Gold IRA vs Gold ETF: The Fees on $25,000 Over 20 Years

Michael Whitman · Trading since 2017, full-time since 2020 · YouTube creator, 137K subscribers · Published 2026-11-07

A gold IRA owns real coins or bars in a vault; a gold ETF owns a share of a trust that holds the gold for you. Both follow the price of gold, and both can sit in a tax-sheltered retirement account. What separates them is the bill: one charges a percentage, the other charges dollars, and the dealer in between can charge far more than either.

So this page starts where most gold IRA pages finish, with the fees, priced from published schedules and run over 20 years on $25,000.

What each one is

A gold IRA is a self-directed IRA, a traditional or Roth account whose custodian allows physical metal. You fund it, often by a rollover from a 401(k) or another IRA, a dealer sells the metal to the account, and an approved depository stores it. You never hold it yourself.

A gold ETF such as SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) or iShares Gold Trust (IAU) is a trust that owns bullion and issues shares. Each share stands for a fixed, slowly shrinking amount of gold, and you buy or sell it in seconds in any brokerage account, including an ordinary IRA.

Neither is a bet on gold miners or futures; both track the metal. For whether gold belongs in a portfolio at all, see gold as an investment, and for short-term trading of the price, gold trading.

Where they differ: fees first

The ETF fee is a percentage, taken out of the gold. GLD’s expense ratio is 0.40% a year and IAU’s sponsor fee is 0.25% (fund pages, read 7 Nov 2026). GLD’s 10-K says the fee accrues daily at 0.40% of net asset value. Nothing is billed to you; the trust sells a little gold to pay it, so each share slowly holds less.

The gold IRA fee is a set of dollar bills. Two metals-IRA fee schedules published online, read 7 Nov 2026, show what that looks like. We call them custodian A and custodian B; the documents are listed in the sources below, and using them is not a recommendation of either.

The dealer spread comes on top. A dealer sells above the spot price and buys back below it, and the custodian does not set that gap. The CFTC and FINRA bulletin on metals IRAs says some fraudulent dealers charged spreads of more than 300%, while others may charge under 20%, and that some gold IRA fraud victims lost one-third to one-half of their savings to markups, fees and commissions. An ETF’s equivalent is the bid-ask spread on the exchange.

Selling. ETF shares sell during market hours at a quoted price. Metal in an IRA is sold back through a dealer, priced by that dealer, with a custodian fee on the trade.

Rules on the metal. Section 408(m) of the tax code treats a collectible bought by an IRA as a distribution, and the law lists metals and coins as collectibles. The exceptions are certain US coins named in the statute (the American Eagle gold coins of 31 U.S.C. 5112(a)(7) to (10), the silver coin of 5112(e) and the platinum coins of 5112(k)), coins issued under state law, and gold, silver, platinum or palladium bullion at least as fine as a US futures exchange requires for delivery, and the bullion exception holds only while the metal is in the physical possession of the IRA trustee. Storing IRA gold at home breaks that rule.

A worked example: $25,000 for 20 years

Put $25,000 into gold and hold it 20 years. To isolate the fees, the gold price is held flat; this is a cost test, not a forecast. ETF fees compound as a percentage of the holding, and custodian fees are summed in dollars, with one purchase at the start and one sale at the end.

Custodian A over 20 years: $50 setup + 20 x $265 ($150 + $115 storage) + 2 x $75 trades = $5,500. Custodian B: $50 + 20 x $475 ($325 + the $150 storage minimum, since 0.20% of $25,000 is only $50) + 2 x $95 = $9,740.

Add the spread and the gap widens. At a 5% round-trip spread, an example well under the 20% the bulletin mentions for other dealers, custodian A’s 20-year total becomes $6,750, and at 10% it becomes $8,000. That is 3.5 to 4.2 times GLD’s cost and 5.5 to 6.6 times IAU’s.

Where the flat fee catches up. A dollar fee does not grow with the account, so a big enough balance makes it cheaper than a percentage. Custodian A’s $265 a year equals GLD’s 0.40% at $66,250 and IAU’s 0.25% at $106,000. Custodian B’s storage turns into 0.20% above $75,000, so its $325 plus 0.20% equals GLD at $162,500 and IAU only at $650,000. Those break-evens ignore setup, trade fees and the dealer spread, all of which push them higher.

The original data

Gold’s own path, from GLD. Yahoo’s daily closes for GLD run from its first day, 18 Nov 2004 ($44.38), to 6 Nov 2026 ($372.52). GLD pays no dividends, so its price is the whole return after the fee.

• 20 years, Oct 2006 to Oct 2026: the month-end close went from $60.24 to $355.78, 5.906 times, so $25,000 became $147,651.06, about 9.29% a year.
• The long drop: from a close of $184.59 on 22 Aug 2011 to $100.50 on 17 Dec 2015, a 45.6% fall. GLD did not close above the 2011 high again until 29 Jul 2020, almost nine years later.
• The latest swing: a record close of $495.90 on 29 Jan 2026, then $372.52 on 6 Nov 2026, 24.9% below it.

The fee you can see in the gold count. GLD’s 10-K for the year to 30 Sep 2025 reports 32,528.2 thousand ounces against 353,700 thousand shares, 0.09197 ounces a share. The same 10-K says the trust began with 30,000 ounces of gold for 300,000 shares, a tenth of an ounce each (GLD’s first close divided by the gold futures price that day gives about 0.1003, in line). A tenth of an ounce shrunk by 0.40% a year for the 20.87 years to Sep 2025 is 0.09198, so the fee accounts for almost all of the shrinkage.

What the percentage fee cost in a rising market. Take the fee back out of that 20-year result and the same gold would have been worth about $159,974, so GLD’s 0.40% cost about $12,323. At IAU’s 0.25% it would have been about $7,812. Custodian A’s flat fees on today’s schedule would have totaled $5,500 over the same years. When gold rises, a percentage fee costs more than a flat one; the flat-price table above is the case that favors the ETF.

The dealer spread, though, is also a percentage: each point of round-trip spread costs about 1% of the ending value, roughly $1,600 here. A 5% spread would have cost about $8,000 and left the metals IRA behind GLD again.

Download the data: the fee table and GLD month-end closes, free to reuse with a credit and a link back under the site license.

Taxes and the ETF-inside-an-IRA option

A gold ETF can sit inside an ordinary IRA. GLD’s 10-K says its sponsor received an IRS private letter ruling that an IRA buying shares is not buying a collectible. The IRS ruling 201446030 on a similar gold trust reached the same view and added that swapping the shares for gold would be a distribution unless the gold met the 408(m) exceptions. Private rulings bind only the taxpayer who asked, but the fund relies on one.

Outside an IRA, gold is taxed harder than stocks. IRS Topic 409 sets a maximum 28% rate on net gains from collectibles, and GLD’s 10-K says gains on shares held over a year by individuals generally face that 28% maximum. Inside an IRA, either version is taxed by the account’s own rules.

Required distributions. Traditional IRA owners must start required minimum distributions at age 73, and Roth IRA owners take none in their lifetime (IRS RMD FAQs). With metal, an RMD means selling some through a dealer or taking coins out, which custodian B’s schedule prices as an in-kind distribution plus shipping.

Which one to use: gold IRA or gold ETF?

Use a gold ETF in an ordinary IRA when you want gold’s price inside a tax shelter. You get the same exposure for $62.50 to $100 a year per $25,000, no dealer, and a sale in seconds.

Use a gold ETF in a taxable account when you may need the money before retirement, knowing the 28% maximum applies to long-term gains.

Use a metals IRA only when owning specific bars or coins is the point and the balance is large. On custodian A’s schedule, that means above about $66,250 in metal before the yearly fee is even level with GLD, and the dealer’s spread still has to be earned back.

When it fails

The metals IRA fails at the dealer. The CFTC and FINRA bulletin describes salespeople cold-calling retirees, pushing “semi-numismatic” coins that carry no extra value, and charging storage on metal that never existed. If the dealer would buy back for $80 what it sold you for $100, gold has to rise 25% just to break even.

The ETF fails if what you wanted was the metal. A share is a claim on a trust, not a coin you can take delivery of, and an IRA that swaps shares for gold risks a taxable distribution.

Both fail as a timing tool. GLD spent almost nine years under its 2011 high, and on 6 Nov 2026 it closed 24.9% below its Jan 2026 record. Neither wrapper changes how far or how long gold can fall.

Questions people ask

Is a gold IRA worth it?

On $25,000, the two published schedules here cost about 2.9 to 8 times as much as a gold ETF over 20 years at a flat price, before the dealer spread. The gap closes only at large balances.

Can I keep gold IRA coins at home?

No. The bullion exception in 408(m) applies only while the bullion is in the physical possession of the IRA trustee, and IRA assets are held by the trustee or custodian, not the owner. Taking coins or bars home risks the purchase being treated as a distribution.

Is GLD or IAU cheaper?

IAU, at 0.25% a year against GLD’s 0.40% (fund pages, 7 Nov 2026). On $25,000 over 20 years at a flat price that is $1,220.75 against $1,925.79.

Can I roll a 401(k) into gold?

Yes, into a self-directed IRA that holds metal, or into an ordinary IRA that buys a gold ETF. The IRA rollover page covers direct versus indirect transfers and the withholding trap.

Related

Start with gold as an investment for what gold does and does not do in a portfolio, and gold trading if the goal is the short-term price. The account choices behind both wrappers are on traditional IRA and Roth IRA, and expense ratio explains how a fund fee compounds against you over decades.

This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.