Selling gold in the UK: what gets reported, and who reports it

01

No buyer has to report your sale because of its size

Many answers to this question online describe the United States, where large cash transactions trigger a federal report. The UK has nothing equivalent for a buyer of someone's own jewellery or coins. There is no form a buyer files with HMRC because a lot was large and, outside Scotland's metal-dealer licensing, no register of who sold how much gold this year.

What the UK does have is a set of separate rules, each looking at something different: whether you owe tax or must tell HMRC about a disposal, whether cash is changing hands, whether the sale went through an online platform, and whether anybody suspects the goods are stolen or the money is criminal. Most depend on how you are paid or whether you make a gain, not on the weight of what you sell. The few that use a figure are set out below, with the statute or HMRC guidance each comes from.

What can lead to information about a sale reaching an authority

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02

Tax: what you may have to tell HMRC yourself

Selling your own things is not income. HMRC's guidance for people selling online says that if you are not trading and only occasionally sell unwanted items, there is no tax to pay. Gold jewellery and coins are possessions like any other, so many sellers have nothing to declare. Check the rules below if any single item or set sells for more than six thousand pounds, or if your total sales in a year are large.

Capital Gains Tax is the one to know about. Section 262 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 exempts the gain on a personal possession (a chattel, in the Act's word) sold for six thousand pounds or less, so the tax can only arise on one sold for more than that. GOV.UK names jewellery, coins and stamps among its examples. A set of things sold to the same buyer, such as a set of chessmen or matching vases, and possibly a matched suite of jewellery, is treated as one possession for that limit. The tax is on the gain, not the sale price: for an inherited piece, the starting point is its value at the date of death, so a sale soon after an inheritance often shows little or no gain.

There is also a reporting rule that does not depend on a gain. GOV.UK says that if you are registered for Self Assessment, you must report your gains in your tax return if the total you sold chargeable assets for in the tax year was more than fifty thousand pounds, even if the gains are within the annual allowance. What counts towards that total is a question for your accountant or the Self Assessment notes.

Some gold sits outside Capital Gains Tax altogether. HMRC's manual says sovereigns minted in 1837 and later years and Britannia gold coins are sterling currency, and gains on them are exempt. Krugerrands and other foreign coins are chargeable, and they do not get the six-thousand-pound personal possessions exemption either. The tax guide for inherited gold and coins sets out each of these with the sections of the Act behind them.

Trading is different. Buying gold in order to sell it at a profit, regularly, is a trade whatever the amounts, and trading income over the trading allowance of one thousand pounds a year has to be reported through Self Assessment. Clearing a parent's jewellery box is not trading. Buying job lots at car-boot sales every weekend to sell for their metal probably is. If you are not sure which side of the line you are on, HMRC has guidance on what counts as trading, known as the badges of trade.

03

Cash and the high value dealer rules

The cash rule falls on the business, not on you. Regulation 14 of the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 defines a high value dealer as a firm or sole trader that trades in goods and makes or receives cash payments of at least ten thousand pounds for a transaction, whether in one payment or in several that appear to be linked. A business in that position must register with HMRC before it takes such a payment, and then check identities and keep records under the regulations.

Before 30 June 2026 the threshold was 10,000 euros. The Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2026 (S.I. 2026/621) replaced it with ten thousand pounds from that date. When this guide was last checked, GOV.UK's registration guidance still gave the euro figure, so if the two disagree when you read them, the legislation is what counts.

Cash here means notes, coins and traveller's cheques, including cash paid straight into the business's bank account. A bank transfer is not cash, and a business that only pays by transfer, card or cheque does not become a high value dealer however large its payments. Assaypost pays by bank transfer to a UK account in the seller's own name and never in cash, so these rules do not apply to it; the responsible sourcing page says so and explains what it does instead.

04

Selling online: the platform reporting rules

If you sell through an online marketplace rather than directly to a buyer, the platform itself may pass your details to HMRC. Under the digital platform reporting rules, platforms collect information about sellers and report it each year. GOV.UK says they do not need to report a seller who receives 2,000 euros or less for fewer than 30 sales of goods in a year. Platforms began sharing this information with HMRC from January 2025, covering sales in 2024.

HMRC said plainly that the rules created no new tax. Being reported by a platform means HMRC receives information; it does not mean you owe anything. Whether tax is due is still decided by the tests in the section above.

05

Suspicion, stolen goods and why buyers ask who you are

The kind of report people half-expect is the one about crime, and it depends on suspicion, not size. Under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 it is an offence for anyone to acquire, use or keep property that comes from crime, and businesses in the regulated sector must report a suspicion to the National Crime Agency. Handling goods known or believed to be stolen is a separate offence under the Theft Act 1968. An honest sale with a clear record is not affected by either.

That is the real reason a gold buyer asks for identification and, for inherited pieces, some sign that you are entitled to sell. It protects the buyer from handling stolen jewellery and gives an honest seller a clean record of the sale. It is not a routine report to anybody, though a buyer keeps those records and must answer a lawful request from HMRC or the police, for example if an item is reported stolen. The guide to identity and provenance checks explains what is asked and when.

One law people sometimes expect to apply does not. The Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013, which bans scrap metal dealers in England and Wales from paying cash, defines scrap metal so as to exclude gold, silver and any alloy that is 2 per cent or more gold or silver by weight. Selling gold or silver jewellery is not a scrap metal sale under that Act.

06

Seller risks and exceptions

• This page describes the rules as published. It is not tax or legal advice, and nobody at Assaypost is an accountant or a solicitor. If a sale is large, an estate is involved or you are unsure whether you are trading, ask a qualified adviser before you sell.
• This page is about private individuals. If you are selling for a business or another organisation, its own tax and record-keeping position applies; ask its accountant.
• Executors sell as personal representatives, and the estate has its own position on Capital Gains Tax and Inheritance Tax. The probate guide covers what an executor can do and when.
• Thresholds change. The high value dealer figure changed in June 2026, the Capital Gains Tax allowance and reporting limits are set by government, and platform rules are revised. Check GOV.UK and legislation.gov.uk on the day you rely on a figure.
• Keep your own record. The written offer, the itemised list and the bank transfer are the evidence of what you sold, to whom and for how much, if HMRC or a beneficiary ever asks.
• Anyone offering to buy gold for cash with no questions asked is not protecting you. A sale with no record is a sale you cannot prove.

07

When not to use the scrap route

The reporting rules rarely change how you should sell. The tax rules sometimes do. A tin of sovereigns that includes scarce dates, mint marks or coins older than Victoria, a coin collection built up over years, or a single piece that could sell for more than six thousand pounds on its own may each be better handled after a word with an accountant, and the coins may be worth more to a coin dealer or collector than as gold. The guide to selling sovereigns without losing the premium covers that side.