A precious metals IRA may hold four metals. Almost every dealer will sell you two.
A precious metals IRA is the same self-directed retirement account a gold IRA uses, with a wider shopping list: gold, silver, platinum and palladium all clear the same carve-out in the tax code, on the same terms, in the same account. The gap between what the statute permits and what the market will actually fill is the whole subject of this page. Of the ten dealers we track, exactly one documents all four metals in published material.
Advertising disclosure: Gold IRA Consulting is reader-supported. We may earn a commission when you open an account through some links on this page (marked sponsored). This never influences our editorial scores, which are based on independent research.
- →Eligibility, availability and liquidity are three different things. All four metals are eligible. Two are widely available inside an IRA. One, gold, has a deep two-way market on the day you want out.
- →One firm of ten documents all four. Birch Gold Group publishes coverage of gold, silver, platinum and palladium. Seven others describe themselves as gold and silver houses, and two publish nothing on the point.
- →The metal you pick does not change the annual bill. Custodian and storage charges attach to the account. The number that moves with the metal is the dealer's spread over spot, and it is the one nobody prints.
- →This page is not the rankings. Scores, fee schedules and the argument behind the ordering live on our best gold IRA companies page. Here we sort the same ten firms by one question only: which metals can they actually put in the account.
The wrapper is ordinary, and only the shopping list changes
Nothing in the Internal Revenue Code contains the phrase you typed into a search box. There is no separate account type for metals, no special application, no distinct set of contribution limits. There is a self-directed IRA, which is simply an IRA held at a custodian willing to administer assets that do not trade on an exchange, and there is a decision about what to put inside it. Everything marketed under the four-metal banner is that one account with a bullion position in it.
Three parties are involved instead of the usual one, and confusing them is the most expensive mistake new buyers make. The custodian is the regulated entity that holds the account and reports to the IRS; it sets the annual schedule you will pay for as long as the account exists. The dealer is the firm whose advertisement you clicked; it sources the metal and earns its living on the difference between what it pays and what you pay. The depository is the vault. The dealer often introduces the other two, which is convenient and also the reason most people never compare the schedule they are handed.
There is a reason the four-metal phrasing exists as a separate search term at all, and it is worth naming. People who type it are usually one step further along than people who type gold: they have accepted the idea of physical bullion in a retirement account and are now asking what else fits inside. That is a reasonable next question, and the industry answers it with a menu rather than a set of trade-offs. The menu is real. The trade-offs are the part that does not make it into the brochure, and they are the reason this page spends more space on availability and spreads than on eligibility.
Two adjacent pages own ground this one deliberately does not. If you want the ranked verdicts, first-year waiver thresholds and named custodian partners for all ten firms, that is the rankings page. If you are trying to work out whether the phrase "backed by gold" means physical bullion or a fund that merely tracks the metal, that distinction and the tax arithmetic behind it sit on gold backed IRA. Neither is repeated below.
Four metals clear the code, and each clears it at a different bar
Section 408(m) of the Internal Revenue Code bars retirement accounts from holding collectibles, and then paragraph (3) carves out an exception for gold, silver, platinum and palladium bullion whose fineness equals or exceeds the minimum a contract market requires for delivery against a regulated futures contract, provided the bullion sits in the physical possession of the trustee. The same paragraph separately names certain United States coins, which is why the 22-karat American Gold Eagle qualifies despite falling below the bullion threshold, and that quirk is unpacked product by product on IRA-approved gold.
| METAL | MINIMUM FINENESS FOR BULLION | NAMED COIN EXCEPTION IN THE STATUTE | WHAT DEALERS ACTUALLY STOCK IN IRA FORM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | .995 | American Gold Eagle, via 31 U.S.C. 5112(a)(7) to (10), plus coins issued under state law | Deep. Eagles, Buffalos, Maple Leafs, one-ounce and ten-ounce bars from approved refiners. Every firm on this page sells it. |
| Silver | .999 | American Silver Eagle, via 31 U.S.C. 5112(e) | Deep. Eagles, Maple Leafs, one-hundred-ounce bars. Universally available, and carrying the widest retail spreads in the category. |
| Platinum | .9995 | American Platinum Eagle, via 31 U.S.C. 5112(k) | Thin. Eagles, Maple Leafs and one-ounce bars exist, but only one firm we cover documents that it will place them. |
| Palladium | .9995 | NONE NAMED | Thinnest. Bars and Maple Leafs qualify on fineness, yet palladium is close to absent from published IRA menus. |
Fineness figures are the minimum assay a COMEX futures contract requires for delivery, which is the benchmark IRC 408(m)(3) points to rather than a number the tax code prints itself. Coin citations are the Title 31 provisions named in the statute. The availability column reflects what our own company reviews could verify in published material, checked Jun 2026, and an absence there is an absence of disclosure rather than a confirmed refusal.
What each metal is actually for, said without the pitch
Gold is the reason the account exists and it should usually stay the majority of the position. It carries the deepest dealer inventory, the narrowest spreads on common bullion products, and the only buyback programmes in this industry that are published in enough detail to hold a firm to. When you eventually sell, gold is the metal where you will be quoted a price the same day without anyone having to go and find a bid.
Silver is cheaper per ounce, which reads like an advantage and is mostly a logistics and spread problem. The same dollar amount buys perhaps eighty times the physical volume, and the retail markup on small silver coins is the widest number in this category by a distance. Our silver IRA page takes that markup apart and covers the fraud record attached to small coin sales. We will not repeat either argument here.
Platinum and palladium are eligible, and eligibility is where the good news stops. Both are priced far more by industrial demand, principally autocatalysts, than by the monetary anxiety that moves gold, so they do not reliably behave like the hedge you were sold. Both trade in thinner markets, which shows up as a wider spread on the way in and a slower quote on the way out. The sibling page on platinum and palladium IRAs covers the product lists and the volatility record.
Put the three facts in the order they bite. A metal has to be eligible before anything else can happen, and all four are. It then has to be available in IRA-eligible form from a dealer who will actually place the order, which narrows the field sharply. Finally it has to be liquid on the day you want out, which is a property of the market and not of your provider. Most pitches for a diversified metal sleeve stop at the first test and let you assume the other two.
The exit is where the difference between the metals becomes concrete, and almost nobody models it at purchase. Buyback commitments in this industry are published at the level of the firm, not the metal, so a dealer advertising a repurchase programme is describing its gold desk and letting you generalise. Ask what a buyback actually means for the metal you are considering: whether the firm quotes a price the same day, whether it quotes at all on platinum and palladium, and whether the quote is a firm bid or an invitation to consign your metal and wait. On gold the answer is usually straightforward. On the two industrial metals it frequently is not, and the difference between a same-day bid and a two-week search for one is worth more than any fee waiver on the front end.
The honest allocation advice is unglamorous. If you want a second metal, add silver, size it as a minority of the sleeve, and buy it in the largest denomination you are comfortable with, because the spread narrows as the unit gets bigger. Treat platinum and palladium as a deliberate industrial-commodity bet you are choosing to take inside a retirement account, not as diversification within the hedge.
Precious metals IRA company comparisons, sorted by metal coverage
Most precious metals IRA companies use the four-metal phrase in their advertising and then document two metals in their published material. Below are the ten firms we cover, in our standard editorial order, with a column for what each one actually states it will place inside an IRA. Where a firm publishes nothing, we print that rather than assume the marketing is accurate.
| COMPANY | OUR SCORE | METALS DOCUMENTED | MINIMUM | ANNUAL COST | VISIT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birch Gold Group | 9.8/10 | All four: gold, silver, platinum, palladium | ~$10,000 | ~$265 flat | Visit → |
| Augusta Precious Metals | 9.6/10 | Gold and silver only, stated explicitly | ~$50,000 | Up to 10 yrs waived on qualifying accounts | Visit → |
| Goldco | 9.4/10 | Gold and silver only, stated explicitly | ~$25,000 | Flat annual, amount not published | Visit → |
| American Hartford Gold | 9.2/10 | Gold and silver | ~$10,000 | ~$180 all-in | Visit → |
| Noble Gold Investments | 8.8/10 | Gold and silver | ~$20,000 | Flat annual, amount not published | Visit → |
| American Bullion | 8.6/10 | NOT PUBLISHED | ~$10,000 | $0 first year, then not published | Visit → |
| Advantage Gold | 8.5/10 | NOT PUBLISHED | ~$25,000 | Flat annual, amount not published | Visit → |
| Orion Metal Exchange | 8.4/10 | Gold and silver | ~$5,000 | May be waived, thresholds not published | Visit → |
| Lear Capital | 8.2/10 | Gold and silver | ~$10,000 | Flat-fee option available | Visit → |
| Patriot Gold Group | 8.1/10 | Gold and silver | ~$25,000 | No-fee-for-life on qualifying accounts | Visit → |
Scores are Gold IRA Consulting editorial ratings and are the same figures published on our rankings page. Minimums are dealer-set and approximate, not an IRS rule. Metal coverage is taken from each firm's published material as recorded in our individual reviews. Minimums, fees, waivers and metal coverage verified Jun 2026, confirm current terms before you authorize a transfer.
Read the coverage column and then read the score column, because they do not correlate. Our top-scoring firm is also the only one that documents the full lineup, which is a coincidence rather than a pattern: Birch earns its position on published fees and named custodian partners, and the four-metal coverage is a bonus. Meanwhile the two firms with nothing in the coverage column are mid-table names that score perfectly respectably on everything else. An absence of disclosure on metals is a small signal, not a verdict.
The practical instruction is short. If you only want gold, or gold and silver, all ten are candidates and the coverage column is irrelevant to you. If platinum or palladium is genuinely part of the plan, your shortlist is one firm plus whichever of the other nine will confirm in writing that it can place your specific product today. Ask for the confirmation before you fund, not after, because a funded account that cannot buy what you opened it for is an expensive place to discover the gap.
The annual bill ignores which metal you buy, and the spread does not
This is the point where four-metal marketing quietly stops being about diversification. The administrative charges on these accounts attach to the account itself, not to its contents. A custodian charging a flat annual figure charges the same whether the vault holds Gold Eagles or Platinum Eagles. A depository billing basis points on value bills the same percentage either way; the Delaware Depository rate card on our comparison chart runs eight basis points a year for commingled metal with a $95 minimum, and sixteen for segregated with a $190 minimum. Nothing in that arithmetic knows what the metal is.
The charge that does move with the metal is the dealer's markup over the live spot price, and it never appears on a fee schedule because it is baked into the price of the product. It is set per product, and the range is enormous: narrow on common one-ounce bullion coins and larger bars, wider on fractional pieces, wider still on the proof and commemorative products that get pushed hardest, and wide on platinum and palladium purely because the two-way market is thin. Our page on gold IRA markups does the arithmetic on how many years of annual fees a single bad spread is worth. The short version is that it dwarfs every number in the paragraph above.
One storage question is specific to a mixed account and worth asking out loud. Silver at the same dollar value occupies vastly more shelf space than gold, so ask your depository whether its charge is struck on value or on volume. On a value basis a mixed account costs what a gold-only account costs. On a volume basis a heavy silver position can cost noticeably more, and the answer is not always in the brochure.
Two numbers, in writing, before you send any money. The percentage over spot on each exact product for each metal you intend to buy, and today's buyback quote on those same products. The gap between them is your real round-trip cost, it is the only figure that varies by metal, and it is the one figure no comparison table in this category can print for you.
Opening one, and the two decisions that come before the metals order
The sequence is fixed and the full step-by-step lives on how to open a gold IRA, so here is only what changes when more than one metal is on your list. You choose a dealer, an account is opened with a custodian, funds arrive by transfer or rollover, and only then is metal bought. Money always moves before product is selected, which means you commit to a provider before you have seen a single price.
That ordering creates the two decisions worth making early. First, the custodian schedule you inherit. The dealer routes you to a partner and the paperwork arrives pre-filled; that schedule bills you every year the account exists, while the dealer's promotion typically covers one. Ask which custodian, and ask for its own published schedule rather than the dealer's summary of it.
Second, the product list per metal. Get the exact products, the fineness of each, and the price as a percentage over spot for every metal you intend to hold, in one email, before funding. A firm that will send that in writing is telling you something. A firm that wants to discuss products only after the cash has settled is telling you something too.
One last practical note for anyone assembling a shortlist. The best self directed precious metals IRA for a first account is almost never the one with the longest menu; it is the one whose entry threshold your funding clears without stretching, whose annual figure is published rather than quoted, and whose spread you saw before you agreed to anything. Menu length is the easiest thing in this industry to advertise and the least useful thing to own.
Questions people ask before splitting an account across metals
What is a precious metals IRA?
It is a self-directed individual retirement account whose assets happen to be physical bullion rather than funds or shares. The wrapper is ordinary: the same contribution limits, the same distribution ages, the same tax treatment on the traditional and Roth sides. What differs is the plumbing underneath it, because bullion needs a custodian willing to administer a non-traded asset, a dealer to source the metal, and an approved depository to hold it. The name is a marketing label rather than a category of account. A gold IRA, a silver IRA and a precious metals IRA are the same legal structure with a different shopping list, and nothing in the tax code uses any of those three phrases.
Which precious metals IRA companies handle platinum and palladium?
On our own verified data, one of the ten firms we cover documents all four metals in published material: Birch Gold Group. Augusta Precious Metals and Goldco both state plainly that they stop at gold and silver. American Hartford Gold, Noble Gold Investments, Orion Metal Exchange, Lear Capital and Patriot Gold Group describe themselves as gold and silver dealers. American Bullion and Advantage Gold publish nothing we could verify on their metal lineup, which we record as an absence rather than a no. Ask any firm to confirm in writing which platinum and palladium products it can actually place inside an IRA today, because a website that lists a metal is not the same as a desk that can fill the order. Verified Jun 2026.
Does adding silver or platinum change what the account costs to hold?
Usually not on the administrative side. Custodian and storage charges are billed on the account, either as a flat annual figure or as basis points on the value held, so a mixed account and a gold-only account of the same size generally get the same invoice. The charge that does move is the dealer's spread over spot, which is set per product rather than per account. Two questions settle it before you fund: ask the depository whether silver is billed on value or on volume, since a large silver position occupies far more shelf space than the same dollar amount of gold, and ask the dealer for the percentage over spot on each exact product you intend to buy. Fees verified Jun 2026, confirm current pricing.
Is there a limit on how many metals one IRA can hold?
The statute sets no limit. Section 408(m)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code carves gold, silver, platinum and palladium bullion out of the collectibles prohibition together, on the same conditions, so a single account may hold all four at once. The constraints you will actually meet are commercial rather than legal. Your dealer has to stock the product in IRA-eligible form, your custodian has to be willing to administer it, and your depository has to accept it. Those three filters, applied in that order, are why most accounts end up holding one or two metals no matter what the code permits.
What makes the best self directed precious metals IRA for a first account?
Boring answers on the three numbers you will live with. An entry threshold your funding amount clears without stretching, a published annual figure rather than a quoted one, and a spread over spot you were given in writing before you agreed to anything. Metal variety belongs a long way down that list for a first account, because a wider menu is worth very little if the extra metals carry wider spreads and thinner buyback markets. Start with gold, add a second metal once you have seen a real quote and a real buyback price on the products you already own, and treat any pitch that leads with the exotic end of the menu as a pitch rather than advice.
Related reading: the ranked company verdicts, the approved coin and bar lists, the silver IRA markup warning, and the full comparison chart.
Eligibility and fineness come from federal primary sources. Company minimums, fees and metal coverage are taken from published company material as recorded in our individual reviews, and were verified Jun 2026; confirm current terms directly with each provider before you fund an account.
- 26 U.S.C. 408(m): the collectibles prohibition and the paragraph (3) exception for gold, silver, platinum and palladium bullion meeting the contract-market fineness minimum and held in the physical possession of the trustee, together with the named United States coins.
- IRS, Retirement Plan Investments FAQs: confirms that IRAs cannot invest in collectibles and "can invest in certain precious metals only if they meet specific requirements", citing IRC section 408(m).
- COMEX rulebook, Chapter 113, Gold Futures and Chapter 112, Silver Futures: the deliverable-grade assay minimums that the tax code's contract-market test points to.
- Provider disclosures: published fee schedules, minimum investment statements and metal-lineup descriptions, as cited in our individual company reviews. Where a firm publishes nothing on metal coverage, this page records the absence rather than substituting an assumption.
Nothing here is tax or investment advice. Fineness thresholds and eligibility rules can change; confirm the current position with a qualified advisor before you buy.
Get the spread questions in writing first
Our free kit includes the fee and minimum data behind the table above, plus the printable list of what to ask a dealer about price over spot and buyback on every metal you want to hold. The ranked verdicts sit on our best gold IRA companies page.