What your fee total is telling you
The panel totals the charges over the years you set and shows the cost drag, which is that total as a share of the amount you moved. Here is what each level of drag means for the account.
- Under 5% A cheap account for the size
- The charges are flat, so a drag this low usually means the balance is large enough to absorb them rather than that the custodian is unusually cheap. It is the position most readers should be aiming to reach, because from here the fee question stops being the one that decides the outcome.
- 5% to 10% Around the middle of what we priced
- Over a ten-year hold, the median across the 12 custodians in our database is 8.3% on a $50,000 transfer and 4.3% on a $100,000 one, so a drag in this band usually points to a balance nearer the smaller figure. Worth comparing against the cheapest of your picks, since the gap between the cheapest and the dearest for the same account is frequently larger than the difference any single line item makes.
- 10% to 20% High enough to change the decision
- At this level the fees are taking a share of the position comparable to a bad year in the metal, which is a real cost rather than an administrative detail. The two things that move it are the balance and the choice of custodian, and the second one is the one you can change today.
- Above 20% The account is too small for the fee structure
- Flat charges on a small balance produce a drag that no allocation decision can compensate for. Either size the account so the same charges become a smaller share of it, or price the custodians with the lowest minimums in our database before opening anything.
What does a gold IRA actually cost to run?
A gold IRA carries five charges, and they come from two different companies. The custodian holds the account and bills a one-off setup fee, an annual administration fee and the depository's storage charge. The dealer sells you the metal and bills a markup over the spot price, which is folded into the purchase rather than invoiced separately. A wire fee sits on top of both.
The split matters because the quote you are given usually comes from one of those two companies. A dealer can tell you their pricing honestly and completely and still leave out roughly half of what the account costs you every year, since administration and storage are not theirs to charge. The reverse is also true of a custodian's fee schedule, which says nothing about the markup you will pay on the metal itself.
Across the twelve custodians we priced in April 2026, a $100,000 transfer held ten years runs between roughly $2,700 and $10,600 in setup, administration, storage and wire fees. The dealer markup comes on top of that, and because it is a percentage of the whole transfer while everything else is a flat annual figure, every percentage point of it adds $1,000 at that size.
Are gold IRA fees worth paying?
Yes, above a certain balance, and the arithmetic is what decides where that line falls rather than anybody's opinion of it. A gold IRA charges flat dollar amounts, so the median of about $360 a year in administration and storage takes 2.4% of a $15,000 account and 0.3% of a $120,000 one. Nothing about the service differs between those two accounts, which means the fee question is mostly a question about size.
Compare that against what a conventional retirement portfolio pays. A total market index fund charges around 0.03% a year and an actively managed fund often charges 0.60%, so a $120,000 gold IRA at 0.3% sits between the two. That is a real cost and it is not the outlier the headline dollar figures make it sound, provided the account is large enough to spread the flat charges across.
What the charges buy is the part that has no equivalent in a brokerage account. Section 408(m) requires IRA bullion to sit with a bank or an approved non-bank trustee, so somebody has to custody the account, somebody has to store insured metal in a depository, and both of those are real services with real costs. The 12 custodians in our database charge $125 to $495 a year for administration and $90 to $290 for storage, and the spread between the cheapest and the dearest is wider than most people expect.
The one charge that can outweigh all of them is the dealer markup on the metal itself, because it is paid once on the entire amount rather than annually on the account. On a $100,000 transfer every percentage point of markup is $1,000 before a single annual fee is charged, which is why the dealer's quote deserves the same scrutiny as the custodian's fee schedule and why this calculator takes the markup you were quoted.
How to use the gold IRA fee calculator
Six inputs, counting the markup field that opens when you compare dealers, and the order below is the one that gets you to a usable number fastest.
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Type in the amount you are actually moving
Use the balance that will land in the new account rather than your whole retirement position, because storage and the dealer markup are both charged on the metal you end up holding and not on the money you left where it was.
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Set the holding period to something honest
The default is ten years. A gold IRA opened at 55 and held to 73 carries eighteen years of administration and storage, and stretching the slider out that far is usually the moment the annual charges stop looking small next to the setup fee.
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Choose segregated or commingled storage
Segregated means your specific coins sit in their own space and come back to you as the same coins. Across the twelve custodians we priced it costs between $25 and $165 a year more than commingled, and the calculator prices whichever one you pick rather than assuming the cheaper.
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Compare providers rather than reading one in isolation
Add two or three names and the results table sorts them by ten-year total. The order changes with the balance you entered, since a $295 flat administration fee is punishing on $30,000 and close to irrelevant on $400,000.
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Read the split before you read the total
The stacked bar under the total shows which charge is doing the damage, and once you enter the markup you were quoted under Dealers, that line can outweigh anything the custodian bills, even though the custodian is the one who sends you an invoice.
What each input means, and where to find the number
Two of these you already know. Three more sit on a fee schedule or a statement, and the markup comes from the dealer's written quote. The line under each one says which document to go and find.
- Transfer amount
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The balance moving into the gold IRA. It drives the dealer markup directly, since that is charged as a percentage, and it decides which tier you land in at the custodians who scale their administration fee by account size.
Where to find it The current balance on your most recent 401(k) or IRA statement, or the figure the plan administrator quotes when you ask for a distribution estimate.
- Years held
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How long the account stays open. Setup is paid once and the markup is paid at purchase, but administration and storage repeat every year, so the holding period is what decides whether a low setup fee was worth anything.
Where to find it Work back from when you expect to start drawing on it. Required minimum distributions begin at 73 for anyone born between 1951 and 1959, and at 75 for anyone born in 1960 or later.
- Storage type
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Segregated storage holds your coins separately and returns those same coins. Commingled storage pools identical products and returns equivalent ones. Both sit in an IRS-approved depository, and the difference in what comes back to you matters most if you bought something with numismatic value, which inside an IRA you generally should not have.
Where to find it The custodian's fee schedule lists both, usually as two lines on the same page. Where only one figure is published it is almost always commingled.
- Provider
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Which custodian or dealer to price. Custodians bill administration and storage, while dealers bill the markup over spot and sometimes a setup fee of their own, so the two sets of charges land on the same account from two different companies.
Where to find it Our fee database carries every figure a source gives for each of the twenty-four, with that source and the date it was checked. Most figures come from named third-party reporting or a depository default rather than the company's own page, because many schedules are not published or could not be read.
- Wire transfers per year
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Each outgoing wire runs $0 to $35 across the custodians we priced. One a year is the default, which covers a single purchase or a single distribution, and it is the smallest line in the total by a wide margin.
Where to find it The custodian's miscellaneous fee schedule, usually on the same page as administration.
- Markup you were quoted
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The percentage over spot a dealer quoted on your order, entered when you compare dealers. It is applied once to the transfer amount, and the same figure is applied to every dealer you pick, so the dealer totals differ only by their fees. On a $100,000 transfer, each percentage point is $1,000.
Where to find it The dealer's written quote. The CFTC's advisory on physical metals tells buyers to get every fee, commission and the agreed price in writing before signing, so ask for the markup in writing before the account funds.
How the total is calculated
The arithmetic is deliberately plain, because a fee projection that models growth, inflation and rebalancing is making up four numbers to refine one.
The calculator adds five charges and projects them across the years you set. Setup is applied once. Administration and storage are multiplied by the holding period, using the tier that matches your balance where the custodian scales them. The dealer markup is the figure you enter, applied once as a percentage of the transfer and only when comparing dealers, and the wire fee is multiplied by the number of transfers a year you set. Where our database has no figure for a charge, that charge is left out of the total and the omission is named in the results rather than estimated.
total = setup + (admin × years) + (storage × years) + (wires × fee × years) + (amount × spread)
- setup
- One-off account-opening charge, from the published schedule where there is one and from third-party reporting or an industry-norm estimate otherwise
- admin
- Annual custodian administration, at the tier matching your balance
- storage
- Annual depository charge, segregated or commingled as selected
- spread
- The markup you were quoted over spot, as a decimal, applied to the transfer amount for dealers only
- years
- Holding period you set on the slider
What this total leaves out
- The sell-side spread, since a dealer buying metal back bids below spot and that second half of the round trip is not in this figure.
- Anything a company has not published. A provider that discloses less will look cheaper here than it is, and the results name every field left blank for that reason.
- Investment return of any kind, because this prices what the account costs rather than what the metal inside it does.
- Tax, since the figures are gross costs against a tax-deferred balance rather than an after-tax position.
- Termination and in-kind distribution charges, which several custodians bill on the way out and only two publish.
Three rollovers, priced end to end
Each of these ran through the calculator above at the settings shown with the markup left at zero, and the result is the median across the twelve custodians we priced.
Dennis, 58, former-employer 401(k)
Left his employer two years ago and has $50,000 sitting in the old plan. He expects to hold the gold IRA for fifteen years and wants his own coins back at the end of it.
- Amount
- $50,000
- Years
- 15
- Storage
- Segregated
About $7,600 in fees over fifteen years at the median custodian, which is 15% of what he moved.
Every percentage point of markup he is quoted adds another $500, charged before a single annual fee lands. At this balance the flat administration fee is the biggest yearly line, because the median of $257 a year on $50,000 is a 0.5% drag that never falls.
Marguerite, 66, rolling a large IRA
Moving $250,000 out of a traditional IRA and expects to hold it for ten years before drawing on it, and is happy with commingled storage.
- Amount
- $250,000
- Years
- 10
- Storage
- Commingled
About $4,300 in fees over ten years at the median custodian, which is 1.7% of the transfer.
Her percentage cost is about a ninth of Dennis's, because the flat charges spread across five times the balance. At her size every percentage point of markup is $2,500, more than half of what the median custodian charges her over the whole ten years, so the dealer's quote deserves as much attention as the fee schedule.
Ray, 71, testing a small transfer
Wants to move $15,000 as a trial before committing more, and has been offered a first year with the fees waived.
- Amount
- $15,000
- Years
- 10
- Storage
- Commingled
About $3,900 in fees over ten years at the median custodian, which is 26% of the transfer.
The waived first year saves him around $400 against a ten-year bill that takes a quarter of the account, and eight of the twelve dealers we priced set a minimum above $15,000 anyway. A small trial transfer is the size at which flat fees do the most damage.
What gold IRA fees normally run
The first three figures come from our own fee database, where each entry carries its source and the date it was checked. The fourth is arithmetic on a $100,000 transfer.
- $0 to $595 Setup, 12 custodians
The one-off account-opening charge. The median is $50, and the only one above $300 is a $595 setup charge, so a quoted setup fee well past the median is worth asking what it includes.
- $125 to $495 Annual administration
Billed by the custodian every year for as long as the account is open. The median is $257, and this is the line that compounds against a small balance.
- $90 to $290 Annual storage
Charged by the depository and passed through. Commingled runs $90 to $150 and segregated runs $115 to $290, both flat rather than as a percentage at most of the providers we priced.
- $1,000 a point Dealer markup on $100,000
Most dealers quote the markup per order rather than publishing it, so our database carries no markup figure for any of the twelve we priced. Every percentage point on a $100,000 transfer is $1,000, paid once at purchase, so ask for the quote in writing and enter it in the calculator above.
What people get wrong about gold IRA fees
These four come up on nearly every sales call, and each one is the kind of mistake that costs four figures rather than an apology.
Is the dealer's fee sheet the whole cost of a gold IRA?
No, it is roughly half of it. A dealer bills the markup and sometimes a setup charge. The custodian bills administration and storage, and the depository bills through the custodian, so a dealer's quote can be complete and honest and still leave out about half of what the account costs you every year.
Is a flat annual fee cheaper than a percentage fee?
It depends entirely on the balance, and the crossover is nearer than most people expect. A $295 flat fee is cheaper than a 0.25% scaled fee above $118,000 and more expensive below it, so the same two schedules swap places on either side of that line.
Does a waived first year make an account cheap?
No, because a waived first year is worth $257 at the median, which on a ten-year hold is roughly a tenth of what administration alone will cost. One percentage point of markup on a $100,000 transfer is $1,000, more than three waived years, so ask for the markup in writing alongside the waiver and weigh the two together.
Is the dealer markup really a one-time cost?
No, you pay a version of it twice. It is charged once on the way in and again on the way out, because a dealer buying your metal back bids below spot in the same way they sold above it. That round trip is the real number, and a calculator that prices only the purchase side understates it.
Gold IRA fee questions
What is a normal total cost for a gold IRA?
On a $100,000 transfer held ten years, the twelve custodians we priced come out between roughly $2,700 and $10,600 in setup, administration, storage and wire fees, with the median at about $4,300. The dealer markup on the metal is charged on top of that as a single sum at purchase, and since most dealers quote it per order rather than publishing it, the calculator above adds the figure you were quoted at $1,000 for every percentage point on that transfer.
Why is the dealer markup so much bigger than the fees?
Because it is a percentage of the whole purchase and everything else is a flat annual charge. On a $100,000 rollover every percentage point of markup is $1,000, paid on day one, against administration fees measured in hundreds a year. Most dealers quote the markup per order rather than publishing it, so enter the figure you were quoted above and ask for it in writing before the account funds.
How are gold IRA fees actually paid?
Two ways, and the custodian decides which by default. Most will take them from the cash balance in the IRA if you leave one there, and will invoice you directly if you do not. Paying from outside the account leaves more metal inside it, though the payment is not a contribution and does not create a deduction, so ask the custodian which they default to before the first invoice lands.
Is segregated storage worth the extra cost?
No, not for most bullion positions. Segregated costs $25 to $165 a year more across the twelve custodians we priced, and what it buys is the return of your specific coins rather than equivalent ones. Inside an IRA that mostly matters if you hold something with collector value above its metal content, which is a category the IRS rules already push you away from, so commingled is the reasonable default for most bullion positions.
Are gold IRA fees tax deductible?
No, gold IRA fees are not deductible under current rules. Administration fees billed separately and paid from outside the IRA were deductible as a miscellaneous itemised deduction before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act suspended that category through 2025. Fees paid from inside the account have never been deductible, because the money was pre-tax to begin with. Ask a preparer about your own filing rather than treating this as settled.
Which is cheaper, a custodian or a dealer?
They are not alternatives. A gold IRA needs a custodian to hold the account and a dealer to sell it metal, so you pay both, and the two sets of charges appear on the same account from two different companies. The comparison worth running is one custodian against another and one dealer against another, which is what the provider selector above does.