Ask a specialist dealer whether a big brokerage can hold bullion and you tend to get a shrug. The accurate answer is that a Fidelity gold IRA exists in substance if not in name: an ordinary Fidelity IRA is permitted to hold five categories of physical metal, bought through an unaffiliated bullion firm, at rates the brokerage publishes down to the last basis point. That transparency is the story here, and so is the one line in the schedule that quietly changes the answer for larger balances.
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Yes, with the boundaries drawn tightly. A Fidelity IRA may hold Gold American Eagles, the one ounce Gold American Buffalo, one ounce Silver and Platinum American Eagles, and bullion quality bars. The minimum metals purchase is $1,000 in an IRA against $2,500 elsewhere. Buying costs between 0.99% and 2.90% depending on size, storage runs 0.125% of value every quarter, and Fidelity's other retirement accounts are shut out entirely.
Most people who search "gold IRA Fidelity" are trying to settle an argument with a salesperson. One side insists a mainstream brokerage cannot touch physical metal, because the tax code bans collectibles from retirement accounts. The other side has read the fee schedule. The second side is right, and the reason is a statutory carve-out: IRS Publication 590-A states the collectibles prohibition and then the exception for qualifying coins and bullion, and Fidelity's own learning material draws the same boundary.
What Fidelity does with that exception is narrower than the exception allows. Its published list of metals permitted in an IRA runs to five entries: the Gold American Eagle in one ounce, half ounce, quarter ounce and tenth ounce, the one ounce Gold American Buffalo, the one ounce Silver American Eagle, the one ounce Platinum American Eagle, and bullion quality bars. Note the absences. No palladium appears on that IRA list even though the statute reaches palladium bullion, and no foreign sovereign coin does either.
Two further restrictions sit in the fee schedule rather than the marketing pages. Metals may not be purchased in a Fidelity Retirement Plan, meaning a Keogh, and Fidelity states that they are generally not eligible in its other retirement accounts. The route is an IRA or nothing. Money sitting in a workplace plan has to move into a Fidelity IRA first, exactly as it would have to move into a self-directed IRA on the dealer route.
The third party deserves a paragraph, because buyers assume the metal sits in a Fidelity vault. It does not. Fidelity describes FideliTrade Incorporated as an independent Delaware-based corporation providing buying, selling, delivery, safekeeping and custody services, and states it is not affiliated with Fidelity Investments. Its customer service material also names ScotiaMocatta among the intermediaries transacting in the metals marketplace. On insurance, Fidelity cites $1 billion of all-risk cover at Lloyd's of London for bullion in FideliTrade's high-security vaults plus $300 million in contingent vault coverage. Serious, clearly disclosed, and structurally the same shape as the dealer model: a brand you know, a metals firm you have not heard of doing the actual work.
Here is the part that genuinely favours the brokerage, and we would rather say it than bury it. Fidelity prints its buying spread. Almost no gold IRA dealer does. You can price the whole cost of acquiring metal before speaking to anybody, in an industry where the markup is usually discovered on the confirmation.
| TRANSACTION SIZE (GROSS) | CHARGED TO BUY | CHARGED TO SELL | WHAT THAT IS IN DOLLARS, BUYING | WHERE THE STEP MATTERS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 (IRA minimum) | 2.90% | 2.00% | $44, because the floor bites | The percentage would be $29, but a $44 minimum applies to any metals transaction, so the true cost is 4.4%. |
| $9,999 | 2.90% | 2.00% | $290 | The most expensive full tier. One extra dollar of order size moves you down a bracket. |
| $10,000 to $49,999 | 2.50% | 2.00% | $250 at $10,000, $1,250 at $50,000 | Where most retail orders land. Selling is still charged at the top 2.00% rate through this whole band. |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 1.98% | 1.00% | $990 at $50,000, $1,980 at $99,999 | The sell rate halves here. The buy rate barely moves, so the band is worth less than it looks going in. |
| $100,000 and above | 0.99% | 1.00% to $249,999, then 0.75% | $990 at $100,000 | The sharpest cliff on the sheet. A $99,999 purchase costs $1,980 to execute; a $100,000 purchase costs $990. Splitting an order across that line the wrong way is a $990 mistake. |
Source: Fidelity Brokerage Commission and Fee Schedule, precious metals section, read on fidelity.com 12 August 2026. Dollar conversions in columns four and five are our arithmetic on the published percentages, not Fidelity quotes. Confirm current pricing with Fidelity at the number given in that schedule before trading.
Everything above is a one-off. The recurring charge decides whether this route is cheap or expensive for you, and it runs on a different principle from the rest of the market. Fidelity bills storage quarterly at 0.125% of total value or $3.75, whichever is greater, pre-billed on the marketplace value at the time of billing. Four quarters of 0.125% is 0.5% of your position a year, recalculated as the gold price moves.
Compare that with a dealer-run account. Almost every provider we cover charges flat dollars: Birch Gold Group publishes $110 for storage and insurance plus $125 for administration, and the field sits between $150 and $300 a year all in, whatever your balance. Flat pricing punishes small accounts and rewards large ones. Percentage pricing does the reverse: somebody holding $8,000 of metal pays $40 a year at Fidelity and around six times that at a dealer.
| VALUE OF METAL HELD | FIDELITY STORAGE, PER YEAR | TYPICAL DEALER FLAT SCHEDULE | WHICH IS CHEAPER |
|---|---|---|---|
| $2,000 | $15 (the $3.75 quarterly floor applies) | ~$235 | Fidelity, by a factor of fifteen |
| $10,000 | $50 | ~$235 | Fidelity, comfortably |
| $25,000 | $125 | ~$235 | Fidelity |
| ~$47,000 | ~$235 | ~$235 | The crossover. Above this line the flat schedule wins. |
| $100,000 | $500 | ~$235 | Dealer, by roughly $265 a year |
| $250,000 | $1,250 | ~$235 | Dealer, by more than $1,000 a year |
Fidelity column is our annualisation of the published 0.125% quarterly rate and $3.75 quarterly minimum. Dealer column uses the recurring annual figure verified on our Birch Gold Group fee page, which is representative of the flat schedules across the ten providers we track. Fees verified Jun 2026, confirm current pricing. Model the same question against a specific provider with our gold IRA fee calculator.
A second-order effect matters more than the crossover point itself. Because the fee is levied on market value, a rising gold price lifts your annual bill in lockstep. Buy $60,000 of Eagles, watch the metal double, and storage doubles from $300 to $600 for the same coins in the same vault. A flat schedule is unmoved. Anyone who holds bullion precisely because they expect the price to run should cost this over the whole holding period, not the first year. Our breakdown of gold IRA fees runs the same arithmetic on the dealer side.
Plenty of people arrive here wanting protection against a falling dollar rather than bars with their name on them. If that describes you, the physical route is an expensive way to buy something the same account sells for nothing. Fidelity's published commission for US stocks and exchange traded funds is $0.00 per online trade, against $12.95 by automated phone and $32.95 with a representative. Gold-backed exchange traded products, mining equities and precious metals mutual funds all sit inside that bracket, and none of them carries a storage charge, only the fund's own expense ratio.
One tax point circulates in a mangled form and is worth fixing. Fidelity's learning centre notes that investors selling shares in commodity funds holding physical gold or silver may be taxed at the 28% collectibles rate. True, and a real drag in a taxable brokerage account. It is also irrelevant inside a traditional IRA, where withdrawals are ordinary income whatever the account held, and inside a Roth, where qualified withdrawals are untaxed. Anyone citing 28% to argue you must own physical metal in a retirement account has it backwards.
What a fund cannot give you is a claim on identified metal in an identified vault, redeemable in bars. That distinction is not small to the people who want it, and it is the only honest reason to pay 2.50% plus a storage percentage instead of nothing. If you are unsure which camp you are in, read our comparison of a gold IRA against physical gold first.
| WHAT YOU ARE COMPARING | FIDELITY IRA | DEALER-RUN GOLD IRA | THE PRACTICAL DIFFERENCE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry gate | $1,000 metals purchase | ~$5,000 to ~$50,000 depending on provider | Fidelity is reachable by savers no dealer will take. See our minimum investment comparison. |
| Cost of acquiring metal | 0.99% to 2.90%, published in advance | Dealer markup, rarely published | The single strongest point in Fidelity's favour. You can price the trade before you place it. |
| Annual storage | 0.5% of value a year, $15 floor | Flat, commonly $150 to $300 all in | Reverses around $47,000 and keeps widening as metal appreciates. |
| Metal you may hold | Five published categories | The full IRS-eligible field, including foreign sovereigns and palladium | Irrelevant if you wanted Eagles anyway. Decisive if you did not. See what qualifies as IRA-approved gold. |
| Segregated or allocated election | NOT PUBLISHED | Several providers publish a choice of depository and storage type | Fidelity's material describes safekeeping and custody through FideliTrade without publishing a storage-type election. Ask before funding. Background in our storage guide. |
| Rollover handling | Self-service, standard IRA rollover process | Marketed as guided, though none of the ten publishes a service commitment | The dealer's markup partly buys chasing. Our rollover guide covers the sequence either way. |
| Promotional offers | None on metals | First-year waivers and metal bonuses on qualifying accounts | Waivers cover a year. The storage basis covers every year, which is the more consequential term. |
Fidelity column from fidelity.com material read 12 August 2026. Dealer column from published provider material verified Jun 2026, confirm current pricing. NOT PUBLISHED records an absence of published disclosure, not a criticism.
Not under that name, but the substance is close. Fidelity does not market a product called a gold IRA. It offers a regular Fidelity IRA that is permitted to hold a short list of physical precious metals, and its published material states that precious metals are generally not eligible to be held in its other retirement accounts, and may not be purchased at all in a Fidelity Retirement Plan (Keogh). So the answer to the usual question is yes with a boundary drawn around it: an IRA at Fidelity can hold real bullion, but only from the menu Fidelity publishes, bought and stored on Fidelity's terms rather than a dealer's. Figures on this page were taken from fidelity.com in August 2026.
Fidelity's brokerage commission and fee schedule sets the minimum precious metals purchase at $2,500, reduced to $1,000 for IRAs. That is the lowest published entry point of any route into retirement bullion we track. For comparison, the ten dealer-run gold IRA providers we cover gate entry between roughly $5,000 and roughly $50,000, so a saver with a small balance who cannot clear a dealer minimum can still hold physical metal at Fidelity. Watch the interaction with the $44 minimum transaction fee, though: on a $1,000 purchase the percentage rate is 2.90% or $29, so the $44 floor applies instead and the effective cost is 4.4%.
All three numbers are published, which is unusual in this market. Buying is charged on a sliding scale of the gross amount: 2.90% from $0 to $9,999, 2.50% from $10,000 to $49,999, 1.98% from $50,000 to $99,999, and 0.99% at $100,000 and above. Selling runs 2.00% from $0 to $49,999, 1.00% from $50,000 to $249,999, and 0.75% at $250,000 and above. A $44 minimum applies to any precious metals transaction. Storage is billed quarterly at 0.125% of total value or $3.75, whichever is greater, and Fidelity states that storage is pre-billed on the marketplace value at the time of billing. Four quarterly charges of 0.125% work out to 0.5% of the position each year.
Fidelity publishes the list, and it is short: Gold American Eagle in 1 oz, 1/2 oz, 1/4 oz and 1/10 oz, Gold American Buffalo in 1 oz, Silver American Eagle in 1 oz, Platinum American Eagle in 1 oz, and bullion quality bars. That is narrower than the field the tax code permits, since the statutory exception also reaches palladium bullion and a wider range of qualifying products. If you want a specific sovereign coin outside those five categories, or you want to hold a mix a dealer account would sell you, Fidelity is not the venue. If a one ounce Gold Eagle is what you had in mind anyway, the restriction costs you nothing.
For price exposure, largely yes, and at a far lower entry cost, since Fidelity charges $0.00 per online trade in US stocks and ETFs. What a fund cannot give you is a claim on identified metal in a vault, which is the whole reason many buyers want the physical version. There is also a tax wrinkle worth knowing: Fidelity's own learning material notes that investors selling shares in commodity funds holding physical gold or silver may face a 28% long-term capital gains rate. That rate is a taxable-account problem. Inside a traditional IRA, distributions are taxed as ordinary income whatever the account held, so the collectibles rate never enters the calculation.
Mechanically yes: you roll the balance into a Fidelity IRA the ordinary way, then place a precious metals order once the cash has settled. What you will not get is the guided version. A dealer-run gold IRA is sold as a managed handover, with someone chasing your old plan administrator and walking the paperwork through, and that service is a large part of what the dealer's markup buys. At Fidelity you are the project manager. If you have moved a retirement account before and the release from your old plan is straightforward, that is a saving rather than a loss. If your plan releases only by mailed check and you want a human on the phone through it, price the difference honestly.
Related reading: what a gold IRA costs to run, the rollover deadlines and limits, how a gold IRA is taxed, and the minimums across the field.
Every Fidelity figure on this page was taken from material published on fidelity.com and read on 12 August 2026. We have no commercial relationship with Fidelity Investments and no link on this page pays us. Where a detail could not be confirmed on fidelity.com, this page records the absence rather than filling it in.
Dollar conversions of Fidelity's percentage rates, and the roughly $47,000 crossover point, are our arithmetic on published figures rather than quotations from either party.
Our free kit carries the verified minimums and annual fees for all ten providers we track, so you can put a real number next to the 0.5% storage basis above. The full ranking sits on our gold IRA company comparison.