Best Gold IRA Companies of 2024: Reviews, Fees, & Comparisons (2024)

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Diversify your retirement portfolio and hedge against inflation by investing in precious metals assets like gold, silver, and palladium.

Best Gold IRA Companies of 2024

• Best Overall: Goldco
• Best Customer Service: Lear Capital
• Best for Large Balances: American Hartford Gold
• Best for Specialty Coins: Rosland Capital
• Best for Investor Resources: Birch Gold Group
• Best for Gold Rollover IRAs: Priority Gold IRA
• Best for Fee Transparency: Augusta Precious Metals

Compare the Best Gold IRAs

The best gold IRA companies provide easy-to-use platforms with simple gold investing options, educational tools, investor resources, and asset diversification with the ability to purchase additional assets like other precious metals and cryptocurrencies.

Here are the best gold IRA companies in 2024, as picked by Business Insider editors.

Best Gold IRA Overall

Goldco

Goldco is our pick for the best Gold IRA overall. It offers a huge selection of gold and other precious metal assets through a self-directed gold or silver IRA. Goldco supports rollovers for 401(k)s, 403(b)s, IRAs, thrift savings plans, and savings accounts.

As for its coin selection, you can invest in Gold American Eagle, Gold American Eagle Proof, Gold Liberty, Gold Phoenix, Gold Independence Hall, and more. Plus, you don't necessarily need an IRA to buy gold at Goldco. You can also request to have gold delivered directly to you.

Goldco promotes an "education first" approach to help investors expand their knowledge of the economy and the ins and outs of gold IRAs. Beginners can get Goldco's free gold IRA kit for info about IRAs, gold assets, and wealth protection.

What to look out for:You'll need at least $25,000 to set up an IRA and purchase gold. You'll also need to call a company representative to learn about fees.

Goldco review

Best Gold IRA for Customer Service

Lear Capital

Lear Capital is the best gold IRA for customer service and quality assurance. It has a reputation for exceptional service, focusing on customer education and transparency. It offers a 24-hour risk-free purchase guarantee on all orders and no-fee buybacks. You'll also receive a free investment kit and bonus coins when you join.

The Lear Advantage IRA is a self-directed IRA offering free gold and silver guides, a price match guarantee, free metal evaluations, and a huge selection of gold metal tools and analyzers. It supports rollovers from IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and thrift savings plans.

What to look out for: Set-up fees are higher, with a one-time $280 fee (waived for eligible IRAs and mintage coins). Lear Capital charges a $200 annual fee.

Best Gold IRA for Large Balances

American Hartford Gold

American Hartford Gold offers a competitive selection of gold and other precious metals like silver, platinum, and palladium. Cash accounts allow non-retirement investors to buy gold directly through AHG, and have assets shipped to their homes. There's a minimum to open a cash account.

Its gold selection features Saint Helena Sovereign Gold, Australia Wildlife Gold, Canadian Buffalo, American Eagle, American Eagle Proof, and more.

Assets in gold IRAs and silver IRAs are shipped to a secure facility. AHG supports rollovers from traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, 403(b)s, 457 plans, 401(k)s, and thrift savings plans. There's a $10,000 minimum to open a gold IRA.

AHG also charges a $230 application fee and $200 annual fee for storage, insurance, and custodian services. However, investors with larger opening deposits may be able to get some of their fees waived or reduced after talking with an AHG representative. To talk with a representative, call the number listed on the AHG website.

What to look out for: American Hartford Gold doesn't provide exact fees on its website; it says depository storage fees vary based on account size and the particular precious metals you've got in your account. You can get more information by contacting the firm's account representatives.

American Hartford Gold review

Best Gold IRA for Specialty Coins

Rosland Capital

Rosland Capital is a relatively low-cost gold IRA company best for investors looking for transparent fee structures and portfolio flexibility. It is also a great option for investing in specialty coins, as Rosland Capital offers gold, silver, platinum bars, bullion coins, premium coins, and exclusive specialty coins.

Compared to similar gold companies, Rosland Capital charges lower, flat-rate fees. Moreover, the fee structure is fairly transparent. Rosland Capital charges a $50 one-time set-up fee, $100 annual maintenance fee, a storage fee of $100 or $150, and a $40 paper statement fee (if you choose to receive paper statements).

When they sign up, people new to gold IRA investing can benefit from a free information gold kit. Orders above $20,000 also get $1,000 in free gold. IRA rollovers require a $10,000 minimum.

What to look out for: The website lacks extensive information, and the only way to open an account is by calling a representative.

Rosland Capital review

Best Gold IRA for Investor Resources

Birch Gold Group

Birch Gold Group allows you to roll over existing retirement accounts into a gold IRA — or a silver, palladium, or platinum IRA. It currently allows for rollovers from traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, SEP IRAs, SIMPLE IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, 457(b)s, and other accounts.

Like many other precious metal companies on this list, Birch Gold Group provides users with a free information kit on gold and gold IRA investing. Investors also get a free gold bar with every $10,000 purchased.

In addition, the company pairs you with a precious metals specialist to ease the set-up process and track your investments' performance. Another advantage is that it stores your gold in insured depositories (it currently uses Brink's Global Service). It also uses the Delaware Depository, which offers insurance of up to $1 billion.

What to look out for: You'll need at least $10,000 to purchase gold.

Best for Gold IRA Rollovers

Priority Gold IRA

Priority Gold is a reputable gold IRA company that offers an extensive selection of educational content suitable for gold traders of all levels. It is well-known in the gold IRA industry by both consumers and businesses for its dedicated customer support and real-time pricing.

Priority Gold's user-friendly IRA set-up and educational resources make purchasing precious metals easy. After signing up, you will be assigned to a dedicated company representative to guide you through the investment process. A qualified specialist is available to help you facilitate an IRA rollover with the help of its partnered custodian, Preferred Trust Company.

An IRA rollover of $50,000 gets you one free year of storage and no administration fees. But, you only need to meet the required $20,000 minimum to open an IRA. Gold storage costs between $100 to $175 per year.

What to look out for: Priority Gold offers platinum and palladium products, but they are not available on the company's website.

Best Gold IRA for Fee Transparency

Augusta Precious Metals

Augusta Precious Metals offers gold and silver IRAs, and gold-focused investors can take advantage of common gold bullion and premium gold. As for the platform's gold selection, you can buy assets like American Eagles, Canadian Maple Leafs, American Eagle Proofs, Gold Canadian Eagles, American Buffalo, and Australian Striped Marlin.

Augusta makes sure that the gold coins and bars it provides are 99.5% pure, although one exception is the American Gold Eagle coin, which is 91.67% pure. You'll pay zero management fees but have to account for IRA set-up fees and depository storage fees.

What to look out for: Augusta Precious Metals has a minimum order requirement of $50,000 for IRA purchases.

What is a Gold IRA?

If you want to diversify your portfolio and hedge against inflation, consider investing in gold and other precious metals. But to do so, it can't be your regular account. It has to be a separate, special one called a gold IRA.

Also known as a precious metal IRA, a gold IRA works like a standard individual retirement account: the same contribution limits and distribution rules. However, instead of holding paper assets like stocks and bonds, the gold IRA is earmarked for holding physical bullion — coins or bars of gold and other approved precious metals, including silver, platinum, and palladium.

Gold IRAs can also contain gold stocks (shares of gold mining/production companies), gold mutual funds that invest in bullion or stocks (or both), and gold ETFs that track gold indexes.

How to Choose the Best Gold IRA Company

If you want to hold physical gold in an IRA, the first step is to open a self-directed IRA (SDIRA) — one that you manage directly — with a custodian. The custodian is an IRS-approved financial institution (bank, trust company, brokerage), but many financial services and mutual fund companies that handle regular IRAs don't do the self-directed version.

Remember that not every self-directed IRA custodian offers the same investment choices, so make sure physical gold is one of their offerings before you open an account. You can set up the SDIRA as either a traditional IRA (tax-deductible contributions) or a Roth IRA (tax-free distributions).

The next step is to fund the account with a contribution (subject to contribution limits, of course), a transfer, or a rollover from a qualified plan, such as 401(k), 403(b), or 457 plan.Afterward, you can select investments for the account, and your custodian and metals dealer will complete the transactions on your behalf.

You can't just buy any bar or ingot, either. Physical metals must meet IRS "fineness" standards as their purity and weight, and be stored in an insured IRS-approved depository. When it comes to coins, you are limited to bullion coins issued by certain government mints.

Gold IRA Pros

As with any investment, there are pros and cons to Gold IRAs. Some of the advantages include:

• Tax benefits. Gold IRAs offer some of the same special tax treatment as standard IRAs: Contributions made to traditional self-directed IRAs are tax-deductible. Qualified withdrawals from Roth accounts are tax-free.
• Long-term hold. Physical gold isn't very liquid, but then neither are IRA holdings. Given that it's a long-term, buy-and-hold sort of investment, gold is well-suited to an IRA, whose assets you often don't touch for decades – usually until you retire.
• Greater control. Gold IRAs are always self-directed, which means you directly manage your holdings and make all the investment decisions.

Gold IRA Cons

If you're interested in a gold IRA, be sure to consider these drawbacks.

• No tax-advantaged income. Gold bullion doesn't pay interest, dividends, or other returns. So, it doesn't really take advantage of the tax-free growth aspect of IRA investing. You'd only get a break on any capital gain resulting from selling your gold at a profit.
• Higher fees. You can't keep your gold at home or in a bank's safe deposit box. Instead, you must pay a custodian to store and insure, as well as buy, ship, and transport, the precious metals you hold in the IRA. Gold IRA custodial fees tend to be higher than regular IRA management fees, too.
• Funding restrictions. You're not allowed to move any precious metals you already own into your Gold IRA. Nor are you personally allowed to buy precious metals and send them to your IRA. A custodian must take care of all the transactions on your behalf.

Opening a Gold IRA

Investing in gold has risks that you should consider before making any decisions. Still, a Gold IRA can be a good option for investors who want to diversify their retirement accounts, and also take advantage of the hedging benefits that the yellow metal offers against other financial assets, like paper currency and stocks.

Some financial experts recommend keeping 5% to 10% of a portfolio in gold.

"It's simply advantageous to weigh and think about acquiring gold — and silver and other precious metals — to serve one well within a diversified, well-rounded investment portfolio," says Collin Plume, president and CEO of Noble Gold Investments, a precious metals dealer and depository. "The operative word being diversified."

FAQs About Gold IRAs

Our Methodology: How We Rated the Best Gold IRAs

We applied BusinessInsider's rating methodology for investing platforms to over a dozen exchanges to find the best options for gold and precious metal IRAs, low fees, asset/account security, user interfaces, and mobile access. Investment platforms are given a rating between 1 and 5.

We also explored whether exchanges offered services both for individuals and institutions, and we paid close attention to other account options like liquidity, accessibility, and precious metal selection.