TSP to gold IRA: what a federal employee is allowed to move, and when.

Nothing on the plan menu holds metal

There is no Thrift Savings Plan gold fund, and the reason is structural rather than ideological. Five individual funds run the plan: G holds Treasury securities issued specially to it, F tracks a broad bond index, C tracks the S&P 500, S a completion index of smaller domestic companies, and I an international index excluding the United States, China and Hong Kong. Lifecycle funds blend those five. All of it is index exposure through securities, so nothing owns a physical asset.

The mutual fund window is the usual follow-up, and it does not solve the problem. It opens a brokerage account with the plan's vendor, and what you buy there is fund shares, never an ounce with a serial number, so a TSP gold position in the sense most searchers mean needs a distribution. The window is gated too: $40,000 minimum balance, $10,000 minimum first transfer, a 25% cap, and fees of $37 plus $95 a year with $28.75 per trade. Hold that $132 figure as a yardstick.

Read the hardship row twice. That withdrawal is taxable, potentially penalised 10% below 59 and a half, limited to your own contributions, and not rollover money. A medical bill is no side door into bullion.

The age-based route is the one serving employees care about. From 59 and a half you may take up to four in-service withdrawals a year, each at least $1,000, drawn from vested money, each an eligible rollover distribution. Below that age and still working, no route exists.

The TSP to gold IRA sequence, in the order the paperwork happens

The plan will not hold funds while you shop, so the receiving account must exist before you submit anything.

• Confirm eligibility. Separated, or 59 and a half and still serving.
• Decide traditional, Roth or both. This sets how many IRAs you open, which drives ongoing cost more than any waiver.
• Open the IRA and get the custodian named in writing. A dealer sells metal; a custodian bills you annually for as long as you hold the account. Our provider rankings flag which firms name partners before you sign.
• Ask two questions before funding. Does the custodian accept Roth rollover money, and tax-exempt contributions if you served in a combat zone?
• File in My Account, not on the dealer's form. Go to Withdrawals and Rollovers Out. No paper withdrawal form exists any more, and the plan says not to use forms from the receiving institution.
• Mind the clock. Requests entered before noon eastern process that night, later ones the next night, and nothing is reversible once processed.
• Buy only after cash settles. Your price is struck the day funds clear, not the day you applied.

For mechanics common to any employer plan, see our rollover walkthrough, the rollover rules page, and transfer against rollover.

Traditional, Roth and combat-zone money travel on separate tracks

Most federal accounts built this past decade hold both kinds of money, and the halves do not land in the same place. Traditional balances may go to a traditional IRA, an eligible employer plan, a SIMPLE IRA, or a Roth IRA if you accept the tax bill this year. Roth balances may only go to a Roth IRA or a Roth employer account, because the alternative taxes the same dollars twice.

That restriction has a price. Hold $180,000 traditional and $60,000 Roth, want the lot in metal, and you are running two self-directed IRAs and usually two fee schedules. Nobody quotes it that way on a first call, so ask whether the fee is per account or per household.

If you contributed from a combat zone

Service members may hold tax-exempt money inside the traditional balance from pay earned in a combat zone. It rolls over under two conditions: a traditional IRA has to certify that it accepts tax-exempt contributions, and the plan releases that money only once no taxable money remains to send first. Note also that the 10% penalty tax never applies to the part of a TSP payment representing those contributions. Move it to an IRA and it becomes ordinary IRA money, so raise the point yourself.

The 20% that vanishes if you touch the money first

Ask the plan to pay you and the arithmetic turns immediately. Because payment goes to you rather than to another plan or IRA, the plan must withhold 20% of the taxable amount. Its worked example uses $10,000: $2,000 to the IRS, $8,000 to you, and rolling the full amount means finding $2,000 elsewhere and sending $10,000 inside 60 days. Whatever you fail to replace is taxed as income, plus 10% below 59 and a half without an exception.

Scale that up and it stops being theoretical. A $250,000 balance taken as payment means $50,000 withheld and two months to find the missing $50,000, which is how the indirect route quietly becomes a partial cash-out. There is a metals-specific sting too: provider minimums apply to money you can actually fund, and they run from roughly $5,000 at Orion Metal Exchange to roughly $50,000 at Augusta Precious Metals in our verified dataset, so withholding can push you under a gate your gross balance would have cleared. If a deadline slips, the missed 60-day window page covers what is left. The fix costs nothing: request a direct payment to the receiving IRA and the clock never starts.

Two published schedules anchor the range. American Hartford Gold quotes roughly $180 a year all-in, including a $75 management component for accounts at or under $100,000, with no liquidation fee on exit. 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.

Then comes the number that dwarfs all of it. Our fee research puts dealer markup near 5% on low-premium bullion and near 30% on proof and collectible coins. On a $100,000 rollover that is a $5,000 decision against a $30,000 one, taken on day one, worth more than a working lifetime of storage fees. Negotiate the annual fee hard, then accept proof coins, and you have won the small argument while losing the large one.