Canadian Gold Maple Leaf in an IRA: Eligibility, Purity and IRS Rules (2026 Costs, All 3 Purities Checked)

Yes. The Canadian Gold Maple Leaf is IRA-eligible because it is 99.99% pure gold, above the 99.5% minimum that 26 U.S.C. 408(m)(3)(B) sets for gold bullion held by an IRA trustee. "IRA-eligible" means an IRA may buy the coin without the purchase being taxed as a withdrawal. Bullion is metal priced for its gold content, not for rarity. A .9999 coin is 99.99 parts gold in 100. The harder questions come after the yes: which Maple Leafs, at what price, and held by whom?

The law never names this coin, so it enters an IRA as plain bullion. Your custodian decides which versions it takes, and the price decides how much gold you own. As of September 29, 2026, a random-year 1 oz Maple Leaf cost 3.10% over its gold value at a large online dealer, and a 1/10 oz coin cost 14.92%. The Maple Leaf is one of the coins checked in our database of IRA-eligible coins.

The sections below cover the legal route, the specifications, the 1982 purity change and the .99999 issues. Custodian rules, 2026 costs, the Gold Eagle and bar comparison and 2 regulator cases follow.

Is the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf IRA-Eligible?#

Yes: the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf is IRA-eligible under 26 U.S.C. 408(m)(3)(B), as gold bullion of high enough purity, not as a coin the law names. The tax code treats coins and metals as collectibles. A collectible is anything an IRA may not buy without the cost counting as a withdrawal (26 U.S.C. 408(m)(1)). The code then makes 2 exceptions. SafeOunce calls them Route A and Route B, and the Maple Leaf uses Route B.

The trustee, also called the custodian, is the bank or trust company that holds your IRA. The words "in the physical possession of a trustee" are part of the Maple Leaf's own exception. What makes gold pure enough? The table sets the 2 routes side by side.

Sources: 26 U.S.C. 408(m)(3); COMEX Rule 113101 (gold 995).

The full list of IRA-approved precious metals, coin by coin and bar by bar, follows the same two routes.

Does the Gold Maple Leaf Meet the .995 Purity Rule?#

Yes, with room to spare: the Gold Maple Leaf is .9999 fine, and the minimum for gold in an IRA is .995. Fineness is the share of pure metal in a coin, so .995 means 99.5% gold. The Maple Leaf's .9999 is often called "four nines". It is 24-karat gold, which means pure gold. The Gold Eagle is 22 karat.

The .995 number is not an IRS rule. It is the minimum purity COMEX requires for gold delivered on its 100-ounce futures contract, and the tax code borrows it. COMEX is a contract market, which means a regulated futures exchange. Its Rule 113101 requires "a minimum of 995 fineness". So the purity test is borrowed from a futures exchange.

How wide is the margin? The Royal Canadian Mint lists the 1 oz coin at 31.11 grams of "99.99% pure gold". SafeOunce computed the rest. The coin holds 31.107 grams of gold and at most 0.003 grams of anything else. It clears the .995 line by 0.49 points. A .995 coin of the same weight could hold 0.156 grams of other metal, 50 times more. A 1 oz Gold Eagle carries 2.83 grams of alloy (31 U.S.C. 5112(a)(7)).

The .995, .999 and .9995 thresholds are explained with the exchange rules on gold IRA purity requirements.

Why the Maple Leaf Is Not a Named Coin, and When It Became IRA-Eligible (1998)#

Because Congress named only US coins: the Maple Leaf has been IRA-eligible under today's rule since 1998, when the law first allowed gold bullion by purity. A named coin is a coin the tax code lists by its legal description. Route A names coins described in 31 U.S.C. 5112, plus State coins (26 U.S.C. 408(m)(3)(A)). For gold that means the 4 sizes of the Gold Eagle. How the one named gold coin qualifies at 22 karat is explained on American Gold Eagle in an IRA.

The 4 dates below show why no IRA could buy a Maple Leaf from 1982 through 1997, a gap of 16 years. They come from the amendment notes to 26 U.S.C. 408.

1. 1979: the Royal Canadian Mint launches the Gold Maple Leaf. No collectibles rule exists yet, so an IRA may buy it.
2. After December 31, 1981: the collectibles rule applies to property an IRA acquires (Pub. L. 97-34). Gold coins are barred.
3. After December 31, 1986: Gold and Silver Eagles are allowed (Pub. L. 99-514, sec. 1144). The Maple Leaf is still barred.
4. Tax years beginning after December 31, 1997: the bullion clause takes effect (Pub. L. 105-34, sec. 304, enacted August 5, 1997). The Maple Leaf qualifies.

Three things follow for a buyer. First, a Maple Leaf that failed the purity or custody condition would have no named-coin route to save it. Second, proof and special versions have no support of their own in the statute, unlike proof Eagles, which section 5112 mentions. The IRS has not ruled on proofs of either coin. Third, a page that says "IRA-eligible since 1986" confuses the Maple Leaf with the Eagle.

Legal tender plays no part in the test. Foreign coins "are not legal tender for debts" in the United States (31 U.S.C. 5103), and the Maple Leaf qualifies anyway. The full history of gold in IRAs dates each of these law changes.

Is the Gold Maple Leaf "IRS-Approved"?#

No: the IRS keeps no list of approved coins, so no coin is "IRS-approved"; the Maple Leaf is eligible because its purity meets the statute. The right phrase is IRA-eligible, not IRS-approved. The IRS says so in its Retirement Plan Investments FAQs, updated April 8, 2026.

The only approval list the IRS keeps is for nonbank trustees, with 73 entities as of April 1, 2026. Dealer category pages titled "IRA-Approved Gold" carry the dealer's label, not a decision by the IRS or a custodian. Everything outside the two exceptions falls under the IRS collectibles rule in 408(m).

What Are the Gold Maple Leaf's Specifications?#

The 1 oz Gold Maple Leaf is 99.99% pure gold, weighs 31.11 grams, measures 30 mm and carries a face value of 50 Canadian dollars. These figures come from the Royal Canadian Mint's 2026 product page. A 1 oz Maple Leaf weighs 31.11 grams, not 31.65 grams as some seller pages print. A troy ounce is 31.1035 grams, the unit used for precious metals. Face value is the legal-tender amount stamped on the coin, far below the gold value. The table compares the 1 oz coin with the 1 oz American Gold Eagle.

Sources: mint.ca 2026 Gold Maple Leaf page; 31 U.S.C. 5112(a)(7). "Other metal" computed by SafeOunce.

The 2026 coin has a serrated edge, a radial-line finish and an effigy of King Charles III by Steven Rosati. The Mint says it has sold "more than 25 million troy ounces" of Gold Maple Leafs since 1979. The Mint sells bullion Maple Leafs through distributors, not to the public. Face value plays no part in IRA eligibility.

Gold Maple Leaf Sizes and Face Values: 1 oz to 1/20 oz#

The Gold Maple Leaf comes in 5 standard sizes, from 1 oz (C$50) down to 1/20 oz (C$1), and every one is .9999 fine. The face values appear in Table 5 of the Mint's 2008 Annual Report. The first-issue years are Mint data compiled by Grendon International Research in 2014. The table lists the 5 sizes.

Sources: Royal Canadian Mint 2008 Annual Report, Table 5 (face values); Grendon International Research, "Gold Maple Leaf" supplement, 2014, compiled with Mint data (first-issue years).

A C$200 face value marks a different coin: the 1 oz .99999 issue covered below. All 5 sizes pass the purity test; the difference is price, covered below.

Security Features: Radial Lines, the Micro-Engraved Leaf and Bullion DNA#

The current Gold Maple Leaf carries 3 anti-counterfeiting features, and the registered-image check, Bullion DNA, works only on coins dated 2014 or later. The Mint describes "three unique features for cutting-edge security". The 3 features are listed below.

• Radial lines: fine lines in the coin's background, "precisely machined to within microns".
• Micro-engraved leaf: a small maple leaf mark, "micro-engraved with laser technology", with details "visible only under magnification".
• Bullion DNA: a registered image of each coin that an approved dealer checks with a reader.

The Mint says Bullion DNA "facilitates the authentication of Gold Maple Leaf coins dated 2014 and later". For an IRA these features matter at the vault door. The depository receives the coins from the dealer, and a coin dated before 2014 cannot be checked against the Bullion DNA database.

When Did the Gold Maple Leaf Become .9999 Fine? In 1982#

The Royal Canadian Mint raised the Gold Maple Leaf from .999 to .9999 fine gold in 1982, three years after the coin's 1979 launch. The Mint states it in its own words: "In 1982, we broke new ground by introducing the world's first 99.99% pure gold bullion coin" (Royal Canadian Mint, refinery page). The Mint's 2008 Annual Report gives the starting point: "The 999 gold Maple Leaf (GML) coin was introduced in 1979 as an investment product. By 1982, the refinery had attained purity of 9999 in commercial gold processing".

Why does the year matter to an IRA buyer? No Maple Leaf year fails the purity test, because .999 is already above .995. So the date on the coin changes the price you pay, never the tax answer.

Gold Maple Leaf Purity by Year: .999 From 1979, .9999 From 1982#

Gold Maple Leafs exist in 3 purities: .999 on coins from 1979 to 1982, .9999 on standard coins since 1982, and .99999 on special 1 oz issues since 2007. The table sets each purity against the 2 IRA questions: is it pure enough, and could an IRA buy it at the time?

Compiled by SafeOunce from Royal Canadian Mint documents and 26 U.S.C. 408(m). Fractional first-issue years per Mint data compiled by Grendon International Research (2014).

Every purity is above .995, but no IRA could buy a Maple Leaf from 1982 through 1997.

Seller pages that list the 1979 coin at 99.99% or today's standard coin at 99.999% are wrong. The Mint's 2008 Annual Report calls the 1979 coin "999", and its 2026 page lists the standard coin as "99.99% pure gold".

Did .9999 Minting Begin in November 1982? What the Mint's Records Show#

The year 1982 is confirmed by the Royal Canadian Mint, but the month is not: no Mint document we read says November. The line that ".9999 Maple Leafs began minting in November 1982" appears on dealer pages and reference sites without a Mint source. The common version gets one thing wrong: it states a month that no primary record we read supports.

A second detail complicates the story. A 2014 reference supplement compiled with Royal Canadian Mint data (Grendon International Research) says "1 oz coins were only changed to 99.99% purity in 1983". This is a secondary source, not a settled fact. The table shows what each source says.

Compiled by SafeOunce, October 2, 2026.

You can settle the question for any single coin by reading it. The fineness is stamped beside the maple leaf, as "999" or "9999". The Grendon supplement says the purity is "recorded twice, on each side of the maple leaf". For an IRA both stamps pass, so the stamp affects resale preference, not eligibility.

The .99999 Gold Maple Leaf Issues: 1998, 2007 and Today#

The Royal Canadian Mint first refined gold to .99999 (99.999%) in 1998 and issued the first .99999 Gold Maple Leaf bullion coin, with a C$200 face value, in 2007. The Mint dates both steps on its 2017 product page: "The bar was raised higher in 1998 when the Mint became the world's first refinery to achieve an unprecedented purity level of 99.999%". The page continues: "Previously only used on numismatic coins, the first 99.999% pure gold bullion coin was introduced in 2007."

The 2007 coins were 99.999% pure. That is five nines, not six, as some seller pages print.

Mintage is how many coins the Mint will strike. A reverse proof is a collector finish with frosted fields and a mirrored design. The table lists the five-nines issues we could date from Mint records.

Compiled by SafeOunce from Royal Canadian Mint pages and the Mint's 2008 Annual Report. Sales ounces are as extracted from Table 5 of that report; they match the sales table in the Grendon supplement (2014). Not a complete list of every special issue.

SafeOunce computed 2 ratios from the Table 5 figures as extracted. In 2007 the Mint sold 1 ounce of the five-nines coin for every 6.1 ounces of the standard C$50 coin (189,462 ounces). In 2008 the ratio was 1 to 25.9 (710,718 ounces).

The fifth nine itself is small. It adds 0.0028 grams of gold to a 31.11 gram coin. At the LBMA Gold Price PM of $4,144.55 on September 28, 2026, that gold was worth about $0.37.

Can a .99999 Maple Leaf Go in an IRA?#

On purity, yes: .99999 is far above .995; in practice, get the custodian's written yes first, because no custodian list we read names this coin. The 3 custodian lists we read on September 29, 2026 name "Canadian Maple Leaf coins" with no fineness and no version. The 2 points below explain the gap.

• Proof rules: STRATA Trust requires proofs "encapsulated in complete, original mint packaging" with "the certificate of authenticity". GoldStar Trust requires proofs "ungraded, complete with certificate of authenticity and in original mint packaging".
• Silence: Equity Trust's list does not address proofs from foreign mints. No list names a reverse-proof or .99999 Maple Leaf.

The purity is not what you pay for. The Mint priced the 2026 coin at CAD $8,409.95 on its site as of October 2, 2026, a collector price set by a 1,500-coin mintage and special packaging. Almost all of the price above the gold is scarcity and packaging, and a custodian statement values the coin at its gold. How collector finishes are priced, and why most of the premium is lost at resale, is covered on proof coins in an IRA.

Which Gold Maple Leafs Will an IRA Custodian Accept?#

All 3 custodians we checked name "Canadian Maple Leaf coins" on their gold lists, none puts a year limit on them, and all refuse or exclude graded coins. A graded or "slabbed" coin is sealed in a plastic holder by a grading service, with a grade such as MS-70. A COA is a certificate of authenticity. The table reads 5 versions of the coin against the 3 lists.

Custodian lists read September 29, 2026. Custodian policy is contract terms, not tax law, but a refused coin cannot settle into your IRA. "Not named" means ask in writing before you buy.

Fees and storage at all the gold IRA custodians we profile are compared side by side.

Random-Year Maple Leafs: No Year Trap#

A random-year Gold Maple Leaf order cannot deliver an ineligible coin, because every Maple Leaf since 1979 is at least .999 fine. "Random year" means the dealer picks the date on the coin. That choice is a risk with 2 other coins. The Gold Britannia was .917 fine through 2012, and custodians write "British Britannia (2013 and newer)". The Mexican Libertad was .900 fine through 1990. The year decides everything for the British Gold Britannia in an IRA, where only 2013-and-later coins qualify.

Three things still vary by year: the price, the Bullion DNA check (2014 and later) and the stamp (999 or 9999). The random-year listing was the cheapest form at the dealer we captured, at 3.10% on September 29, 2026.

Condition, Graded Coins and Storage#

A Maple Leaf the law allows can still be refused at the vault door if it is damaged or sealed in a grading holder. The 3 condition rules below come from the custodian lists.

• Scratches and damage: 24-karat gold is softer than the Eagle's 22-karat alloy, and STRATA requires bullion coins "in brilliant uncirculated condition and free from damage".
• Graded coins: GoldStar lists "certified or 'graded' coins" as unacceptable. Equity Trust says "slabbed" coins "are not acceptable in IRAs at this time".
• Dealer labels: "IRA-Approved" on a dealer page is the dealer's label, not the custodian's decision.

Storage type decides which coins come back to you. Commingled storage pools your metal with other customers' metal. Equity Trust's disclosure says you receive "the weight and general type of metals you purchased but may not receive the same brand, year, or condition". Segregated storage keeps your coins apart and returns "the exact metals that your dealer sent".

Buyers who want their own coins back should compare segregated vs commingled storage.

How Much Does a Gold Maple Leaf Cost Over Spot in 2026?#

As of September 29, 2026, a random-year 1 oz Gold Maple Leaf cost 3.10% over its gold value at a large online dealer, and a 1/10 oz coin cost 14.92%. The dealer is SD Bullion, and the prices are its wire prices. The spot price is the live market price of 1 troy ounce of gold. Melt value is the coin's gold content times the spot price. The premium over spot is what you pay above the melt value, as a share of it. The table ranks 8 one-ounce coins that pass the purity test by premium.

SD Bullion wire prices, September 29, 2026. One dealer, one morning; premiums move daily. The Kangaroo, Philharmonic and Libertad prices were read from category listings. The melt basis differs by a few dollars between page loads, for the Gold Eagle row too: on the Maple Leaf's melt figure the Eagle is 3.05%. The gold Libertad passes the purity test, but STRATA, GoldStar and Equity Trust do not name it, so get written custodian approval first. Not an endorsement or ranking.

The Maple Leaf was the sixth cheapest of the 8 coins that morning, and 5 of the 7 other coins cost less. Its 3.10% sits at the low end of the undated "3 to 6%" range that seller pages quote. The CFTC's advisory of August 4, 2020 (release 8215-20) gives a wider yardstick: bullion at 5% to 10% over spot and numismatic coins at 40% to 200%. Premium over spot is only one of the gold IRA markups and spreads a buyer pays.

Gold Maple Leaf vs Gold Eagle: Price and Buyback on the Same Day#

On September 29, 2026 the Maple Leaf and the Gold Eagle cost almost the same to buy, $4,282.45 and $4,280.53, but the dealer paid $15 less for the Maple Leaf. The ask is what you pay the dealer. The bid is what the dealer pays you. The round trip is what you lose if you buy and sell back at once. Break-even is the price rise you need to get your money back. All 4 sizes of the Gold Eagle in an IRA are priced on its own page.

The table shows SD Bullion's ask and bid for 4 products at about 10:20 UTC.

Single dealer, single morning (SD Bullion, September 29, 2026). Bids come from a sell page that may lag the live market. The Philharmonic ask was read from a category listing.

So the purer coin was not the cheaper coin that morning. The Maple Leaf's round trip cost $247.52, which is $16.92 more than the Eagle's. Against the Philharmonic, the Maple Leaf cost $41.08 more to buy and returned $15.00 more at sale. Purity did not set the price. This is the finding of one snapshot, not a general law.

The round trip is a one-time cost. Holding the coins costs a flat fee each year. The table shows the yearly bill at 3 custodians.

Fee schedules read September 29, 2026. Setup, trade and exit fees are not included: Equity Trust and GoldStar charge $50 to set up, and STRATA charges $75 per trade.

On $100,000 of 1 oz Maple Leafs, Equity Trust's $235 or $285 is about 0.24% to 0.29% of the gold value a year (SafeOunce computed). Five years cost $1,225 to $1,475 with the $50 setup fee. The same-day round trip on those coins was $5,780. So on an account of this size the premium and the bid decide the outcome, not the storage bill.

With a buyback at 1% under spot, a coin bought at a 3.10% premium needs gold to rise 4.1% (SafeOunce computed). Run your own premium and bid through the gold IRA break-even calculator.

Fractional Gold Maple Leafs: What the 1/10 oz Costs#

The 1/10 oz Gold Maple Leaf cost 14.92% over its gold value on September 29, 2026, nearly 5 times the 3.10% premium of the 1 oz coin. The price was $477.38 against a gold value of $415.39 at SD Bullion. For comparison, the 1/10 oz Gold Eagle cost 13.82% the same morning, and the 2026 1/10 oz Gold Kangaroo cost about 17.8%. So the ranking flips with size: the Kangaroo was the cheapest 1 oz coin that morning. The table shows what $10,000 buys in each size.

SafeOunce computed from SD Bullion wire prices, September 29, 2026. One dealer, one morning. Prices for the 1/2 oz, 1/4 oz and 1/20 oz sizes were not captured.

The 1 oz route leaves you $998 more gold per $10,000, which is 11.5% more gold. Smaller coins do have one use: they let you take a withdrawal in smaller pieces. Premiums for every size of IRA-eligible gold coins are ranked on the group page.

What Gold IRA Sellers' Contracts Allow Them to Charge#

A coin that costs 3.10% over gold at a bullion dealer can cost an IRA far more: one seller's September 2026 contract allows a bullion spread of up to 19.99%. The spread is the seller's cut as a share of the price you pay. The markup is the price above the metal's value, as a share of that value. A 19.99% spread equals a 25.0% markup.

The contract is American Hartford Gold's Shipping and Transaction Agreement, dated September 2026. It sets caps, written as "up to". It does not say what the company charges on any one order. The table converts each cap, and treats the seller's cost as the metal's value.

Source: American Hartford Gold, Shipping and Transaction Agreement, September 2026. Markup = spread / (1 - spread), computed by SafeOunce.

One seller has published its own average. Lear Capital stated a 2022 average spread of 23.4% and a maximum of 33%. The figures are in its Chapter 11 plan (In re Lear Capital, Inc., Bankr. D. Del. No. 22-10165, Doc 694, June 5, 2023). Lear emerged from Chapter 11 and still operates. That is Lear's own statement, not an industry average. It equals a 30.5% markup, or about $76,600 of gold from $100,000. Sellers' spreads, account fees and buyback terms are combined on gold IRA companies with the lowest total cost.

Gold Maple Leaf, Gold Eagle or Gold Bars: Which Fits Your IRA?#

For most IRA buyers the 1 oz Gold Maple Leaf is a sound mid-priced choice: simpler than year-dependent coins, dearer than the cheapest .9999 coins and bars. The right product depends on your situation, so the table gives a verdict for 8 of them.

Prices, premiums and bids: SD Bullion, September 29, 2026, one dealer on one morning. Custodian lists read the same day.

An ounce of .9999 gold is worth the same in any coin, so the difference lies in the premium you pay and the bid you get back. Compare both numbers before you choose.

Bars cost less per ounce, but they come in larger units and are harder to split at withdrawal. The trade-offs of gold coins vs gold bars in an IRA go beyond price.

How Regulator Cases Used Royal Canadian Mint Gold Coins#

Two regulator cases involved genuine Royal Canadian Mint gold coins that were legal to hold in an IRA; in both, the problem was the price, not the eligibility. Neither coin is a Maple Leaf. Both were real Mint gold that passes the fineness test. Every case is dated in our tracker of precious metals IRA enforcement actions.

Sources: CFTC releases and complaint as linked. Allegations in the Metals.com case are unproven.

In the Metals.com case, the CFTC alleges that at least 106,123 Polar Bear coins sold for over $31.2 million (complaint, paragraph 51). SafeOunce computed what that means: about $294 per 1/10 oz coin. At the alleged 120% markup, each coin held about $134 of gold, or about $1,336 an ounce. The complaint also quotes the customer agreement: the spread "varies between two percent and thirty-three percent (2% to 33%)".

In the Red Rock Secured case, the consent order found that customers were told markups of 4% to 29% or 1% to 5%. At least 950 people paid over $69 million for coins worth about $30 million. That is 56.5% lost on day one (SafeOunce computed). The order requires $38,984,313.90 in restitution, $5.1 million in disgorgement and a $12.25 million penalty. The SEC's parallel case is SEC v. Red Rock Secured, LLC, C.D. Cal. No. 2:23-cv-03682-RGK-PVC. The SEC said in May 2024 that the firm now operates under the name American Coin Co. (SEC Litigation Release 25996).

"Eligible" told these buyers nothing about the price. The CFTC calls "semi-numismatic" "a made-up industry term that really has no special meaning". The pattern behind numismatic coin upsells is documented case by case.

How Does the Gold Maple Leaf Fit Into the Rest of a Gold IRA?#

The Maple Leaf's purity settles only whether an IRA may buy it; the account rules on custody, statements, withdrawals and taxes decide what the coin is worth to you. A gold IRA is an IRA that holds physical metal through a custodian. How a gold IRA works from opening to withdrawal is explained step by step. Custody, statements and withdrawals follow the gold IRA rules for every metal, and the questions below apply them to the Maple Leaf.

Can You Keep IRA Maple Leafs at Home?#

No: the bullion exception that lets an IRA own a Maple Leaf applies only while the IRA's trustee physically holds the coin. Home storage removes the only legal route the coin has. In McNulty v. Commissioner, 157 T.C. No. 10 (2021), a taxpayer bought American Eagle coins through an IRA-owned company and kept them in a home safe. The Tax Court treated the coins as a taxable distribution of their cost, $374,000 for the 2015 gold coins.

McNulty involved Eagles, which the law names. A Maple Leaf is in a weaker position, because its exception has the custody condition written inside it. Every home storage gold IRA pitch fails the same custody test.

Why Your Gold IRA Statement Shows Less Than You Paid for Maple Leafs#

Your first statement values your Maple Leafs at the gold price, not at what you paid: $100,000 of 1 oz coins bought on September 29, 2026 would show about $96,998. The 3 lines below use SD Bullion's prices from that morning.

1. $100,000 at $4,282.45 per coin buys 23.351 ounces.
2. At a gold value of $4,153.88 per ounce, the melt value is $96,998.
3. At the same-day bid of $4,034.93, the coins would sell for $94,220, which is 5.8% below cost. The bid comes from a sell page that may lag the live market.

Equity Trust's disclosure says its valuation "does not include any markups, commissions or premiums". Each line of a gold IRA statement is explained with the custodian's valuation rule.

Taking Maple Leafs Out: RMDs and In-Kind Distributions#

You can take Maple Leafs out of the IRA as coins instead of cash, and their fair market value on the distribution date counts as ordinary income. This is an in-kind distribution: the custodian ships the coins and reports their value on Form 1099-R. A required minimum distribution (RMD) is the amount you must withdraw each year. Ages, divisors and deadlines for gold IRA required minimum distributions apply to coins too.

Each shipment has a fee. Equity Trust charges $125 per in-kind transaction plus shipping cost and $10, with a $50 minimum (FS-0004-05, Rev. 081726). GoldStar Trust charges $75 plus $10 plus shipping (fee schedule Rev. 01/2026). The 28% collectibles tax rate applies only to metal held outside an IRA (26 U.S.C. 1(h)(4) and (5)). The steps and fees for gold IRA distributions in kind differ by custodian.

Can You Put Gold Maple Leafs You Already Own Into an IRA?#

No: IRA contributions must be cash under 26 U.S.C. 408(a)(1), so coins you already own cannot be deposited. Selling them to your own IRA is a prohibited transaction. The 2026 limit is $7,500, plus $1,100 at age 50 or older (IRS Notice 2025-67). Cash deposits count against the gold IRA contribution limits for the year.

Are Silver, Platinum and Palladium Maple Leafs IRA-Eligible Too?#

Yes: all 3 sister coins pass their metal's purity test, at .9999 for silver and .9995 for platinum and palladium. The 3 coins are listed below with their minimums.

• Canadian Silver Maple Leaf in an IRA: .9999 fine, against a .999 minimum.
• Canadian Platinum Maple Leaf in an IRA: .9995 fine, against a .9995 minimum.
• Canadian Palladium Maple Leaf in an IRA: .9995 fine, against a .9995 minimum.

Which Other Gold Coins Are IRA-Eligible?#

The American Gold Eagle qualifies by name, and other coins qualify by purity like the Maple Leaf; the Krugerrand and the Sovereign do not qualify. The Gold Buffalo, Philharmonic, Kangaroo, Panda and the 2013-and-later Britannia qualify by purity, among others. The Krugerrand and the Sovereign are .9167 fine and unnamed. The full list of coins you cannot hold in an IRA groups them by reason.

How Much Is a Gold Maple Leaf Worth Today?#

A 1 oz Gold Maple Leaf is worth the day's gold price for 1 troy ounce plus a small premium. On September 29, 2026 that was $4,282.45 to buy and $4,034.93 to sell at SD Bullion, whose sell page may lag the live market. This page gives no live price and no forecast. How the spot price of gold is set is explained separately.