Tax-Loss Harvesting in Physical Metals: The US Rule That Isn't There

Under US federal rules, the wash-sale rule that restricts loss harvesting in stocks does not apply to physical bullion. But a harvest is only worth what survives the dealer spread: at 30 September prices our gold example clears the bar this year, and in our silver example the buy-back alone takes nearly all of the tax saved. Over the life of the position much of the saving comes back as tax on the replacement coins. The mechanics, the numbers, and how to tell which side of the line a position is on.

Published October 14, 2026 · Updated October 25, 2026 · 10 min read

Key Takeaways

• Even in a bull market, losses exist: gold bought at the January 2026 high near $5,595 was roughly $1,439/oz underwater at $4,156 on 30 September. Recent-top buyers are exactly who harvesting mechanics apply to.
• The wash-sale rule covers stocks and securities, and physical bullion is neither, so a loss can be realised and the position re-established without the 30-day wait that governs shares. Whether the rule reaches metal ETFs such as GLD is unsettled; the cautious course is to assume it does.
• A harvested loss offsets gains of its own kind first: these example losses are short-term, so they first offset any short-term gains, taxed at up to 37%. What is left offsets 28%-rate collectibles gains before 15% or 20% ones, then up to $3,000 of ordinary income a year, with the rest carried forward.
• The spread is the tollbooth: buying back 300 oz of silver at 6% over spot, the lowest premium we recorded on 30 September, costs about $1,095 to harvest a loss worth about $1,151 in tax. The same mechanics on 5 oz of gold bought at the top clear the bar this year: about $2,015 saved against $727–$1,247 to buy back.
• Most of that saving is tax moved in time, not tax removed: the replacement coins carry a lower cost, so selling them later at a higher price brings much of it back. If gold returns to $5,595, the gold harvest ends $897.70 behind simply holding, before sale discounts; what it buys is an earlier deduction, a possible difference in rates, or a tax that never comes if the coins are never sold.
• Harvesting is arithmetic, not strategy: loss × your rate versus round-trip cost, lot by lot. At a 28% rate and a 6% buy-back premium, a lot has to be down more than 17.6% from its purchase price before the tax saved even covers the premium. Run the numbers before December makes them urgent.

A tax article about losses, published in a year when gold and silver set record highs, might seem to have no audience. It has a precise one: everyone who bought near a top. Gold touched $5,595 on 29 January 2026 and was about $4,156 on 30 September; silver was about $74.55 at the end of March and about $60.85 on 30 September. Anyone who added at those levels holds lots that are underwater even while their older stack is massively ahead — and those specific lots are where tax-loss harvesting lives. This closing piece in our tax series covers the mechanics, the one rule that is famously absent, and — because our brand is the boring number — the transaction cost that decides whether any of it is worth doing. The rules here are US federal rules; Canada’s superficial-loss rule does reach physical metal. All prices are quoted in US dollars (USD) per troy ounce. This is educational material, not tax advice and not a recommendation to sell anything.

The Rule That Isn't There

In securities, the wash-sale rule disallows a loss if you buy a substantially identical position within 30 days before or after the sale. Its entire purpose is to stop investors from realising a tax loss while never really leaving the position. The rule's scope, though, is stocks and securities — and physical bullion is neither. A holder of physical metal can, in principle, sell a losing lot, realise the loss, and re-establish the position without the 30-day exile that governs equities. The market-exposure problem that haunts equity harvesting — being out of the position when it moves — has a structural answer in metals that stocks simply do not get.

The boundary is less clear for metal ETFs. Shares of GLD or SLV trade like securities, but the grantor-trust structure that makes those funds taxable as collectibles also treats you as owning the metal itself. The IRS has not said whether the wash-sale rule reaches them, and tax commentators disagree. The cautious course is to treat the 30-day window as applying to the shares. An investor holding both physical and paper metal may be running two different rulebooks on the same asset.

Canada is different on this point: its 30-day superficial-loss rule covers any property, physical metal included, so the same sale and buy-back, with the coins still held 30 days later, leaves a Canadian holder with no loss to claim for that year. Selling gold and silver in Canada takes the gold lot below through the Canadian rules.

What a Harvested Loss Is Actually Worth

A realised capital loss first offsets gains of its own kind. Both example lots below were bought less than a year before the sale, so their losses are short-term, and they first offset any short-term gains, which are taxed at ordinary rates of up to 37%. A net short-term loss that is left then offsets 28%-rate collectibles gains before gains taxed at 15% or 20%. So for a metals investor with no short-term gains who also took long-term profits this year — exactly the situation the gains scenarios describe — a harvested loss is worth its face value times up to 31.8% with the NIIT. Losses beyond all your gains offset up to $3,000 of ordinary income a year ($1,500 if married filing separately), and anything left carries forward until it is used.

Two Harvests, One Verdict Each

Here is the arithmetic on two realistic positions bought above 30 September prices, at the spot prices and dealer premiums we read that evening, for a seller with no short-term gains this year and enough 28%-rate gains to absorb the loss. The first: 5 oz of gold bought at the $5,595 high, worth about $4,156 an ounce on 30 September — an unrealised loss of $7,195. Harvested against 28%-rate gains, that loss is worth about $2,015 in federal tax (about $1,727 at a 24% rate). The round trip is the discount the dealer takes when it buys your metal plus the premium you pay to buy it back. Buying back 5 oz as 2026 Maple Leafs or Eagles, at the 3.5–6% over spot three dealers charged for a single coin, costs $727–$1,247 on a $20,780 position, before any discount on the sale. The harvest clears the bar: at a 24% rate and a 6% premium, $480 is left before that discount.

The second: 300 oz of silver bought at $74.55 at the end of March, at about $60.85 on 30 September — a loss of $4,110, worth about $1,151 against 28%-rate gains. Silver’s round trip is far wider than gold’s. The lowest premium we recorded on 30 September was 6% over spot, on one dealer’s own 10 oz bar; the next lowest was 8%, and 1 oz coins ran 8–18%. Buying back 300 oz at 6% costs about $1,095 on an $18,255 position, before the discount on the sale. The harvest saves $1,151 by spending about $1,095: about $56 is left, and any discount on the sale takes it. At 8% the buy-back costs $1,460, more than the loss saves. It is a close call at the one cheapest bar; at every other silver premium we recorded, it is a machine for converting your metal into dealer margin with a tax receipt attached.

One line of arithmetic explains why the gold lot clears the bar and the silver lot barely reaches it. The spread is a share of what the metal is worth now; the tax saved is a share of what it has lost. At a 28% rate and a 6% premium, a lot has to be down more than 17.6% from its purchase price before the saving covers the buy-back at all. On 30 September the gold lot was down 25.7% and the silver lot 18.4%. A lower rate or a dearer buy-back moves the line further off: at a 24% rate and a 6% premium it is 20%, and at 28% and an 8% premium it is 22.2%.

The absence of a wash-sale rule removes a timing restriction. It does not remove the dealer spread — and the spread, not the rule, is what decides most metal harvests.

Saved Now, or Paid Later?

Everything above compares this year’s tax saving with the cost of the round trip. Over the life of the position the saving is smaller, because the coins bought back carry a lower cost. Take the gold lot. The replacement 5 oz cost $22,026.80: $20,780 at 30 September spot plus the 6% premium of $1,246.80. If gold later returns to $5,595 and they are sold, the gain is $5,948.20, and at the same 28% rate that is $1,665.50 of tax. The original coins, sold at that price, would have shown no gain at all. Over both sales the harvest saves $349.10 of tax, which is 28% of the premium, and the premium itself is spent: the holder ends $897.70 behind simply holding, before the dealer’s discount on each sale. If gold never recovers and the coins are later sold at 30 September’s price, the gap is the same $897.70: the original loss is claimed either way, now or at that later sale.

So a harvest mostly moves tax in time; the round trip is the part that is permanent. What it can buy is real but conditional: the deduction arrives a year or more earlier; it can be worth more now than the later tax costs, if this year’s loss offsets income or short-term gains taxed at up to 37% and the later gain is taxed at a lower rate; and if the replacement coins are never sold, the later tax may never arrive, since inherited property generally takes its value on the date of death as its cost. Which of those applies is a question about your own years ahead, not about this year’s arithmetic.

Running It on Your Own Stack

1. Find the underwater lots: Harvesting is lot-level: a position that is up 80% overall can still contain a January lot that is down 26%. Without lot records the losses are invisible inside the average.
2. Price the loss at your rate: Loss × the rate on what it offsets: short-term gains first (up to 37%, plus the 3.8% NIIT), then 28%-rate collectibles gains, then 15% or 20% gains, then up to $3,000 of ordinary income.
3. Price the round trip honestly: Your dealer's actual bid on the way out and ask on the way back, not spot. The premium calculator helps translate a quote into its premium over spot.
4. Compare, and mind the calendar: Harvest only where the tax value clearly exceeds the cost. The loss lands in the tax year of the sale — the same calendar mechanics that govern gains. Then count what comes back: the replacement’s lower cost means a larger gain, and more tax, when you sell it.

The prerequisite for all of it is knowing your lots — which is why this series keeps arriving at the same place. GoldSilverPortfolio Premium's harvesting scanner runs exactly this sweep across a lot-level ledger: it surfaces the underwater lots and their unrealised losses from your records, so December's question starts from your actual positions instead of your memory. The premium calculator prices the spread side, and the tax-year timing piece covers which year the harvest lands in. As with everything in this series: the mechanics are computable, the decision is yours, and your CPA sees the whole board.

Sources and Methodology

The rules in this article were checked in September 2026 against the Internal Revenue Code, IRS publications and notices, and the published commentary on metal ETFs listed below. Two researchers worked independently from the primary texts, and their findings were compared. Spot levels are the midpoint of Kitco’s bid and ask on the evening of 30 September 2026 (at about 02:36 UTC on 1 October, part-way through reading the dealers’ prices): about $4,156 gold and $60.85 silver. Gold had closed in New York a few hours earlier at about the same level; silver had closed about 1% lower and risen since. The earlier pieces in this series use late-August prices, about $4,650 and $69, which is why their figures differ from these. The January 2026 gold high and the end-of-March silver price are from our earlier articles. Premiums are the single-coin and single-bar cheque or wire prices on Kitco’s, Sprott Money’s and SD Bullion’s websites that evening, as recorded for our dealer comparison, each set against spot in the minute it was read and rounded as that comparison rounds them (gold to the nearest half point, silver to a whole one). They are prices for one coin or bar; a larger order can earn a slightly lower one. The loss values assume a seller with no short-term gains this year and enough 28%-rate gains to absorb the loss.

Conflicts of interest: the dealers whose premiums we use sell bullion. Silver Gold Bull, one of the dealers on our comparison page, pays us an affiliate commission; its premiums are not among the 30 September figures used here. The commentary on ETFs and wash sales comes from tax advisers who sell tax services. GoldSilverPortfolio sells TaxStack, the Premium tool whose harvesting scanner this article describes.

Primary sources

• US Code — 26 U.S.C. § 1091 (wash sales of stock or securities), §§ 1211 and 1212 (the capital-loss limit and carryover), § 1(h) (the 28% group) and § 7701(o) (economic substance)
• Internal Revenue Service — Publication 550, “Investment Income and Expenses” (2025): wash sales, the $3,000 limit and carryovers, collectibles gain
• Internal Revenue Service — Notice 97-59 (10 November 1997): the order in which a net short-term loss and long-term losses offset 28%-rate and other gains
• Internal Revenue Service — Publication 551, “Basis of Assets”: inherited property generally takes its fair market value on the date of death as its basis (read 18 October 2026)
• Code of Federal Regulations — 26 C.F.R. § 1.165-1(b): only a bona fide loss is allowable, and substance governs over form
• Joint Committee on Taxation — Description of H.R. 10357, the “Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act” (JCX-47-26, 14 September 2026): commodities are not stock or securities for the wash-sale rule
• Accounting Today, Blake Christian — “Beware of tax implications of selling precious metal” (10 February 2026), and GreenTraderTax — “Gold ETF (GLD) and Wash Sales: What Traders Need to Know About Section 475” (April 2026, updated May 2026): the two sides of whether the rule reaches GLD
• Kitco — live gold and silver bid and ask, read on the evening of 30 September 2026
• GoldSilverPortfolio — dealer premium comparison: premiums recorded 30 September 2026 (Kitco, Sprott Money and SD Bullion)