Custodian Fees vs Dealer Markups: Where Your Money Goes

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What gold IRA custodian fees actually cover

A gold IRA custodian is the legal trustee of your self-directed IRA under 26 U.S.C. section 408(a)(2). It is a bank, federally insured credit union, state-chartered trust company, or IRS-approved non-bank trustee. Its fees pay for that fiduciary role, not for the metal.

Four fee lines appear on almost every published custodian schedule. A one-time account setup fee opens the IRA. An annual administration fee funds the account back office and the Form 5498 filing. A per-wire fee covers each outbound wire from IRA cash. Some custodians add an asset-based line above a stated balance threshold.

These fees are printed. A trustee under IRS supervision publishes its schedule on request and often on its public site. If a custodian refuses to send a written schedule before you open the account, that is a red flag. The whole point of the trustee model is disclosure and audit trail.

For a Texas resident, both in-state and out-of-state custodians are legal. STRATA Trust Company operates in Waco under Texas Department of Banking supervision. GoldStar Trust Company operates from Canyon in the Amarillo metro. Equity Trust Company operates from Westlake, Ohio, chartered in South Dakota. Federal IRA rules apply the same way at each.

What gold IRA dealer markups actually cover

A gold IRA dealer is a retail bullion seller. It quotes a per-coin price built from two components: the spot price of the metal at that moment, and a premium the dealer adds above spot. The premium is the dealer's margin plus the mint premium and the shipping cost to the depository.

Spot price is set by global markets and reported on public data sites. It is the same number wherever you ask, within a few seconds' quote latency. The premium is the number that varies from dealer to dealer. It is where the dealer competes and where the buyer negotiates.

The premium never appears as a separate line on the invoice you sign. The buy instruction lists per-coin totals: coin type, quantity, price, and grand total. To see the premium, you compute it yourself by comparing the per-coin quote against public spot at the same timestamp. Ask for both in writing to make the math clean.

Dealer margins on IRA-eligible bullion vary widely. Common bullion coins such as the American Gold Eagle typically carry premiums in the low single digits to mid single digits over spot. Proof or so-called premium coins can carry premiums of 20 percent or more (source: FINRA Investor Alert on precious metals fraud, checked July 2026). The gap explains why coin choice matters as much as dealer choice.

Where storage fits into the fee stack

Storage is the third invoice. The custodian holds title. The dealer ships the metal. An IRS-approved depository holds the physical coins. Under 26 U.S.C. section 408(m)(3) the metal cannot sit at your house or in a bank safe-deposit box you control (source: McNulty v. Commissioner, 157 T.C. No. 10, 2021).

Depository fees are billed to the IRA on a schedule the depository publishes to custodians. Two structures dominate. A commingled or shared-vault rate stores your coins alongside other clients' identical coins, at a lower annual fee. A segregated rate keeps your specific coins in a labeled slot, at a higher annual fee.

Common annual bands on a $50,000 account are $150 to $200 for commingled storage and $250 to $350 for segregated storage (source: Delaware Depository and International Depository Services public fee references, checked July 2026). The custodian passes the depository invoice through to the IRA cash, so the line shows up on the custodian statement even though the depository set it.

The Texas Bullion Depository in Leander runs a Class 3 vault under Texas Comptroller oversight, with segregated storage as the default and Lloyd's of London insurance (source: texasbulliondepository.gov, checked July 2026). Its IRA rate is negotiated between the depository operator, the custodian, and the dealer, rather than posted on a fixed public schedule.

Custodian fees vs dealer markups, side by side

The table below stacks the two fee families on the dimensions that actually change your first-year and long-hold cost. Each row cites the underlying rule or public source. Use it as the checklist when you ask for a written quote.

Where each dollar in a first-year buy goes

On a clean first-year gold IRA buy, four parties touch the money: you, the custodian, the dealer, and the depository. Each takes a specific slice. Reading the flow in dollar terms is the fastest way to see where negotiation actually pays off.

The custodian slice funds the trustee role. It covers account setup, the Form 5498 filing, the wire out to the dealer, and the year-long back office. On a $50,000 rollover, a representative custodian first-year total lands near $305. That is 0.61 percent of the account.

The depository slice funds physical storage. On a $50,000 account with commingled storage, a representative annual fee is $150. That is 0.30 percent of the account. Segregated storage lands closer to $250, or 0.50 percent, at typical published rates.

The dealer slice funds the metal and the dealer margin. On a $50,000 order at a 5 percent premium over spot, the premium is $2,500. That is 5.0 percent of the account. It lands on day one, not spread across the year, and it is the largest first-year line by a wide margin.

The dollar hierarchy on year one is consistent: dealer premium first, custodian second, storage third. That hierarchy is why aggressive shopping usually pays off more on the dealer quote than on the custodian schedule. It also flips on a long hold, which the compounding section below unpacks.

Chart: first-year split at three premium bands

The chart below sits under this section. It shows the first-year fee split on a $50,000 gold IRA rollover at three dealer premium bands: 3 percent, 5 percent, and 8 percent. The custodian and storage bars stay flat; the dealer bar swings by thousands of dollars.

The visual takeaway matches the dollar hierarchy above. Even at a modest 3 percent premium, the dealer line at $1,500 still tops the combined custodian and storage lines. At 8 percent premium the ratio widens to roughly nine to one against the flat lines. That is the negotiation lever.

How to see the true cost before you sign

The true first-year cost of a gold IRA is the sum of three invoices: custodian, depository, and dealer. To compare providers cleanly, you need the three lines in writing at the same account size before you commit. The steps below walk through a clean intake for a Texas rollover.

1. Get the custodian fee schedule in writing. Ask by email so the answer is dated. Look for setup, annual administration, per-wire, and any asset-based line above a stated threshold. Confirm whether storage is passed through separately or bundled.
2. Get the dealer quote in writing at the same timestamp. Ask for spot price used, per-coin total, per-coin premium in dollars, and grand total. Ask which depository the buy instruction routes to. Match the spot timestamp on the quote to a public spot source.
3. Get the depository storage rate in writing. If the depository is bundled with the custodian, it should appear on the custodian schedule. If it is billed direct, ask for annual, tier band, and allocated versus commingled treatment.
4. Add the three lines for year one. Custodian setup plus admin plus wire, plus depository storage, plus dealer premium equals the year-one out-of-pocket. Divide by the starting balance for the first-year cost percentage.
5. Model years two through ten with the fee-drag calculator. Use the calculator below to see how the recurring custodian and storage lines compound. Add the one-time dealer premium separately.
6. Compare against a second provider pair. Repeat the same three-invoice walk with an alternate custodian and dealer. Only the same-sized order at the same timestamp gives an apples-to-apples number.

The Texas angle on fees and storage

Texas has no state personal income tax on wages or on retirement distributions (source: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, checked July 2026). Article 8 Section 24 of the Texas Constitution requires a statewide vote to impose one, and no such tax has been enacted. Federal ordinary-income treatment is the entire tax picture on any future gold IRA distribution.

That silence at the state level matters for the fee math. In a high-tax state, custodian and dealer fees paid out of pocket carry a hidden after-tax cost tied to the marginal rate. In Texas, a dollar of custodian fee is a dollar. The comparison against a taxable bullion account is cleaner here than in California or New York.

The Texas Bullion Depository (TxBD) in Leander is a state agency operated by Lone Star Tangible Assets LP under the Texas Comptroller. LSTA received IRS non-bank trustee approval in 2023, and Equity Trust Company became the first custodian to route IRA assets there (source: texasbulliondepository.gov/ira-storage, checked July 2026). The TxBD storage rate for IRA assets is negotiated among the depository operator, the custodian, and the dealer, rather than posted on a fixed public schedule.

The consult-your-tax-advisor caveat still applies. Texas law does not override any federal IRA rule. Consult a licensed tax advisor before acting on the state-tax silence, and consult the custodian and dealer directly for the specific fee numbers on your rollover.

Worked example on a $50,000 Houston rollover

The calculator above models the compounding effect of annual custodian and storage fees on a starting balance you enter. It does not model the one-time dealer premium, which is captured in the initial coin invoice. Add the premium to the modeled fee drag to see the true first-year total and the cumulative ten-year cost.

Why custodian fees catch up on a long hold

The dealer premium is a one-time cost on each buy. If a Texas retiree rolls $50,000 in year one, pays a 5 percent premium of $2,500, and never buys again, that $2,500 does not repeat. It is the year-one entry price of holding physical metal in a retirement structure.

Custodian and storage fees behave differently. A $225 annual administration fee plus a $150 annual storage fee equals $375 per year of recurring cost, even in years with zero trading. Over ten years those two lines total $3,750, before any wire fees or asset-based add-ons.

The crossover matters for buyers who plan long holds without new buys. On a ten-year hold with no additional purchases, cumulative custodian and storage fees can approach or pass the one-time dealer premium in absolute dollars. On a twenty-year hold the recurring stack clearly dominates by dollar.

The takeaway is not that one number is right and the other wrong. It is that the two families of cost behave differently through time. A first-year buyer optimizes the dealer premium hardest. A long-term holder optimizes the annual custodian and storage lines hardest. Model both on your actual horizon, and revisit the schedule at every renewal.

When this comparison is a bad idea to run alone

Frequently asked questions

Reviewed by Harry’s Coins Editorial. Last reviewed July 2026.