Federal retirement is assembled from three pieces, and only one of them is an account with a balance you can reallocate. That turns a gold IRA for federal employees into a sizing problem rather than a rollover problem: what share of the Thrift Savings Plan, if any, belongs in metal once an annuity and Social Security are already carrying the income. We ran that question against the plan's published expense ratios, OPM's own indexing formula, and our verified provider minimums.
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For most federal careers the defensible range runs from nothing to about a tenth of the plan account, and the reason is structural rather than bearish. Two of your three retirement legs are government-backed income you cannot reallocate, so the share of your wealth exposed to markets is already smaller than a private-sector saver's.
OPM describes the system in one line: FERS provides benefits from three different sources, a Basic Benefit Plan, Social Security and the Thrift Savings Plan. Two of the three follow you to another employer if you leave government before retiring. The Basic Benefit and Social Security are funded by payroll deductions matched by your agency, and after you retire they pay monthly for life.
Read that structurally. Only the third leg is a pot of money with a balance and an allocation; the other two are promises with a payment calendar. So when a salesperson asks what share of your retirement ought to sit in gold, the only leg they can reach holds a minority of your lifetime benefit, and they will quote the percentage against that leg rather than the whole structure. Ten percent of the plan account is not ten percent of a federal retirement.
Here is the part almost nobody puts in front of a federal reader, because it undercuts the sales pitch and the anti-gold pitch in equal measure. Under the formula OPM publishes in its CSRS and FERS handbook, a FERS increase matches the CPI-W rise when that rise is up to 2.0 percent, sits at a flat 2.0 percent when the rise falls between 2.0 and 3.0 percent, and equals the CPI-W rise minus one full percentage point whenever inflation runs above 3.0 percent. The same chapter states these increases generally do not reach annuitants under age 62, with carve-outs including law enforcement officers, firefighters and air traffic controllers.
So a year of seven percent CPI-W lifts the annuity six percent. One point, compounding, on the leg you cannot reallocate, starting only at 62 for most people. Notice the shape of that exposure. It is not a currency collapsing. It is a slow haircut in hot years on one leg of three, and it argues for a small hedge sized to a small gap.
Every comparison prices the fee against the money moved. That is the wrong denominator for someone with a target allocation, because a disciplined federal saver does not move the balance, they move a carve-out of it. The plan reported a 2025 total expense ratio of 0.034 percent for the G Fund, which it expresses as 34 cents per $1,000, and says its expenses run lower than 99 percent of investment options. Metals administration is billed in whole dollars, so the smaller the carve-out, the harder the comparison bites.
Two published schedules anchor the range. American Hartford Gold quotes roughly $180 a year all-in, including a management component near $75 on accounts at or under $100,000. Birch Gold Group publishes $50 setup, $30 wire, $110 storage and insurance and $125 management, roughly $265 a year, first year waived on qualifying rollovers of $50,000 or more. The table splits the difference at $225.
| PLAN ACCOUNT BALANCE | A FIVE PERCENT CARVE-OUT | $225 A YEAR AS A SHARE OF THAT CARVE-OUT | FIRMS WHOSE MINIMUM IT CLEARS | SAME SUM LEFT IN THE G FUND AT 0.034% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $100,000 | $5,000 | 4.50% | 1 of 10, Orion at roughly $5,000 | ~$1.70 |
| $200,000 | $10,000 | 2.25% | 5 of 10, adding Birch, American Hartford Gold, American Bullion, Lear | ~$3.40 |
| $400,000 | $20,000 | 1.13% | 5 of 10, still short of the $25,000 tier | ~$6.80 |
| $500,000 | $25,000 | 0.90% | 9 of 10, adding Goldco, Advantage Gold, Patriot | ~$8.50 |
| $1,000,000 | $50,000 | 0.45% | 10 of 10, Augusta included | ~$17.00 |
Arithmetic on published figures, not quotes. G Fund total expense ratio of 0.034 percent as reported by tsp.gov for 2025. Minimums and annual charges come from published company material, verified Jun 2026; confirm current pricing before funding. Full schedules sit on our gold IRA fees page and the comparison chart.
Two conclusions cut against the usual advice. Fee drag only becomes tolerable as the carve-out grows, so the federal employee best placed to hold bullion is the one with a large plan balance and a modest percentage, not the one with a modest balance talked into going big. And minimums are doing your allocation work without asking: at $200,000 a five percent carve-out is $10,000 and half the field takes it, while at $100,000 it is $5,000 and one firm does. Below a certain balance the industry's answer to a disciplined five percent is an invitation to make it ten.
None of that is the largest number anyway. Our fee research puts dealer markup near five percent on low-premium bullion and near thirty percent on proof and collectible coins, and the CFTC states numismatic premiums can run from 40 to 200 percent above spot. On a $20,000 carve-out the gap between those two product choices exceeds a decade of administration, and it is paid on the first afternoon.
Federal employees own something no other investor in the country can buy, and it is routinely left out of the comparison. Since both get pitched with the same adjective, the honest test is what each removes and what each leaves behind.
| THE QUESTION | G FUND | BULLION HELD IN AN IRA |
|---|---|---|
| What it holds | Nonmarketable Treasury securities issued specially to the plan, as the law requires | Coins or bars of set weight and purity, titled to the account, at a depository |
| Can the value fall | No. The plan states the value does not fluctuate and only the rate changes | Yes, daily, with no floor and no schedule for recovery |
| Any issuer that could default | No credit risk, in the plan's phrasing, because payment is federally guaranteed | No issuer at all, which is the point of owning it |
| Does it protect purchasing power | Not necessarily. The plan warns it may not grow enough to offset inflation | No promise either way. A price, not an index, and it can lag for years |
| What it pays you to wait | A long-term Treasury rate on short-term securities, set monthly from a weighted average of roughly 202 issues | Nothing, and a charge on top |
| Annual cost | 0.034 percent for 2025, about 34 cents per $1,000 | Roughly $180 to $265 on our two verifiable schedules, whatever the balance |
G Fund characteristics and the 2025 expense ratio from tsp.gov, G Fund. Provider annual figures from published company material, verified Jun 2026, confirm current pricing.
Set out that way the trade is legible without anybody raising their voice. Moving a carve-out from the G Fund into metal swaps a guaranteed nominal value and a modest yield for an asset with no counterparty and no promise. That is not an upgrade in safety, it is an exchange of one failure mode for another. The G Fund fails quietly across a decade of high inflation and low rates; bullion fails loudly in a stretch where the price keeps falling while the annual charge runs on. Which is an argument for a little of both, and a reason to be sceptical of anyone calling the G Fund an illusion. Our wider take sits on the pros and cons page.
The mechanics are settled elsewhere and we will not restage them. Which payments the plan classes as rollable, how to file inside My Account and what gets withheld are laid out in full on our TSP to gold IRA guide. This page assumes you have cleared that gate and asks only how much to send through it.
What matters for planning is that the two openings behave differently. Still serving and past 59 and a half, the age-based route lets you assemble a position in stages rather than settle it in one afternoon, which suits an allocation you mean to hold near five percent while the rest compounds around it. Staging also spreads your purchase price across several dates instead of betting the carve-out on one settlement day.
After separation the whole balance becomes reachable at once, and that is exactly when the sizing question gets answered badly. The constraint that used to size the position for you has gone, and the phone calls start. Leaving the money alone costs nothing and forecloses nothing: the plan lets you keep the account on a vested balance of $200 or more, so a partial move is available and a total one is never forced.
Our warning signs page catalogues the tactics across the industry and the enforcement record behind them. What belongs here is the federal-specific version, because civil servants are not caught up in this by accident. They are a list: predictable employer, single plan, a balance a stranger can estimate from grade and years of service.
A useful reflex: nothing in a federal retirement expires this week. The annuity formula does not change on a phone call and neither does the plan menu.
It turns far more on the size of the slice than the size of the plan. Metals administration is billed in dollars while the Thrift Savings Plan bills in basis points, so a flat charge near $225 a year lands on a five percent carve-out from a $200,000 balance as roughly 2.25 percent annually. The same sum left in the G Fund cost about $3.40 at the 2025 total expense ratio of 0.034 percent. Under roughly $400,000, a disciplined five percent allocation pays over one percent a year in administration, and dealer minimums may refuse it anyway. Fees verified Jun 2026, confirm current pricing.
We will not hand you a number, because nobody honest can without seeing your household. What we can do is describe the exposure you are covering. Under FERS the basic annuity is indexed, but OPM's handbook caps it: above a three percent CPI-W rise the increase is that rise minus one full percentage point, and adjustments generally do not begin before age 62. That is a narrow, slow erosion on one leg of three. Five to ten percent is proportionate to it; moving the whole balance is not.
They are safe against different things, and the plan is candid about it. G Fund holdings are nonmarketable Treasury issues created for the plan, principal and interest are federally guaranteed, and tsp.gov states the value does not fluctuate, only the interest rate changes. The same page warns the fund may not grow enough to offset the reduction in purchasing power inflation causes. So it removes price and credit risk and leaves inflation risk standing. Metal has no issuer to default, no yield, and a daily price that can fall for years.
No. OPM describes FERS as three separate sources of benefit, a Basic Benefit Plan, Social Security and the Thrift Savings Plan, funded and administered independently. Your annuity comes from service and salary history, your Social Security benefit from your earnings record, and neither depends on what the plan account holds. The consequences of a partial move sit inside that account: taxes, penalty exceptions tied to separation age, and the fee schedule you take on.
Treat it as answered before you ask. tsp.gov states the plan will never contact you about investment opportunities, does not authorize third parties to counsel you on investment choices, and assigns the terms TSP Advisor and TSP Counselor to no individual or group. Anyone using those titles has described themselves accurately. The CFTC adds that metals dealers, including self-described IRA experts, are frequently unlicensed to give investment advice and are typically salespeople earning commission on what they sell.
Related reading: the TSP eligibility and filing mechanics, our guide to dealer minimums, the full cost stack, and the provider rankings.
Plan characteristics and expense ratios come from tsp.gov. Retirement structure and the indexing formula come from OPM. Fraud patterns come from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Company minimums and annual charges are taken from published company material and were verified Jun 2026; confirm current terms with each provider before funding.
Research, not advice. Allocation decisions interact with your annuity election, survivor benefit and tax position in ways no article can model; speak to a licensed adviser who has seen the whole picture.
Our free kit carries the verified minimum and fee comparison behind this page. Shortlist from the provider rankings once you know your number.