Top 5 Gold IRA Companies of 2025

Finding a Reliable Gold IRA Company

Investors have many options for Gold IRA companies. Choosing which one to use is complicated, as it is a specialized task that major brokerage firms generally don’t offer. Here are a few important criteria that we use and some quick tips for you.

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Transparency

Knowing all your costs up front to avoid any nasty surprises, such as hidden fees after you invest.

Track record

Look for a company with an outstanding track record from objective third parties, such as the Better Business Bureau, the Business Consumer Alliance or the Trustlink Reviews. It may also be helpful to dig into what customers say about the company, especially the number of customer complaints filed against the company. Look for a company that was “educational and not pushing a hard sell.

A close-up of shining gold bars on a pile of cash, symbolizing wealth and investment.

Flexibility

Each investor’s needs and goals are different, so choose a company that will cater to your needs rather than having a one-size-fits-all approach.

Qualifications

You should only deal with a company that has all the appropriate and required licenses, registrations, insurance and bonds to protect your investment. Ask for verification of those licenses and other information.

Here’s the Top 5 List

Now let’s take a look at the 5 best Gold IRA companies based on our in-depth research — and what they offer investors:

#1 Goldco | 9.8 – Most Trustworthy, Best Advisors & Best Prices

Way ahead of the competition with an A+ rating from BBB (Better Business Bureau), an “AAA” from BCA (Business Consumer Alliance), 5 stars from hundreds of happy customer reviews on Trustlink, and zero fraud lawsuits so far, Goldco tops the list of gold IRA companies.

Goldco’s preferred Custodian charges a flat annual account service fee which includes a one-time IRA account set-up fee of $50. as well as a $30 wire fee. Annual maintenance is $100, and storage is $150 for segregated storage or $100 for non-segregated storage. The minimum purchase requirement is $25,000.

Fees for gold storage and custodianship can vary depending on the company you select to handle these services (required by the IRS, as all IRA assets must be managed by a custodian). Depending on the Custodian, storage fees can range from $10 to $60 per month, or as a percentage of assets, from 0.35% to 1% annually. Goldco does not charge any storage fees for cash transactions over $25,000.

Expert guidance, ‘not pushy’ and excellent customer service characterize Goldco.

Current promotion: Goldco currently has an unbelievable offer where they will match dollar for dollar up to 10% of your order in free silver! That means on a $100,000 order, you get up to $10,000 in free silver*

*Applies only to qualified orders. Get up to 5% back in FREE Silver when you purchase $50,000 – $99,999. Get up to 10% in FREE Silver when you purchase $100,000 or more. Cannot be combined with any other offer. Additional rules may apply. Contact your representative to find out if your order qualifies. For additional details, please see your customer agreement. Goldco does not offer financial or tax advice.

Read Our Full Goldco Review Here

#2 Birch Gold Group | 9.3 – Best Customer Service

Over decades of experience in the industry since 2003, Birch Gold Group, “The Precious Metal IRA Specialists” strive to empower their customers through knowledge, where you can rest assured to understand every single investment option or opportunity that’s best suited to you, including the pros and cons of each.

Read Our Full Birch Gold Group Review Here

#3 Augusta Precious Metals | 8.8 – Most Educational, Best Premium Bullion

Augusta Precious Metals has taken an education approach to Gold IRAs. They realize that investing in precious metals is not for everyone. Recognizing that, they’re interested in partnerships that work for everyone involved—and they’ll make sure that it will work for you before enrolling you in their programs.

This means they’ll encourage you to sit in on their webinars instead of trying to sell you on a product. Augusta wants you to know if investing in gold is right for you. That way, if you do invest with them, you’re happy with the outcome.

Augusta puts the focus on what’s best for you and your retirement goals and plans. If gold fits into those plans, then they’re there for you. But it doesn’t fit for you, they’ll be the first to let you know.

Read Our Full Review Here

#4 Noble Gold | 8.5 – Lowest Fees

Before you finalize a decision about which Gold IRA company to use, don’t forget to also consider Noble Gold. Collin Plume, the president and CEO of Noble Gold aims to ensure that each client receives the expert advice and help they need to make sound financial investments to secure a successful future. Noble Gold doesn’t use a hard-sell approach that you may find with many other Gold IRA companies, rather they focus on making sure the independent needs of each client are address.

Noble Gold’s clients are overwhelming happy with the service and attention they receive based on the large number of positive reviews the company has earned.

#5 Goldencrest metals | 8.4 – EMERGING LEADER

Goldencrest Metals may be one of the newer names on the scene, but they’ve quickly earned a reputation for doing things differently—starting with lower premiums than most major competitors. Their team of industry veterans has designed pricing to be intentionally below the usual markups, avoiding the bloated costs some companies pass onto their customers.

Goldencrest sticks to what works: globally recognized gold and silver bars and coins, sold at fair, transparent rates. There are no gimmicks and no high-pressure tactics—just straightforward service.

Despite growing fast, Goldencrest still maintains a personal, boutique-style experience. In some cases, customers are even contacted directly by the CEO during the purchase process—a rare level of access in this industry. They’re also backed by private equity, not bootstrapped, giving them the capital and confidence to expand aggressively while others pull back.

The minimum investment amount is $10,000 for cash purchases and $25,000 for precious metals IRA. Benefits of opening an IRA account with Goldencrest include free insured shipping, no account setup fees, complimentary storage for the first year, and a 10% silver rebate—which could earn you up to $25,000 in free silver on qualifying investments.

What is a Gold IRA and Why Should You Consider One?

Gold IRA (or Precious Metals IRA) is a self-directed Individual Retirement Account, which has become very popular in recent years, especially for those who are looking for diversity and stability in their investment portfolio.

This type of IRA allows the investor to own physical gold, silver, platinum and palladium, in the form of coins and bars to their tax-sheltered retirement accounts; instead of paper-based assets such as cash, stocks and bonds. But is this the right move for you? Make sure you learn more about it below before making any investment decision.

Why Gold IRA?

With the primary objective of long-term preservation of wealth, there are numerous reasons to have an IRA backed by precious metals. Here are some of the fundamental benefits:

Protection through diversification

Having precious metals within a balanced investment portfolio can potentially reduce its overall risk, helping to protect against market shocks and financial crisis. It can also act as a good insurance in times of geo-political uncertainty, natural disasters and wars. In fact, gold has been proven to be resilient during turbulent times. Unlike a stock, where the underlying firm can go bankrupt, or a bond, where the issuer may default on a coupon or redemption payment, there’s no credit risk in gold.

Growth potential

Gold is the most useful metal on earth, and the demand for it continues to outstrip supply. Jewelry and technology applications make up more than 50% of demand, and most gold is bought in the world’s fastest-growing emerging markets. China and India account for more than half of all gold purchases, annually. Newly-mined gold can only meet about two-thirds of current global demand. In addition, central banks are no longer net sellers of gold, so the rest of the demand is currently fulfilled with recycled gold. With demographic and economic trends predicting increasing wealth and expanded populations in the world’s two largest gold markets, gold demand has the potential to continue rising. Weakening of stocks and other paper investments due to the economic instability will drive even more demands towards precious metals. In many cases, these assets can provide a substantial return on investment in the long run.

Hedge against inflation

The Fed is printing more money. Your cash or any of your paper-based investments is effected by inflation, while gold has the opposite effect on it and helps you maintain your purchasing power. A growing body of research has shown that having a portion of savings in gold can improve purchasing power over the long term, especially as the real value of most major currencies declines. Hence it would be a great way to preserve your wealth or retirement funds with precious metals.

Tax benefits

There are no penalties and payable tax involved in any gold IRA transfer or rollover, because it falls under income investments category which is tax-differed. You are not required to pay for the normal collectible capital gain tax of your metals when they are liquidated. This tax rate can be as high as 28% on the gold kept outside an IRA. You will only have to pay for tax during withdrawal in the form of distributions. You can set up a self-directed gold IRA in the form of a Roth IRA or a traditional IRA. The latter uses pre-tax dollars, which means that taxes are payable after distribution. On the other hand, funding Roth accounts involves after-tax contributions.

Hedge against inflation

The Fed is printing more money. Your cash or any of your paper-based investments is effected by inflation, while gold has the opposite effect on it and helps you maintain your purchasing power. A growing body of research has shown that having a portion of savings in gold can improve purchasing power over the long term, especially as the real value of most major currencies declines. Hence it would be a great way to preserve your wealth or retirement funds with precious metals.

Tax benefits

There are no penalties and payable tax involved in any gold IRA transfer or rollover, because it falls under income investments category which is tax-differed. You are not required to pay for the normal collectible capital gain tax of your metals when they are liquidated. This tax rate can be as high as 28% on the gold kept outside an IRA. You will only have to pay for tax during withdrawal in the form of distributions. You can set up a self-directed gold IRA in the form of a Roth IRA or a traditional IRA. The latter uses pre-tax dollars, which means that taxes are payable after distribution. On the other hand, funding Roth accounts involves after-tax contributions.

Family & Legacy

Provide safety, stability and security for family by not leaving spouse or children behind with no assets.

Safe tangible storage

Most of the reliable gold IRA companies can provide a safe, secured and insured storage for your precious metals, either in the states or offshore based on your liking.

any risks?

Scam

You need to be very cautious while choosing a gold IRA company, as there is a chance you could get ripped off. There are still many scammers in this market, even though the financial authorities are taking massive actions to improve oversight of the market. You would not know whether your precious metals are indeed being held for you or not, as you do not physically hold them yourself. Some companies might not even have sufficient precious metals to fulfill their clients’ accounts. Make sure to do your own due diligence before making any investment decisions.

Theft

Any physical commodity is subject to theft risk. Someone could break into the depository where your gold is being stored and steal it. However, to qualify for gold IRAs, depositories are required to be insured, which would protect your investment as long as your account doesn’t exceed the custodian’s stated value.

Investment

All investments come with risks and rewards, gold IRAs included. But if you’re invested for the long run and having a balanced investment portfolio, gold IRA is still a safe, stable, and powerful vehicle for maintaining long-term asset growth and wealth preservation. Don’t forget many of these risks also exist for traditional IRAs, too.

Is Your Account Eligible?

Over a dozen types of retirement accounts are provided in the United States. Learn if you can actually invest precious metals in your existing one(s).

On top of the more popular traditional IRA and 401(k), some other retirement plans that may qualify would be 403(b), 457 Deferred Compensation Plan, Pension Plan, Thrift Savings Plan(TSP), TIAA CREF, or non-traditional IRA. You may contact your current plan provider or a trustworthy gold IRA company to verify further on the eligibility for your existing account.

If it’s eligible, then you can simply do a direct account transfer to your chosen gold IRA custodian. However you may discover, after inquiry, that your present custodian or plan provider is not willing to offer you many opportunities to invest in gold with your current retirement plan. In that case, you may opt for a gold IRA rollover instead.

So what’s the difference between direct transfer and rollover?

Direct transfer 

It is a tax-free process. You can simply move your IRA funds from one custodian to another. The process time needed is usually shorter. Since it’s a tax-free process, you don’t have to report anything on your income tax and you are allowed to perform as many transfers as you like.

Rollover process

It allows you to transfer whole or part of your retirement funds into a self-directed (gold) IRA. There are no tax penalties whatsoever, provided the process is completed within 60 days. And it can be repeated once in every 12 months.

Most of the gold IRA companies will gladly help you with them.

Follow the “Smart Money” – Billionaires who are investing massively in Gold

Stanley Druckenmiller

‘The Man with the Midas Touch’
(net worth of $4.4 billion)
American hedge fund manager, he is the former Chairman and President of Duquesne Capital.

It’s traded for 5,000 years… some regard it as a metal, we regard it as a currency

David Einhorn

‘From $900,000 to $11 Billion’
(net worth of $1.76 billion)
American hedge fund manager, he is the founder and president of Greenlight Capital.

We believe the increasingly adventurous monetary policy is bullish for gold

Ray Dalio

‘Hedge Fund Big Daddy’
(net worth of $15.3 billion)
American businessman and the founder of the investment firm Bridgewater Associates.

If you don’t own gold, you know neither history nor economics

John Paulson

‘The Man with the Midas Touch’
(net worth of $4.4 billion)
American hedge fund manager, he is the former Chairman and President of Duquesne Capital.

Gold is very volatile in the short term and could as easily go down in the near term as go up. But if you’re invested over a three to five year horizon, I think you’d be much safer in gold as a currency than the dollar

George Soros

‘The Man Who Broke the Bank of England’
(net worth of $24.9 billion)
Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, political activist and author. He is chairman of Soros Fund Management.

The world is running into something that it doesn’t know how to handle

Thomas Kaplan

‘Billionaire King Of Cats’
(net worth of $1.03 billion)
American entrepreneur, natural resources investor, philanthropist and art collector. He is chairman and CEO of The Electrum Group LLC.

I’ve reached a point where I feel the only asset I have confidence in is gold.

M.G. George Muthoot

(net worth of $1.14 billion)
Indian entrepreneur and businessman. He is the third generation of his family to be chairman of the Muthoot Group, and the Lay Trustee of the Indian Orthodox Church.

If this business was as easy as it sounds, all my branch managers would be setting up their own gold loan companies.

Paul Tudor Jones

(net worth of $4.7 billion)
American businessman who founded Tudor Investment Corporation, a private asset management company and hedge fund.

I have never been a gold bug, it is just an asset that, like everything else in life, has its time and place. And that time is now.

Mikhail Prokhorov

(net worth of $8.8 billion)
Russian billionaire, politician, and owner of the American basketball team the Brooklyn Nets.

Money is not the thing that drives me. I like to develop assets to create value. No one cares how rich you are or what your ranking is in Forbes magazine.

Carlos Slim

(net worth of $51.8 billion)
Mexican business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. From 2010 to 2013, Slim was ranked as the richest person in the world.

What is most valuable in life does not cost anything but is very precious.

Carl Icahn

(net worth of $16.7 billion)
American business magnate, investor, activist shareholder, and philanthropist.

The system is not working properly.

Learn Why Sean Hannity Endorses Goldco

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