CNT Depository Review for IRA Metals

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Last updated: July 22, 2026 · By White Metal Resources Editorial

This is a saver-first look at CNT Depository. It walks through what CNT is, how it fits an IRA under federal law, what the parent company discloses through its public filings, and where a saver has to press the custodian for facts CNT itself does not publish. Every figure below traces to CNT's parent-company filings on SEC EDGAR, an IRS source, a Tax Court decision, or the statutory text.

What is CNT Depository, and who owns it now?

CNT Depository is the storage arm of CNT Inc., a wholesale bullion firm based in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. CNT Inc. was founded in 1973, and for decades built its business around trading and shipping large volumes of physical gold, silver, platinum, and palladium to dealers, mints, refiners, and IRA custodians.

The single most important corporate fact is the parent. In March 2021, A-Mark Precious Metals, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMRK) closed its acquisition of CNT Inc. for total consideration of about $218 million. A-Mark discloses the deal in its SEC filings, and CNT now files up through A-Mark's public reporting as a segment of the group (source: A-Mark Precious Metals 10-K filings on SEC EDGAR).

That change matters for savers. Before 2021, CNT was a privately held Massachusetts firm with limited public reporting. Today, an IRA holder can pull A-Mark's annual report from EDGAR and read the risk factors, the operating segments, and the description of CNT's role in the group. The public-market disclosure floor is now higher than it was.

Worth knowing: CNT is a bullion wholesaler that also runs a depository, not a pure vault operator like Delaware Depository. It sells and moves metal to institutional buyers, and it stores metal for a range of clients, including some IRA custodians. Retail savers usually meet CNT only by proxy through the custodian.

Where is the vault, and why does the Massachusetts location matter?

The vault sits in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, roughly 30 miles south of Boston. A-Mark's public filings identify Bridgewater as CNT's headquarters. The parent describes CNT's precious-metals inventory as held at owned and leased facilities in the United States, anchored by the Bridgewater site (source: A-Mark Precious Metals 10-K filings on SEC EDGAR).

Massachusetts is not a state-chartered trust jurisdiction the way Delaware is. The company that runs the vault is a Massachusetts corporation, not a limited-purpose bank. What makes the depository IRA-viable is not a state charter. It is the physical-possession language in IRC 408(m)(3), which the custodian must satisfy on behalf of the IRA.

Location still counts for shipping cost. A New England saver working with a New England custodian and a dealer that ships from the Northeast will see shorter transit and lower carrier insurance premiums on the way in. Boulder City or Leander vaults are longer loops from that starting point.

Massachusetts does not levy a state sales tax on bullion above certain thresholds, and it does not tax gold and silver bullion held for investment in the same way it taxes ordinary tangible goods. That state-level detail does not change any federal IRA rule, but it can affect non-IRA storage clients using the same vault.

Which regulators sit above CNT, and what does that mean for an IRA?

The regulator stack around CNT is different from a state-chartered trust depository. Because CNT Inc. is a Massachusetts corporation, it is not supervised by a state banking commissioner as its primary regulator. A-Mark and its subsidiaries are subject to the Bank Secrecy Act, US Treasury sanctions rules, and FinCEN reporting for large cash transactions, plus normal state corporate reporting.

At the parent level, A-Mark Precious Metals is a US-listed public company subject to Securities Exchange Act reporting, Sarbanes-Oxley internal-controls certification by the CEO and CFO, and independent audits of the consolidated financial statements. Those filings are the strongest public record of what CNT is doing inside the group (source: A-Mark Precious Metals 10-K on SEC EDGAR).

For IRA purposes, the physical-possession rule is what matters, not the depository's chartering label. IRC 408(m)(3) requires that the four IRA-eligible bullion metals be kept in the physical possession of a trustee or approved non-bank trustee. The IRA custodian is the trustee. The depository holds the metal on the custodian's behalf (source: 26 U.S.C. section 408, Cornell Legal Information Institute).

The US Tax Court applied that rule against the taxpayers in McNulty v. Commissioner, 157 T.C. 10 (2021), where a saver took physical possession of American Eagle coins at home instead of leaving them at an approved depository. The court held the coins were a deemed distribution. That is the reason home-storage schemes fail and the reason a depository like CNT exists at all.

Which metals can CNT Depository hold for a precious-metals IRA?

CNT handles all four of the IRA-eligible precious metals in its wholesale business: gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. Each carries a fineness floor set through IRC 408(m)(3)(B), which points to the delivery standards of a regulated commodity contract market rather than naming numbers in the tax code itself.

The commonly cited minimums are gold at 0.995, silver at 0.999, platinum at 0.9995, and palladium at 0.9995 fineness. These are the industry-standard COMEX and NYMEX delivery specifications the statute leans on (source: 26 U.S.C. section 408; IRS collectibles issue snapshot).

The chart below shows those four floors side by side. Any bar or coin held at CNT for an IRA account has to sit at or above the correct line, unless it qualifies through the American Eagle carve-out at 31 USC 5112.

American Gold, Silver, Platinum, and Palladium Eagles qualify through a separate statutory carve-out for United States coins listed in 31 USC 5112. That is why a 22-karat American Gold Eagle at 0.9167 fineness is still IRA-eligible even though it fails the general 0.995 gold floor (source: IRS collectibles issue snapshot).

Rhodium and iridium are not on the statutory list in 408(m)(3)(B), which names only gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. No depository, CNT included, can turn a rhodium bar into IRA metal. Any pitch that suggests otherwise is not accurate. See rhodium and iridium are not IRA-eligible for the statutory language.

Because CNT's wholesale business trades industrial-scale bar formats, an IRA account routed there can end up with a mix of coins and larger bars. See IRA-eligible silver bars, IRA-eligible platinum products, and IRA-eligible palladium products for what the custodian will accept.

Segregated, commingled, and how bullion is titled inside a depository

Depository storage is not a bank deposit. The metal is not the depository's asset. Well-run depositories, including CNT, hold customer bullion as bailed property, off the operator's balance sheet, so it can be identified and returned even if the operator itself failed. That titling structure sits on top of the Uniform Commercial Code and typical bailment law.

Within that framework, IRA custodians usually offer two tiers. Segregated storage keeps a saver's specific coins or bars in a labeled position that only the custodian can move. Commingled storage pools like-for-like bullion of the same product and returns an equal quantity of that same product on withdrawal, not the identical items you sent in.

Both tiers are legal for an IRA. Both should be fully allocated at the vault level. The trade-off is price against traceability. Segregated storage typically costs more per year and returns the same items. Commingled storage typically costs less and returns fungible equivalents.

The trade-off: commingled storage often shows a lower headline storage rate on a silver-heavy account, since silver ounces stack more efficiently in commingled form. Segregated storage is more meaningful on 100-ounce gold and 1,000-ounce silver bars, which are non-fungible anyway. See segregated versus commingled storage.

What CNT does not publish publicly, and what to demand from your custodian

A saver-first review has to be honest about what is missing. Compared with Delaware Depository or Brink's, CNT publishes very little consumer-facing detail. There is no retail FAQ page, no public fee schedule, no public insurance certificate posted to a website, and no public SOC 1 or SOC 2 audit letter on a marketing page.

That is not automatically a red flag. CNT's IRA business is a business-to-business channel routed through custodians, and most of the paperwork lives inside those custodian agreements. It does mean the saver has to press the custodian to put a few items in writing before opening or transferring an account.

Ask for the following, in email or on letterhead, from the IRA custodian that will route metal to CNT:

• Vault location and titling. Confirm that IRA metal will be held at the Bridgewater, Massachusetts facility (or a named alternate CNT site) and that the metal will be booked as fully allocated customer property, off the operator's balance sheet.
• Storage tier and annual cost. Ask which tier applies to your account (segregated or commingled), what the annual storage fee is in dollars, and whether it is billed by asset value or by ounce.
• Current all-risk vault insurance coverage. Ask for the current coverage limit, the underwriter, and the standard exclusions. Do not accept a marketing sentence in place of a policy summary.
• Independent audit standard. Ask whether CNT provides a SOC 1 or SOC 2 report to custodians and whether your custodian reviews it. Ask when the last audit was signed off.
• Deposit and withdrawal processing time. Ask, in business days, how long CNT takes to log an inbound shipment and to release an outbound one, and what happens with 100-ounce gold and 1,000-ounce silver bars.
• Business continuity and backup vault. Ask whether CNT has a backup site or a mutual-aid arrangement with another approved depository in a disaster scenario.

If a custodian will not put those answers in writing, that is meaningful information about the account itself, not just about CNT. A saver never sees the vault. The written record from the custodian is the only proof anyone can pull years later.

How savers reach CNT Depository through a self-directed IRA custodian

You do not open a CNT Depository IRA account directly. The custodian holds the account and the master relationship with the vault. Your job is to pick a custodian that already routes IRA metal to Bridgewater, or to instruct your custodian to route new metal there when you fund the account.

The path most savers follow looks like this:

1. Open a self-directed IRA with a qualified custodian. The custodian must be a bank or IRS-approved non-bank trustee that services precious-metals accounts. It signs the paperwork and files the annual IRS forms on the IRA.
2. Confirm the custodian uses CNT Depository. Ask in writing which depositories the custodian routes IRA metal to and whether CNT (Bridgewater, MA) is on that list. If not, choose a different custodian or a different vault.
3. Move funds through a direct transfer or direct rollover. Ship cash custodian-to-custodian to avoid the 60-day rule and the 20 percent mandatory withholding on plan payouts that hits an indirect rollover.
4. Pick IRS-eligible bullion through a dealer. Favor common bullion coins and bars over premium numismatic coins. Numismatic mark-ups often exceed the storage bill, and graded rare coins are not IRA-eligible.
5. Route the shipment to CNT Depository. The dealer ships the metal to Bridgewater under the custodian's account. The vault will count, inspect, and book the bullion before it becomes IRA property.
6. Instruct segregated or commingled storage in writing. Tell the custodian which storage tier you want and get the annual charge in dollars. Both tiers should be fully allocated at the vault level.

For source-specific rollover mechanics, see the plan-by-plan guides: a 401(k) into a precious metals IRA, a 403(b), a TSP, or a traditional IRA. For custodian selection, see silver IRA custodians and the best precious-metals IRA custodians compared.

How CNT Depository lines up against peer IRA depositories

Custodian intake forms usually surface the same short list of depositories. The table below shows how CNT sits next to the peers a saver is most likely to see named. The lens is what a saver can verify from public pages, not marketing.

Sources: A-Mark Precious Metals SEC filings; delawaredepository.com; brinks.com storage pages; internationaldepositoryservices.com; texasmetals.com. Checked June 2026.

Two things follow. First, all five depositories store the same four IRA-eligible metals at the same statutory fineness floors, so eligibility is not the differentiator. Second, the real differences are location relative to the shipping dealer, the storage tier the custodian offers, the published insurance stack, and the transparency of the audit trail. On that last dimension, CNT is measurably quieter than Delaware Depository. See the best precious-metals IRA depositories compared for the fuller ranking.

Fees, drag on small accounts, and a worked example

CNT does not publish a retail fee schedule, because IRA storage costs are set by the custodian, not by the vault. The custodian collects an all-in annual fee and passes the wholesale storage rate through. Ask for the total annual storage cost in dollars and split it out from setup and administration fees.

Two structural points come up on every IRA. First, silver-heavy accounts pay more per dollar than gold-heavy accounts, because a given dollar buys many more ounces of silver and consumes more vault space per dollar. Second, non-fungible bars (100-ounce gold and 1,000-ounce silver) usually cost more per year than commingled bullion coins of the same total value.

Delivery and pickup timing at CNT are not published on a public page. If timing matters for a large in-kind distribution near an RMD deadline, put the vault's stated processing days in writing before you rely on them. Ask about weekends and holidays, and whether large-bar releases require a longer lead time.

Fixed annual fees drag hardest on smaller accounts. The calculator below shows how a percentage cost compounds against a balance over time, so a saver can see whether a $50,000 account justifies a full precious-metals IRA at CNT storage rates.

The RMD clock adds another layer to the fee question. Under SECURE 2.0, the first required minimum distribution for a traditional IRA starts at age 73 for savers born 1951 through 1959 and at age 75 for savers born in 1960 or later (source: IRS RMD FAQs).

That timeline matters at CNT for one reason: RMDs are cash-based unless the saver takes an in-kind distribution of the actual coins or bars. In-kind distributions require the vault to release specific inventory and the custodian to report the fair market value on IRS Form 1099-R. Timing has to be worked backward from the December 31 deadline.

When CNT Depository is not the right vault for your account

A balanced review has to name the cases where CNT is the wrong vault for a specific saver. Not every account belongs in Bridgewater, and the right answer sometimes lives at a peer facility.

CNT is usually not the right fit in these situations:

• You need a depository that publishes its insurance and audit letters publicly. Some savers want to be able to click through to a policy summary and a SOC report without having to route the question through a custodian. Delaware Depository and IDS make more of that public than CNT does.
• You need a West Coast or Texas footprint for shipping. A California saver working with a California dealer will pay more in transit insurance shipping to Bridgewater than to Boulder City or Leander. Location cost is small per shipment but adds up on a heavy silver account.
• Your custodian does not route to CNT. Not every self-directed IRA custodian has an intake relationship with CNT. Do not switch custodians just to reach a specific vault. Pick the vault that fits the custodian your account is already with, if the custodian is otherwise strong.
• You are being sold a bundled package that names CNT alongside a checkbook LLC or a home-storage setup. CNT is a vault. It is not a checkbook IRA, and it does not authorize home storage of IRA metal. Any package that combines those labels is not describing an IRS-compliant structure.
• You expect the account to be small and stay small. Any depository will punish a $10,000 account on annual fee drag. That is a general precious-metals-IRA reality, not a CNT-specific flaw. See the silver IRA minimum investment for the arithmetic.

If one of these describes you, the decision is not that CNT is a bad depository. It is that a different vault, a different custodian, or a different account structure fits better. There is no call to action in this section on purpose.

CNT Depository questions, answered

Is CNT Depository IRS-approved for holding IRA metal?

The IRS does not maintain a public list of approved depositories. What the tax code requires is that IRA bullion sit in the physical possession of an IRS-approved trustee, per IRC 408(m)(3). CNT holds metal on behalf of IRA custodians who are themselves banks or approved non-bank trustees. That structure is the compliance path, not a CNT-specific IRS approval.

Who owns CNT Depository today?

CNT Depository is operated by CNT Inc., which A-Mark Precious Metals, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMRK) acquired in March 2021 for total consideration of about $218 million. CNT now sits inside A-Mark's group and is reported in A-Mark's SEC filings. That means public annual-report disclosure that did not exist when CNT was privately held.

Where does CNT Depository store IRA metal?

The primary vault is in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. A-Mark's public filings describe CNT's inventory as held at owned and leased US facilities anchored by Bridgewater. IRA metal must stay inside the United States, per federal rules, and cannot be moved to any offshore vault CNT or its parent might operate for non-IRA clients.

Does CNT Depository publish an insurance certificate for retail savers?

Not on a public page. That is one of the areas where CNT is measurably less transparent than peers like Delaware Depository. The IRA custodian that routes metal to CNT should be able to share the current all-risk coverage limit, the underwriter, and the exclusions in writing. Ask before you sign.

Which precious metals can CNT hold for a precious-metals IRA?

The four IRA-eligible metals: gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. Each has a minimum fineness set by IRC 408(m)(3) through commodity contract-market delivery standards, at 0.995 for gold, 0.999 for silver, and 0.9995 for platinum and palladium. American Eagle sovereign coins qualify through a separate 31 USC 5112 carve-out.

Can I go to Bridgewater and see my metal in person?

CNT does not run a retail visitor experience the way a bank branch does. IRA holders in particular have to be careful. Taking personal possession of IRA metal is a deemed distribution under IRC 408(m), as the Tax Court held in McNulty v. Commissioner. Instructions to move or ship metal must come from the custodian, not the saver.

Is CNT the same thing as A-Mark Precious Metals?

No, but CNT is now a subsidiary. A-Mark Precious Metals, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMRK) is the parent, a US-listed public company that trades wholesale bullion, operates a coin-and-blank business, and consolidates CNT's operations into its financial reports. The vault is CNT's, the public reporting is A-Mark's.

Are rhodium or iridium bars ever accepted at CNT for an IRA?

No. IRC 408(m)(3) names only gold, silver, platinum, and palladium as IRA-eligible metals. Rhodium and iridium are outside that list at any purity. A pitch to buy rhodium or iridium for an IRA is not describing an IRS-compliant transaction. That is a statutory limit, not a CNT policy.