every document from the first purchase onwards.