Move $250,000 or more and the annual cost of the same metal, in the same vault, ranges from $215 to $2,310 a year depending purely on which published schedule bills your account. Here is that arithmetic in full, from custodian PDFs you can open yourself.
Every guide written for this search tells you which company is best for high-net-worth investors. That framing is wrong, and it is wrong in a way that costs real money. Once your balance clears roughly $150,000, the dealer whose logo is on the brochure has almost no bearing on your annual cost. What decides it is the shape of the custodian and depository schedule your account lands on, and that is a document most buyers never ask to see.
This page models the published schedules of five custodians and one depository at $250,000, $500,000 and $1,000,000, converts everything to basis points so the comparisons are honest, and links every figure to the primary PDF it came from. Nothing here is estimated, averaged, or taken from another affiliate site. Where a number could not be verified from a source document, it is not on this page.
If you are earlier in the process, the full breakdown of gold IRA fees covers the five cost categories generally, and our ranked list of gold IRA companies scores providers on service and reputation as well as cost. This page is the balance-specific layer on top of both.
Three findings do most of the work on this page, and they are worth stating before the arithmetic that supports them.
One: segregation costs more than provider choice. Inside a single custodian, GoldStar Trust, a $1 million position costs $1,890 a year segregated against $215 commingled. Same custodian, same metal, same vault operator. The difference is $1,675 a year, a factor of 8.8, and it is a checkbox on a form.
Two: the same custodian can bill you two completely different schedules. Equity Trust publishes a precious-metals-only fee schedule with a flat $125 annual maintenance fee at any balance, and a retail schedule that charges $2,150 at $1 million. Both are current, both are public, and an account holding nothing but bullion can end up on either one. That is $2,025 a year of pure paperwork, or $40,500 across twenty years at a flat balance.
Three: a well-structured physical gold IRA is astonishingly cheap to run. At $1 million, the cheapest published structures cost 2.2 to 2.9 basis points a year. GLD charges 40. A badly structured physical account costs 23.1 basis points. The gap between good and bad structure inside physical gold is larger than the gap between physical gold and paper gold, which is not what anyone in this category tells you. The one-time dealer markup is a separate and much larger question, and it gets its own section below.
Before you sign anything, ask the custodian for the exact fee schedule your account will be billed on, by form number, and ask what event moves you onto a different one. On a $1 million balance that single question is worth more than every other negotiation combined.
There are only four shapes in this market. Recognising which one you are being quoted tells you almost everything about what happens to your bill as gold appreciates.
A flat fee is a fixed dollar amount that never moves. A percentage fee, usually quoted per $1,000 of metal value, scales linearly forever. A hybrid starts as a flat minimum and switches to a percentage above a stated threshold. A tiered schedule is a step function: the fee holds steady inside a band, then jumps at the boundary, which means a dollar of price appreciation can cost you hundreds.
| SHAPE | PUBLISHED EXAMPLE | AT $250,000 | AT $500,000 | AT $1,000,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flat | Equity Trust precious-metals-only annual maintenance, $125 | $125 | $125 | $125 |
| Percentage | Delaware Depository commingled storage, $0.80 per $1,000 (8 bps), $95 minimum | $200 | $400 | $800 |
| Hybrid | GoldStar segregated storage, $225 minimum then $1.80 per $1,000 above $125,000 (18 bps) | $450 | $900 | $1,800 |
| Tiered | Equity Trust retail annual maintenance, banded by account value | $700 | $1,750 | $2,150 |
Sources: Equity Trust FS-0004-05 Rev. 111425 · Equity Trust FS-0001-03 Rev. 110625 · Delaware Depository election form · GoldStar Trust fee schedule Rev. 12/2025
Read the bottom two rows against the top one. At $250,000 the spread between the cheapest and most expensive line item is $575 a year. At $1 million it is $2,025. The flat row did not move at all. Everything on this page follows from that.
One consequence deserves stating plainly, because it inverts ordinary intuition about fees: on a flat schedule, your cost in basis points falls every year gold appreciates. On a percentage or tiered schedule it holds constant or ratchets upward. A flat structure is therefore a long position on the metal price in fee terms as well, which is exactly the direction a large holder wants.
The comparison between a flat fee and a percentage rate has a single closed-form answer. Call the flat fee F and the annual percentage rate r. The balance at which the two cost the same is:
| THE CROSSOVER FORMULA |
|---|
| B* = F ÷ rBelow B*, the percentage rate is cheaper. Above B*, the flat fee is cheaper, and the advantage compounds as the balance grows. |
Applied to real schedules rather than illustrative ones, the crossovers cluster tightly between $100,000 and $200,000. That clustering is the single most useful fact on this page for anyone rolling over a six-figure balance.
| FLAT OPTION | PERCENTAGE ALTERNATIVE | B* = F ÷ r | AT $500,000 THE FLAT SAVES |
|---|---|---|---|
| Equity Trust non-segregated storage, $110 | Delaware Depository commingled, 8 bps | $137,500 | $290 |
| STRATA Trust commingled storage, $100 | Delaware Depository commingled, 8 bps | $125,000 | $300 |
| GoldStar commingled storage, $125 | Delaware Depository commingled, 8 bps | $156,250 | $275 |
| Equity Trust segregated storage, $160 | Delaware Depository segregated, 16 bps | $100,000 | $640 |
| STRATA Trust segregated storage, $175 | Delaware Depository segregated, 16 bps | $109,375 | $625 |
| A $200 flat storage line | Madison Trust storage, 10 bps | $200,000 | $300 |
Sources: STRATA Trust published fees · Madison Trust fee schedule effective 1 January 2026, plus the schedules cited above.
Every crossover in that table sits below $160,000. If you are reading this page because you have $250,000 or more to move, you are already past all of them. The practical instruction is short: on a large balance, take the flat line every time it is offered, and treat a percentage quote as a question about how much the metal is expected to appreciate. You can run your own numbers against a specific quote with the gold IRA fee calculator.
A great deal of nonsense circulates about depository storage rates. The figure most often repeated for Delaware Depository, 0.50% for commingled and 1.50% for segregated, is wrong by a factor of six to nine, and we corrected it on our own page about gold IRA storage and depositories when we traced it to source. The actual rates appear on the depository election forms custodians hand to clients.
| DELAWARE DEPOSITORY | RATE | ANNUAL MINIMUM | MINIMUM BINDS UP TO | $250K | $500K | $1M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commingled | $0.80 per $1,000 (8 bps) | $95 | $118,750 | $200 | $400 | $800 |
| Segregated | $1.60 per $1,000 (16 bps) | $190 | $118,750 | $400 | $800 | $1,600 |
Source: Precious Metals Depository Election Form, Delaware Depository, which also states a $19.50 per-package outbound handling fee plus postage, registration and insurance, and a 3.75% processing charge if fees are paid by credit card.
Two details in that table repay attention. The first is the $118,750 threshold, which is where both minimums stop binding, because $95 divided by 8 basis points and $190 divided by 16 basis points give the same answer. Below it you pay the minimum; above it you pay the rate. It is the same number for both storage types, which is a neat consequence of the segregated rate being exactly double the commingled one.
The second is that credit card surcharge. On a $1,600 segregated bill at $1 million, paying by card rather than from the IRA adds $60 a year. Small, but it is the kind of line that only shows up on a large balance, and it is on the form.
Note also what the depository does not do: it does not set your custodian's storage line. Some custodians pass the depository rate through directly, in which case you pay basis points. Others buy in bulk and resell you a flat number. That resale is where the largest savings on this page live.
Both arrangements are allocated, meaning you own identified metal rather than a claim on a pool. The choice between them is a cost decision, and the cost of that decision varies by a factor of thirty-three depending on whose schedule you are on. This is not a typo.
| WHO BILLS THE STORAGE | COMMINGLED AT $1M | SEGREGATED AT $1M | COST OF THE UPGRADE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Equity Trust, precious-metals-only schedule | $110 | $160 | $50 |
| STRATA Trust | $100 | $175 | $75 |
| Delaware Depository, billed at its own rates | $800 | $1,600 | $800 |
| GoldStar Trust | $125 | $1,800 | $1,675 |
GoldStar segregated storage is $225 minimum with no maximum, then $1.80 per $1,000 of value above $125,000. At $1,000,000 that is $225 + (875 × $1.80) = $1,800. Source: GoldStar Trust fee schedule, Rev. 12/2025.
The upgrade that costs $50 a year at one custodian costs $1,675 at another. Nothing about the metal or the vault differs. What differs is that Equity Trust and STRATA price segregation as a flat product while GoldStar prices it as a percentage of value with no cap.
So the honest advice on segregated storage at scale is not "always" or "never". It is: decide whether you want segregation, then find a custodian that sells it flat. If your preferred custodian prices it as basis points and you are holding $500,000 or more, you are paying several hundred to nearly two thousand dollars a year for a preference that another custodian would sell you for fifty.
This is the finding we did not expect to make, and it is the most expensive one on the page.
Equity Trust publishes at least two current retail-facing fee schedules. One is titled Precious Metals Fee Schedule (form FS-0004-05, Rev. 111425) and applies to accounts that may hold precious metals only. It charges a flat $125 annual maintenance fee, $50 to set up, and storage at $160 segregated or $110 non-segregated. Those numbers do not change with your balance. Anywhere. The other is the general Fee Schedule (form FS-0001-03, Rev. 110625), whose annual maintenance fee is banded by account asset value across fifteen tiers.
Here is that ladder in full, with the step at each boundary, because the steps are where the damage happens.
| ACCOUNT VALUE | ANNUAL MAINTENANCE | STEP FROM THE TIER BELOW |
|---|---|---|
| $1 to $14,999 | $225 | – |
| $15,000 to $24,999 | $320 | +$95 |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | $350 | +$30 |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | $425 | +$75 |
| $100,000 to $199,999 | $500 | +$75 |
| $200,000 to $299,999 | $700 | +$200 |
| $300,000 to $399,999 | $750 | +$50 |
| $400,000 to $499,999 | $1,075 | +$325 |
| $500,000 to $599,999 | $1,750 | +$675 |
| $600,000 to $699,999 | $1,850 | +$100 |
| $700,000 to $799,999 | $1,950 | +$100 |
| $800,000 to $899,999 | $2,000 | +$50 |
| $900,000 to $999,999 | $2,050 | +$50 |
| $1,000,000 and above | $2,150 | +$100 |
| $2,000,000 and above | $2,250 | +$100 |
Source: Equity Trust Fee Schedule FS-0001-03, Rev. 110625. Compare with the Precious Metals Fee Schedule FS-0004-05, Rev. 111425, which has no tiers at all.
The $675 step at $500,000 is the single sharpest edge published by any custodian we examined. An account valued at $499,999 on the assessment date pays $1,075. The same account at $500,000 pays $1,750. One dollar of gold appreciation, $675 a year. Note that fees on this schedule are stated as effective from January to January and are not prorated, so the assessment date is the number that matters, not the average balance across the year.
Now put the two schedules side by side at $1 million for an account holding nothing but bullion. On the precious-metals-only schedule the maintenance fee is $125. On the retail schedule it is $2,150. The gap is $2,025 a year, which at a flat balance is $40,500 over twenty years, for an account with identical holdings at an identical custodian.
We are not suggesting anyone is misled deliberately. The precious-metals-only schedule carries a restriction in its own footnote: it applies to accounts that may hold only coins allowed under IRC 408(m)(3), and anything held outside that narrow permission is billed under the broader schedule. That restriction is exactly the point. If your gold IRA holds only IRA-eligible bullion, ask in writing which schedule you are on and what would move you off it. Adding a single non-metal asset to a $1 million account could plausibly be a $2,025-a-year decision.
"Which fee schedule will my account be billed under, by form number and revision date, and what would cause it to change?" A custodian that answers that in writing has told you your real cost for the next twenty years. One that will not is telling you something too. The same discipline underpins our ranking methodology: published documents first, marketing claims never.
The table below combines custodian maintenance and storage into a single annual running cost for each published structure, then expresses it in basis points at $1 million so the structures are comparable to each other and to the ETFs further down. It excludes one-time setup charges and per-transaction fees, which are covered separately, and it excludes the dealer markup on the metal, which is not an annual cost at all.
| STRUCTURE (MAINTENANCE + STORAGE) | $250,000 | $500,000 | $1,000,000 | BPS AT $1M |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GoldStar Trust, commingled $90 maintenance + $125 storage | $215 | $215 | $215 | 2.2 |
| STRATA Trust, commingled $125 account + $100 storage | $225 | $225 | $225 | 2.3 |
| Equity Trust metals-only, non-segregated $125 maintenance + $110 storage | $235 | $235 | $235 | 2.4 |
| Equity Trust metals-only, segregated $125 maintenance + $160 storage | $285 | $285 | $285 | 2.9 |
| STRATA Trust, segregated $125 account + $175 storage | $300 | $300 | $300 | 3.0 |
| Madison Trust $139 per quarter ($556) + storage at 10 bps, $100 minimum | $806 | $1,056 | $1,556 | 15.6 |
| GoldStar Trust, segregated $90 + $225 minimum + 18 bps above $125,000 | $540 | $990 | $1,890 | 18.9 |
| Equity Trust retail tier, segregated tiered maintenance + $160 storage | $860 | $1,910 | $2,310 | 23.1 |
| Reference: GLDM at 0.10% | $250 | $500 | $1,000 | 10.0 |
| Reference: IAU at 0.25% | $625 | $1,250 | $2,500 | 25.0 |
| Reference: GLD at 0.40% | $1,000 | $2,000 | $4,000 | 40.0 |
Custodian sources as cited above. ETF expense ratios: GLD 0.40%, IAU 0.25%, GLDM 0.10%. Fee schedules verified July 2026; confirm current terms before funding.
The spread at $1 million runs from $215 to $2,310, a factor of 10.7 and $2,095 a year in cash. At $500,000 the spread is $215 to $1,910. At $250,000 it is $215 to $860. In every case the top five rows are the same number they were at $50,000, because flat is flat.
Two rows deserve a caveat rather than a headline. Madison Trust's structure is dominated by its custodial fee, not its storage: $556 a year regardless of balance, with storage adding 10 basis points on top. Its schedule also charges $30 per quarter for each investment beyond the first, so an account deliberately spread across several distinct metal products may bill more than the table shows. Whether each product counts as a separate asset is a question to put to the custodian in writing before funding, not something to assume in either direction.
Now the comparison the category avoids. A correctly structured $1 million physical gold IRA costs about 2.2 to 2.9 basis points a year to run. GLD charges 40. That makes the annual running cost of the physical account somewhere between one-fourteenth and one-eighteenth of the largest gold ETF, and roughly a quarter of GLDM, the cheapest mainstream one.
That is a genuinely surprising result, and it deserves to be surrounded by the caveat that makes it honest rather than promotional.
The running cost is not the whole cost. A physical position is bought at a premium over spot, and that premium is one-time, immediate and far larger than any annual fee. Our fee breakdown puts common bullion premiums at roughly 3% to 8% and proof or collectible coins at 20% to 40%. On $1 million, a 5% premium is $50,000 leaving the account on day one. No annual comparison survives contact with that number unless you amortise it.
So here is the break-even, computed properly. Assume the 2.2 basis point structure, a $1 million position, and that the metal price moves the same for both sides.
| DEALER PREMIUM PAID | ONE-TIME COST ON $1M | YEARS TO BEAT GLD (40 BPS) | YEARS TO BEAT IAU (25 BPS) | YEARS TO BEAT GLDM (10 BPS) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3% (competitive bullion) | $30,000 | 8 years | 13 years | 38 years |
| 5% (typical bullion) | $50,000 | 13 years | 22 years | 64 years |
| 8% (high-end bullion) | $80,000 | 21 years | 35 years | 103 years |
Break-even = premium in basis points ÷ (ETF expense ratio − 2.2 bps). Ignores the ETF's trading costs and the physical position's buyback spread on exit, which push in opposite directions, and ignores price appreciation, which favours the flat-fee physical account because its cost in basis points falls as the balance rises.
Read that table before quoting anyone the 2.2 basis point figure. Against GLD, a well-negotiated $1 million physical position pays for its premium in roughly eight to thirteen years and is cheaper on all-in cost after that. Against GLDM it effectively never wins on cost alone, so the case for physical at that comparison has to rest on what physical metal is, not on what it costs. And if you pay a collectible premium of 30%, the arithmetic never recovers at any horizon against anything.
The practical lesson for a large balance is unchanged from what we say everywhere on this site: negotiate the premium, then optimise the structure. On $1 million, shaving the premium from 5% to 3% saves $20,000 at purchase, which is ninety-three years of the $215 annual fee. The structure decision is worth $2,095 a year and is permanent. Both matter. The premium matters first.
Required minimum distributions begin at age 73, and on a large traditional gold IRA they are the moment structure meets reality. A $1,000,000 traditional balance produces a first RMD of roughly $37,700, using the Uniform Lifetime Table divisor of 26.5 for age 73 published in IRS Publication 590-B. You cannot satisfy that by handing the IRS a fraction of a bar.
The rule that solves this is aggregation. The IRS states it precisely: "An IRA owner must calculate the RMD separately for each IRA they own but can withdraw the total amount from one or more of the IRAs." That means the RMD attributable to your gold IRA can be taken from a cash or brokerage IRA instead, leaving the metal entirely untouched. The rule does not extend to 401(k) plans, each of which must be satisfied separately.
For a large holder that single sentence is worth real money, because the alternatives both carry costs.
| HOW YOU SATISFY THE RMD | WHAT HAPPENS TO THE METAL | PUBLISHED PER-EVENT COSTS |
|---|---|---|
| From a different IRA (aggregation) | Untouched. No sale, no shipment, no spread paid. | Nothing at the metals custodian. |
| Sell metal inside the IRA, distribute cash | Position shrinks each year. You pay the dealer's bid-side spread every time. | GoldStar: buy, sell or exchange no fee; one-time ACH or check distribution $15; recurring ACH no fee. Equity Trust: precious metals liquidation $10 per asset, maximum $30; wire $30. |
| In-kind distribution of coins or bars | Metal ships to you and is taxable at its value on distribution. | GoldStar: partial distribution in-kind $75, plus $10 and shipping cost. Equity Trust: in-kind distribution or transfer out $50 per transaction. Delaware Depository: $19.50 per package plus postage, registration and insurance. |
Sources: IRS required minimum distributions FAQs, plus the custodian and depository schedules cited above.
Note the ordering. The recurring-versus-one-time distinction at GoldStar is free against $15, so a retiree taking annual distributions should set them up as recurring ACH rather than requesting them one at a time. And the in-kind route, which sounds appealing to someone who wants the coins, is the most expensive of the three at every custodian we checked, before you count the tax on the distributed value.
Miss the deadline and the shortfall attracts an excise tax of 25%, reduced to 10% if corrected within two years. On a $37,700 RMD that is $9,425 or $3,770. A metals position that cannot be liquidated quickly is exactly the kind of holding that produces a missed deadline, which is another argument for satisfying the obligation from a liquid IRA. The tax treatment of the distribution itself is covered on our page on how a gold IRA is taxed.
We went looking for a genuine large-account service tier in this category and did not find one. That is the honest answer, and it is worth stating clearly because a good deal of marketing implies otherwise.
What providers do offer at size are acquisition promotions: first-year or multi-year waivers of custodian and storage fees tied to a qualifying rollover, sometimes with free metal attached. Augusta, Birch Gold Group and American Hartford Gold all run versions of this, and the current terms are summarised in our cost breakdown and in the individual write-ups for Augusta Precious Metals, Birch Gold Group and Goldco. These are real savings and worth taking. They are also marketing: time-limited, conditional, and revocable, and they do not alter the schedule your account reverts to afterwards. A multi-year waiver on a structure that then bills 23 basis points is worth less than no waiver on a structure that bills 2.2.
Note what actually happens to fees at scale in this market. Two of the largest published custodian schedules charge more as your balance grows, not less. There is no volume discount to negotiate because there is, in most cases, no volume pricing to discount from. What a large balance genuinely buys you is different and more useful:
Fee structure is where this page adds something. Position sizing is where a large balance can go wrong in a way no fee schedule will save you from, and it deserves a paragraph rather than a footnote.
Run the implication backwards. If conventional guidance caps precious metals at 5% to 15% of investable assets, a $500,000 metals position implies a total portfolio somewhere between $3.3 million and $10 million. A $1 million position implies $6.7 million to $20 million. If those numbers do not describe your situation, the position is oversized relative to the portfolio and no amount of fee optimisation changes that. We work through the allocation question itself on whether a gold IRA is a good investment.
Beyond allocation, three concentrations are specific to holding a large physical position and are rarely discussed.
Counterparty concentration. A single custodian, a single depository and a single insurance policy sit between you and the metal. Ask for the coverage limit in writing and, critically, whether it applies per account or in aggregate across the vault. An all-risk policy underwritten through Lloyd's is standard and sound, but a limit that is generous against an average account may look different against a seven-figure one.
Liquidity concentration. A $500,000 buyback is not one phone call at spot. The bid-side spread on a large lot is the real exit cost, and it is set by the dealer at the moment you want out, which is often the moment everyone else does too. Getting the buyback commitment documented before funding is worth more at $500,000 than at $50,000 by exactly the ratio you would expect.
Product concentration. Spreading across many distinct products feels prudent and can carry a published cost, as Madison Trust's $30 per quarter additional-asset fee illustrates. Diversification within bullion is mostly cosmetic anyway: an ounce of gold is an ounce of gold. Diversify the custodian relationship if you want redundancy, not the coin catalogue.
On splitting across two custodians: at flat pricing the arithmetic is benign. Two GoldStar commingled accounts cost $430 a year rather than $215, which is 4.3 basis points on $1 million rather than 2.2. Both numbers round to nothing. What you get is a second custodian relationship, potentially a second vault location, and an RMD you can satisfy from either side under the aggregation rule. On tiered or percentage pricing the split can simply duplicate a minimum, so check the schedule before assuming it helps.
Every question below has a dollar value attached on a large balance, and every one can be answered from a document rather than a conversation. Ask them in writing and keep the reply.
Two of those, the schedule by form number and the premium in writing, account for most of the money. If you only ever ask two questions of a provider handling a $250,000-plus rollover, ask those.
There is no best gold IRA company for large balances, because no company sells a large-balance product. There is a best structure, and it is available to anybody who asks for it: a flat custodian maintenance fee, a flat storage line, commingled unless you have a specific reason otherwise, and a dealer premium negotiated in writing before a dollar moves. Get those four right on $1 million and you will run a physical gold position for about $215 a year. Get them wrong and you will pay $2,310 for exactly the same metal in exactly the same vault. Start with our scored provider rankings, then ask each shortlisted company for its custodian's schedule by name.
A flat custodian schedule paired with a flat storage line. Using published 2026 schedules, GoldStar Trust bills $90 annual maintenance plus $125 commingled storage, a total of $215 a year at any balance. Equity Trust's precious-metals-only schedule bills $125 maintenance plus $110 non-segregated storage, or $235. STRATA Trust bills $125 plus $100 commingled, or $225. Each of those stays the same at $500,000 as it is at $50,000. The expensive alternatives at the same balance are Equity Trust's retail tier plus segregated storage at $1,910 a year and GoldStar segregated at $990. The cost gap between the cheapest and most expensive published structure at $500,000 is about $1,695 a year, and it has nothing to do with which dealer sold you the metal.
Divide the flat fee by the percentage rate. That crossover balance is the point above which the flat fee is cheaper. Delaware Depository bills commingled storage at $0.80 per $1,000, or 8 basis points, so a $110 flat non-segregated line matches it at $137,500 and beats it above that. A $175 flat segregated line matches Delaware Depository's 16 basis point segregated rate at $109,375. Against a 10 basis point schedule such as Madison Trust's storage line, a $200 flat fee crosses over at $200,000. Above roughly $150,000 almost every published flat storage line beats almost every published percentage rate, and the gap widens every year gold appreciates.
It depends entirely on whose schedule you are on, which is the point. On Equity Trust's precious-metals-only schedule the upgrade costs $50 a year, $160 segregated against $110 non-segregated, at any balance. At STRATA Trust it costs $75, $175 against $100. Billed directly by Delaware Depository the upgrade costs $800 a year at $1 million, 16 basis points against 8. At GoldStar Trust it costs $1,675 a year, because segregated storage there carries a $225 minimum plus $1.80 per $1,000 of value above $125,000 while commingled storage is a flat $125. Same metal, same vault arrangement, and a spread of $50 to $1,675 depending only on which schedule bills you.
We could not find a single provider publishing a structural large-balance tier, and we looked for one. What exists instead are acquisition promotions: first-year or multi-year fee waivers tied to a qualifying rollover size, sometimes with free metal attached. Those are real money but they are time-limited marketing, they can be withdrawn, and they do not change the schedule your account is billed on once the promotional period ends. Meanwhile two of the largest published custodian schedules move in the opposite direction and charge more as your balance grows. For a large balance the win is not a discount; it is getting onto a flat schedule and staying there.
Yes, if the other account is also an IRA. The IRS states that an IRA owner must calculate the required minimum distribution separately for each IRA they own but can withdraw the total amount from one or more of the IRAs. That aggregation rule matters more for metals than for anything else, because taking the distribution from a cash or brokerage IRA means you never sell bullion, never pay a dealer the bid side of the spread, and never trigger a per-transaction distribution fee at the metals custodian. The rule does not extend to 401(k) plans, which must each be satisfied on their own.
On flat schedules the cost of doing so is small enough that it is worth considering on operational grounds. Two GoldStar commingled accounts cost $430 a year against $215 for one, which is 4.3 basis points on a $1 million position rather than 2.2. What you buy for that is redundancy: two custodians, potentially two depository locations, and two separate service relationships if one becomes unresponsive. The argument reverses on percentage or tiered schedules, where splitting can simply duplicate a minimum. Confirm the insurance coverage limit and whether it applies per account or per vault before assuming a split reduces any real risk.
Still choosing between vault arrangements? Our depository and storage comparison covers insurance, audits and locations in detail.
Delaware Depository storage rates, annual minimums, the $19.50 per-package outbound handling fee and the 3.75% card processing charge: Precious Metals Depository Election Form, Delaware Depository.
GoldStar Trust Company maintenance, commingled and segregated storage, transaction and distribution fees: GoldStar Trust fee schedule, GTC Rev. 12/2025.
Equity Trust Company, both schedules: Precious Metals Fee Schedule, FS-0004-05, Rev. 111425 and Fee Schedule, FS-0001-03, Rev. 110625.
Madison Trust Company custodial, additional-asset and precious metals storage fees: Madison Trust fee schedule, effective 1 January 2026.
STRATA Trust Company annual account fee and precious metals storage: STRATA published fee page.
Required minimum distributions, the aggregation rule quoted above, the age-73 start and the 25% excise tax reduced to 10% on timely correction: IRS retirement plan and IRA required minimum distributions FAQs. Uniform Lifetime Table divisors: IRS Publication 590-B, Appendix B.
Permitted metals and the collectibles carve-out referenced in the Equity Trust precious-metals schedule: Internal Revenue Code section 408(m)(3).
Exchange-traded fund expense ratios: SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), 0.40%, iShares Gold Trust (IAU), 0.25%, SPDR Gold MiniShares (GLDM), 0.10%.
All fee schedules on this page were read directly from the linked source documents and verified July 2026. Custodian and depository pricing changes; confirm the current schedule, by form number, with the custodian before funding. Nothing here is tax or investment advice.
Run your number through the fee calculator, then compare the providers we scored on cost transparency, custody and buyback terms. If you are moving $250,000 or more, ask each one for its custodian's fee schedule by form number.