Do Coin Dealers Report Gold and Silver Sales to the IRS?

Nearly every big bullion dealer in America has a help page answering the same question, and it is never “Is this a good price?” It is “Do you report purchases to the government?” It usually sits a few links away from the shipping rates, which tells you something about the customers.

Here is the answer. When you buy gold or silver, a US dealer reports nothing to the IRS unless you pay more than $10,000 in cash or cash-like money orders, which triggers Form 8300. When you sell, the dealer files Form 1099-B only for large bars of the kind traded on the futures market, such as five 1,000-ounce silver bars or a 100-ounce gold bar. Coins, including Silver Eagles, Gold Eagles, Maple Leafs and Krugerrands, are not on the list. None of that changes what you owe: a gain is taxable whether anyone reports it or not.

The short way to remember it: the IRS cares less about what you buy than about how you pay for it, and it only wants to hear about a sale if it arrived on a hand truck.

Will the dealer report it? Two questions decide

The two federal reports a US bullion dealer can file about a customer.

What does a dealer report when you sell gold or silver?

When you sell to a dealer, the dealer is acting as a broker, and brokers report some sales on Form 1099-B, the same form a stockbroker sends you. For precious metals, the IRS draws the line somewhere unexpected: at the futures market.

The Instructions for Form 1099-B say a sale of gold, silver, platinum or palladium is reportable only if it is in a form the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has approved for trading by regulated futures contract, and only if it is at least the amount one of those contracts requires. Sales to the same customer within 24 hours are added together, and the exception doesn’t apply to someone splitting sales to dodge the form.

So the question becomes: what does a futures contract accept? Almost nothing a stacker owns. The COMEX silver contract is 5,000 troy ounces, delivered as five bars of about 1,000 ounces each, at least .999 fine, from a refiner the exchange approves. Each of those bars weighs about 69 pounds. Nobody hands one across a coin shop counter.

Thresholds as listed by JM Bullion and Collectpure, read October 17, 2026. The IRS instructions name the rule, not the list; the list comes from the exchange’s contract specifications, which can change.

If what you sell is reportable, the dealer asks you to fill in a Form W-9 with your taxpayer number before paying you, and sends you a copy of the 1099-B early the following year. If what you sell is a tube of Silver Eagles, neither of those things happens.

Why the list everyone quotes is out of date

Search for this question and you will still find the old list: 25 or more one-ounce Maple Leafs, Krugerrands or Mexican Onzas; a kilo of gold in bars; 1,000 ounces of silver; and $1,000 face value of pre-1965 US dimes, quarters and halves. That list was real. It came from the futures contracts of the 1980s, and dealers followed it for decades. It has the durability of all good folklore: everybody knows it, and the IRS no longer does.

The change came in two steps. In March 2024 an attorney in the IRS Office of Chief Counsel told the dealers’ trade group that, because today’s approved contracts call for bars from approved refiners, “precious-metal coins and $1,000 face-value bags of 90% silver no longer fall within the scope of reportable items.” Then on January 30, 2026, the IRS published a correction to the Form 1099-B instructions that deleted an example about selling a single gold coin, which had implied that a larger number of coins could still be reportable.

Two honest caveats. First, the rule follows the futures contracts, so if the exchanges ever approve a contract for coins again, coins come back onto the list. Second, the trade press reports that dealers still differ, and some keep reporting by the old list to be safe. If it matters to you, ask the dealer before you sell. It is their paperwork, and they will know.

Do dealers report it when you buy gold or silver?

Only when you pay in cash, and only above a line. Any business that receives more than $10,000 in cash in one transaction, or in related transactions, must file Form 8300 with the IRS within 15 days, and send you a written statement saying so by January 31 of the following year. Bullion dealers are no exception, and the big ones say so on their own sites.

“Cash” has a specific meaning here, and it catches people out. For the retail sale of collectibles, which the IRS defines to include coins and metal, a cashier’s check, money order, bank draft or traveler’s check of $10,000 or less counts as cash. So does foreign currency.

From the IRS Form 8300 Reference Guide, read October 17, 2026.

The IRS also adds related payments together: transactions within 24 hours count as one, and so do ones further apart if the dealer knows they belong together. Splitting a purchase to stay under the line is a crime of its own, called structuring, even when the money is perfectly clean. The government will forgive you the gold. It will not forgive you the arithmetic.

If the dealer doesn’t report it, do I still owe tax?

Yes, and dealer FAQs tend to put this part last. Form 1099-B is an information return: it tells the IRS a sale happened. Whether tax is owed is a separate question, and it depends on your gain, not on the form. The IRS puts it plainly: you report most sales on Form 8949, and net gains on collectibles, a category that includes coins, are taxed at a maximum 28% rate.

So the practical effect of the 1099-B list is narrower than its reputation. It decides whether the IRS hears about your sale from the dealer as well as from you. It never decides whether you owe anything. How much you owe is the subject of the guide to taxes on selling gold and silver.

Into the weeds: do states have their own rules?

Some do, mostly aimed at stolen jewelry rather than at investors. Pennsylvania is a good example: a dealer buying used gold or silver from the public must check photo ID, send a record of the purchase to the district attorney by the next working day and keep the item unaltered for five working days. But the law’s definition of precious metals excludes coins, ingots and bullion. Rules like these vary by state and sometimes by city, so a local coin shop is the quickest place to ask what applies where you live.

Do dealers report sales in the UK, Canada and Australia?

None of the three has an equivalent of the US 1099-B list. What they have instead are anti-money-laundering rules that, like Form 8300, look at how you pay, with the line drawn at about ten thousand in the local currency.

United Kingdom. A business that accepts cash payments of €10,000 or more for goods must register with HM Revenue and Customs as a “high value dealer” first. HMRC suggests that a business that doesn’t want to register keep a written policy of refusing that much cash. Cash there means notes, coins and traveler’s checks.

Canada. A dealer in precious metals that buys or sells C$10,000 or more in a single transaction becomes a reporting entity, and must report to FINTRAC whenever it receives C$10,000 or more in cash, including two or more smaller amounts within 24 hours.

Australia. Since July 1, 2026, the anti-money-laundering law has covered dealers in precious metals and stones for transactions of A$10,000 or more paid in physical currency or virtual assets. Payments by card or bank transfer are outside it.

Taxes on selling are a separate matter in every country, and they differ more than the reporting rules do. The guide to taxes on selling gold and silver covers all four.

What records should you keep?

Because the dealer usually reports nothing, the only complete record of what you paid is the one you keep. When you sell, your gain is the sale price minus what you paid, including the premium, shipping and fees, so a lost receipt can mean paying tax on money you never made.

For each purchase, keep the date, what you bought and how much of it, the total you paid including every fee, the dealer, and how you paid. For each sale, the same, plus what you were paid. A paper notebook works. So does My Stack, the private ledger on this site, which keeps everything on your own device and sends nothing anywhere.

Physical gold and silver are among the few things you can own where nobody else keeps the books: no broker statement, no account number, no annual summary arriving in February. For many stackers that is the whole appeal. It also means the hand truck is yours, and so is the paperwork.

Sources

• The 1099-B rule for precious metals: IRS, Instructions for Form 1099-B (2026), “Sales of precious metals,” and the IRS correction of January 30, 2026.
• The 2024 Chief Counsel clarification: Greysheet, “NCBA Gains IRS Clarification on Reporting Requirements for Precious-Metals Dealers,” March 26, 2024; and its report on the 2026 correction, March 26, 2026.
• COMEX silver contract (5,000 troy ounces, bars of about 1,000 ounces, .999 fine, approved brands): CME Group, COMEX Rulebook, Chapter 112.
• Current reportable thresholds as dealers apply them: JM Bullion and Collectpure (updated July 15, 2026). The older list, and the note that dealers differ: CoinWeek, February 27, 2026.
• Form 8300, what counts as cash, collectibles, 24-hour related transactions, the 15-day and January 31 deadlines: IRS Form 8300 Reference Guide. Structuring: 31 U.S.C. § 5324.
• Collectibles taxed at a maximum 28%, and reporting sales on Form 8949: IRS Topic No. 409, Capital gains and losses.
• Pennsylvania dealer rules and the exclusion of coins and bullion: 37 Pa. Code Chapter 501, as published by Wyoming County, Pennsylvania.
• United Kingdom: HMRC, Money Laundering Regulations: high value dealer registration. Canada: FINTRAC, Operational brief: dealers in precious metals and stones. Australia: Corrs Chambers Westgarth, on the AML/CTF reforms (AUSTRAC’s own pages could not be read by our tools; check them directly).
• The dealer help page in the first line: BGASC. No affiliation with any dealer named here.

Rules read October 17, 2026. Worked out by us: a 1,000-ounce bar weighs about 69 pounds (1,000 troy ounces is 31.1 kilograms).

Questions people actually ask

Do coin dealers report to the IRS when you buy gold or silver?

Only if you pay more than $10,000 in cash. Then the dealer files Form 8300 and sends you a statement by January 31 of the next year. For this rule, cashier's checks, money orders, bank drafts and traveler's checks of $10,000 or less count as cash. Personal checks, wires and cards do not.

What precious metals sales do dealers report on Form 1099-B?

Only sales of forms approved for futures trading, in at least the contract amount. As dealers read the current IRS instructions, that means five 1,000-ounce silver bars, one 100-ounce gold bar or three 1-kilo gold bars, 50 ounces of platinum bars or 100 ounces of palladium bars. Sales to one customer within 24 hours are added together.

Are Silver Eagles and Gold Eagles reportable when you sell them?

No. American Eagles, like Maple Leafs, Krugerrands and other bullion coins, are not in a form approved for futures trading, so dealers do not report their sale on Form 1099-B. You still report any gain on your own tax return.

Do dealers report sales of 90% silver coins?

Not under the current IRS instructions. The old list included $1,000 face value of pre-1965 US coins, but in 2024 the IRS Office of Chief Counsel said coins and 90% silver bags no longer fall within the reportable items. Some dealers still follow the old list to be safe, so ask before you sell.

Do I have to pay tax on gold and silver if the dealer doesn't report the sale?

Yes. Form 1099-B only tells the IRS a sale happened. Whether you owe tax depends on your gain. You report sales on Form 8949, and the IRS taxes net gains on collectibles, which include coins, at a maximum 28% rate.

Can I avoid Form 8300 by splitting a cash purchase?

No. Payments within 24 hours are added together, and so are payments further apart if the dealer knows they are related. Deliberately splitting payments to stay under $10,000 is a federal crime called structuring, even if the money is legal.

Do bullion dealers in the UK, Canada and Australia report sales?

None has a list like the US Form 1099-B. Their rules look at cash instead: in the UK a dealer must register with HMRC before accepting 10,000 euros or more in cash; in Canada dealers report cash of C$10,000 or more to FINTRAC; and in Australia, since July 1, 2026, dealers are covered for cash or virtual-asset transactions of A$10,000 or more.

What records should I keep when I buy gold and silver?

For each purchase, the date, the item and quantity, the total paid including premium, shipping and fees, the dealer and how you paid. For each sale, the same plus what you received. Your taxable gain is the sale price minus your full cost, so missing receipts can mean paying tax on money you never made.