401k to gold IRA

A 401k to gold IRA rollover is a transfer between two retirement accounts, and taken through the right route it triggers no tax and no penalty at any age. The two ways it goes wrong are both procedural rather than financial, which means both are avoidable if you know what they are before the paperwork starts.

Whether yours can move at all

A 401k held with a former employer can almost always be rolled over, and that covers most people reading this. A plan with your current employer usually cannot move until you separate or reach the plan's in-service withdrawal age, which is commonly 59 and a half but is set by the plan document rather than by the IRS, so the plan administrator is the only reliable source on it.

The same distinction applies to a 403b, a 457 and the federal TSP, while a traditional IRA can move at any time. The eligibility checker works through which of these you have and which route applies.

The two routes, and only one is safe

• Direct trustee-to-trustee transfer. The old plan sends the money straight to the new custodian, you never take possession, nothing is withheld, and there is no limit on how often you can do it.
• Indirect 60-day rollover. The plan pays you and you redeposit the money yourself within 60 days, which sounds equivalent and is not.

An indirect rollover has 20% withheld, and you must replace it from your own pocket.

A 401k paid to you is subject to mandatory 20% federal withholding. To complete the rollover you have to deposit the full original amount, which means finding that 20% from savings and waiting until you file to get it back, and anything you fail to replace is treated as a distribution that year. On a $100,000 balance that is $20,000 you need to have lying around.

Where the tax bill actually comes from

Missing the 60-day deadline turns the entire amount into a taxable distribution, with a 10% early-withdrawal penalty on top if you are under 59 and a half. The deadline runs from the day you receive the funds rather than from the day you asked for them, and a plan that takes two weeks to cut a cheque has spent two weeks of your window.

The second trap is the one-per-12-months limit, which applies to indirect rollovers across all your IRAs combined rather than per account. Direct transfers are exempt from it entirely, which is the practical reason to use one even when the indirect route looks simpler.

The sequence that works

1. Open the self-directed IRA with the custodian first, because the receiving account has to exist before the old plan can send anything to it.
2. Ask the custodian for its transfer paperwork and give the old plan the receiving account details, so the money moves trustee to trustee and never touches you.
3. Wait for the cash to land in the new account, which usually takes one to three weeks depending on how the old plan sends it.
4. Only then choose the metal, because a dealer pricing coins for you before the funds have arrived has an incentive to keep the conversation moving.

Step four is where the cost is decided rather than in the transfer, so it is worth pricing with the premium calculator before agreeing to anything. The account charges themselves are set out on the fees page, checked on April 17, 2026.