Rolling Over a TSP Into a Precious Metals IRA

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Last updated: July 17, 2026 · By White Metal Resources Editorial

This page walks a federal employee, service member, or retiree through moving a Thrift Savings Plan balance into a precious metals IRA. Below we cover when the TSP will actually release money, the two rollover routes the IRS recognizes, the age-55 exception that ends at the IRA line, which metals qualify, the true cost, and the checks that keep the account compliant. Every figure traces to an IRS, statute, or CFTC source, cited inline.

Can you actually roll your TSP right now?

Most TSP rollovers are blocked until a specific event happens. The plan document controls what money can leave, and active federal employees are the group most often stuck waiting.

You can typically roll a TSP into a precious metals IRA in four situations. The first is separation from federal service, whether by resignation, retirement, or the end of an enlistment. The second is reaching age 59.5, which unlocks an in-service withdrawal while you are still employed. The third is total and permanent disability. The fourth is death, in which case a beneficiary handles the move.

The IRS calls the transferred money an "eligible rollover distribution" when it meets these tests. Publication 590-A explains the mechanics in plain language (source: IRS Publication 590-A). The TSP will not release funds outside these events, and it will not send a check to a dealer or a broker who is not a qualified custodian.

Worth knowing: the TSP is more restrictive than many private plans on paper. Confirm with the TSP's ThriftLine or your MyPay account that a rollover distribution is available today, request the distribution paperwork, and note that partial rollovers are allowed as well as full ones.

What the TSP is, and why the rollover rules feel different

The Thrift Savings Plan is the federal government's defined-contribution retirement plan for civilian employees under FERS and CSRS, plus members of the uniformed services and the Ready Reserve. It was created by the Federal Employees' Retirement System Act of 1986 and is administered by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB). It functions much like a 401(k), and the IRS treats it as a qualified plan for rollover purposes.

Two tax buckets live inside a single TSP account. The traditional TSP holds pretax money, and the Roth TSP holds after-tax money. Each bucket rolls into the same-flavor IRA, and mixing them at rollover would trigger a taxable Roth conversion on the pretax portion. Members of the uniformed services who contributed tax-exempt combat pay to a traditional TSP have a third internal category as well, and that portion has its own tax treatment when distributed.

The TSP charges some of the lowest expense ratios in the retirement industry, which is one reason many advisors urge participants to think twice before rolling out. A precious metals IRA replaces those low internal fund fees with custodian, depository, and dealer costs, on top of a coin spread. The tradeoff is deliberate: you gain a physical asset outside the paper markets and give up some pricing efficiency.

Direct rollover or indirect rollover: which route?

Two routes exist, and only one avoids federal withholding. Picking the right route is the single most important choice you make.

A direct rollover moves the money trustee to trustee. The TSP sends the funds to your new self-directed IRA custodian, either by wire or by a check made payable to the custodian for your benefit. No tax is due, no withholding is taken, and no 60-day clock starts.

An indirect rollover pays the balance to you first. The plan is legally required to withhold 20 percent of the taxable portion for federal income tax, under IRC section 3405. You then have 60 days to redeposit the full pretax amount, including the withheld 20 percent, or the shortfall counts as a distribution. If you are under age 59.5 without an exception, the 10 percent early-withdrawal additional tax stacks on top of ordinary income tax (source: IRS Publication 590-A).

Sources: IRS Publication 590-A; IRC section 3405. Checked June 2026.

For a full walkthrough of the mechanics and the edge cases, see direct versus indirect rollover and moving a workplace plan without triggering a penalty.

The age-55 penalty exception that ends at the IRA line

Federal employees and service members who separate at the right age enjoy a rule most private savers do not know exists. It applies to distributions from the TSP itself, and it disappears the moment those dollars land inside an IRA.

Under IRC section 72(t)(2)(A)(v), a distribution from a qualified plan is exempt from the 10 percent early-withdrawal additional tax if the participant separated from service during or after the year they turned 55. Qualified public safety employees, including federal firefighters and federal law-enforcement officers, get an even earlier line: age 50 or 25 years of service, whichever is earlier (source: IRS Topic 558).

Here is the trap. Both exceptions apply only while the money is inside the plan. Once you roll the balance into a traditional IRA, the standard IRA rule takes over, and any distribution before age 59.5 is exposed to the 10 percent additional tax unless a different IRA-level exception applies. A rollover done too early can trade a valuable exemption for a penalty box.

Practical read: if you separated at 55 or later and might need part of the balance before 59.5, consider leaving a slice inside the TSP where the exemption still works, and rolling only the portion you will not touch. Public safety employees with the age-50 exception face the same math.

The steps, in order, for a clean TSP rollover

The direct-rollover path breaks into five actions. Done in this order, each step confirms the prior step before the money moves.

1. Confirm you have a rollable event. Verify separation from federal service is complete, or that you have reached age 59.5 for an in-service withdrawal. Request the TSP withdrawal paperwork through your online account.
2. Open a self-directed IRA with a qualified custodian. The custodian is a bank or IRS-approved non-bank trustee that holds legal title to your new account and files the annual Form 5498.
3. Choose an IRS-approved depository. The depository takes physical possession of the metal once bought. Federal law bars home storage, so a compliant vault must be named on the paperwork.
4. Request the direct trustee-to-trustee transfer from the TSP. Provide the TSP with the receiving custodian's wire or check-payable instructions. Ask that the distribution be coded as a direct rollover (code G on Form 1099-R) and split traditional and Roth balances into their matching IRAs.
5. Select IRS-approved metals with your dealer. Instruct the custodian to fund the purchase. The dealer ships the coins or bars directly to the depository, and the custodian records them as IRA assets.

The trade-off: some savers try to short-cut steps 2 and 3 by letting a dealer pick the custodian. That order flips the leverage. Pick your custodian and depository before your dealer, and you keep pricing and product choice in your control.

Traditional TSP and Roth TSP: keep the buckets separate

The TSP has held both a traditional pretax bucket and a Roth after-tax bucket since 2012. The IRS treats each bucket as its own retirement account for rollover purposes, and the receiving side must match.

Traditional TSP dollars roll only to a traditional IRA. Roth TSP dollars roll only to a Roth IRA. Send traditional TSP money into a Roth IRA and you have made a taxable Roth conversion, which adds the entire converted amount to ordinary income for the year. Send Roth TSP into a traditional IRA and you have overpaid tax that cannot be recovered in the usual way. Both are common paperwork errors.

Most TSP participants who want physical metal open two IRAs at once: a traditional self-directed IRA to receive the traditional TSP balance, and a Roth self-directed IRA to receive the Roth TSP balance. Both accounts can hold the same list of eligible metals, and both accounts store the metal at the same approved depository. The one difference is how future distributions are taxed.

Which metals can the rolled money buy?

Only four metals qualify for a precious metals IRA. The statute lists gold, silver, platinum, and palladium at specified minimum finenesses, and nothing else. Rhodium and iridium never qualify at any purity.

The recognized minimums are gold .995, silver .999, and platinum and palladium each at .9995. These numbers are drawn from commodity-market delivery standards referenced by the tax code (source: 26 U.S.C. section 408(m)). Bars must come from a refiner meeting those standards. The London Bullion Market Association sets the Good Delivery standard for gold and silver bars (source: LBMA Good Delivery).

Sovereign coins from major mints are the most common route. The American Silver, Platinum, and Palladium Eagles qualify under a separate carve-out for United States coins listed in 31 U.S.C. section 5112. The Canadian Silver, Platinum, and Palladium Maple Leaf coins also qualify at the required purity, alongside the Austrian Silver Philharmonic for silver holdings.

Sources: 26 U.S.C. section 408(m); IRS collectibles snapshot; LBMA Good Delivery. Coin specifications are industry-reported. Checked June 2026.

For product-level detail, see IRA-eligible silver coins, platinum products, and palladium products. The full white-metals overview is in white metals explained.

Is your TSP eligible? A quick check

Before you request any paperwork from the TSP, confirm the source is eligible. The tool below runs the standard eligibility tests the IRS applies to a rollover distribution and flags common blockers.

What does the move actually cost?

A precious metals IRA carries costs the TSP usually does not. The rollover itself is generally free, but the account it lands in has three cost layers plus a dealer spread.

Expect a one-time account setup fee, an annual custodian or administration fee paid to the trustee, and an annual storage fee paid to the depository. On top of those sits the dealer's spread, the gap between what you pay for the metal and what it would sell for on the same day. The spread is usually the largest lifetime cost, and it is the one least often disclosed clearly.

The TSP itself is cheap by industry standards. That is a real gap you close only when the diversification benefit of a physical asset outside the paper markets earns its keep. Silver, platinum, and palladium are bulkier by dollar than gold, so storage can cost more per dollar invested for a mostly-white-metals account.

Segregated storage keeps your specific coins or bars apart and costs more. Commingled storage pools metal of the same type and costs less. See precious metals IRA fees, storage options, and depository fees compared.

The calculator below estimates how annual fees compound against a rollover balance over time. Enter your balance and a fee rate to see the drag.

For a spouse or heirs, a clean fee structure also keeps the account simple to close later. That matters more than most savers realize while the account is still young.

The risks worth naming before you sign

The account structure is legitimate and IRS-sanctioned. The risk is rarely the account. It is volatility, cost, and the sales pitch attached to the metal.

Precious metals, especially the white metals with industrial demand, have historically shown larger short-term price swings than broad stock or bond indices. That is a documented historical characteristic, not a prediction. Nobody can accurately predict where prices will go in the future, and past performance is not a guarantee of future results.

Federal regulators are active in metals markets. In a 2020 order, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission required JPMorgan Chase and its subsidiaries to pay a total of $920.2 million over spoofing. The conduct spanned gold, silver, platinum, and palladium futures, among others (source: CFTC release 8260-20). That is the market you are moving retirement money into.

The pattern to watch is a pitch that pushes high-markup "premium" or "rare" coins over common bullion. Coin upsells are where buyers lose the most. See the numismatic coin upsell and scams and red flags.

How do you vet the company handling the paperwork?

The company you pick shapes your fees, your metal choices, and your risk of an upsell. A short checklist filters most of the field before you ever pick up the phone.

Verify the basics yourself, not from the sales call. Check the company's Better Business Bureau rating and accreditation date, ask how long it has operated, and request fees in writing. Confirm the custodian and depository the company uses are named and IRS-approved. Favor firms that present common bullion plainly and do not steer you toward numismatic coins.

What you'll need to verify: a published BBB profile, a clear written fee schedule, a named self-directed IRA custodian, a named IRS-approved depository, and a salesperson who answers "who is this not for" honestly. A firm that dodges any of those is telling you something. See how to compare precious metals IRA companies and whether these accounts are legitimate.

When rolling your TSP is a bad idea

A balanced look has to name when this move works against you. For several TSP participants, a rollover into a precious metals IRA is the wrong call, and saying so plainly is part of an honest guide.

It is usually a bad idea in these situations:

• You separated at 55 or later and may need part of the money before 59.5. The TSP itself lets you take distributions with no 10 percent additional tax after that separation. Once the balance lands in an IRA, that exemption is gone.
• Your TSP balance is small against the fee drag. Setup, annual custodian, storage, and the dealer spread are largely fixed. On a small rollover those costs eat a large share of the balance, so a modest holding can struggle to ever come out ahead.
• You are still actively contributing to the TSP with matching. Civilian FERS employees receive an automatic 1 percent agency contribution plus a match on the first 5 percent of pay. Rolling money out mid-career risks confusion on your ongoing agency contributions and complicates future in-service moves. Wait for separation if you can.
• You may need the money within a few years. Metal prices swing short-term, and selling means crossing the dealer spread again. Before age 59.5 you also owe the 10 percent federal additional tax on top of ordinary income tax if you take the money out of the IRA.
• You are chasing a guaranteed return. Nobody can predict where metal prices will go. A pitch that promises guaranteed gains is a warning sign, not an opportunity, and it is exactly the pattern regulators have acted on.

If one of these describes you, slowing down is the sensible call. There is no CTA in this section on purpose. The rollover will still be available next month or next year.

TSP rollover questions, answered

Can I roll my TSP into a precious metals IRA while I still work for the federal government?

Only partially, and only after age 59.5. The TSP allows in-service withdrawals starting at 59.5, and each participant can request one every 30 days from a vested balance. Before that age, active federal employees and service members generally cannot roll TSP funds out at all. Separation from service, disability, or death are the other paths that release the balance.

Is rolling a TSP into a precious metals IRA a taxable event?

A direct trustee-to-trustee rollover is not taxable and is not subject to withholding. Traditional TSP dollars keep their pretax character in a traditional IRA, and Roth TSP dollars keep their after-tax character in a Roth IRA. An indirect rollover, where a check is issued to you first, triggers a 20 percent mandatory federal withholding on the taxable portion. The full pretax amount must be redeposited within 60 days, or the shortfall becomes a taxable distribution.

Do I lose the age-55 penalty exception if I roll my TSP out?

Yes for the balance that leaves the plan. IRC section 72(t)(2)(A)(v) exempts distributions from a qualified plan taken after separation in the year the participant turned 55. Qualified public safety employees can use age 50 or 25 years of service. Once the funds move into an IRA the standard age-59.5 IRA rule takes over. Many separated federal retirees who might need cash before 59.5 leave a portion inside the TSP for exactly that reason.

Can I store the metals at home once the rollover is complete?

No. Federal law requires an IRS-approved trustee to hold physical possession of the metal. Keeping IRA metals at home is treated as a distribution, which is taxable and may carry a penalty if you are under age 59.5. A "home storage IRA" is not a recognized IRS structure. The United States Tax Court applied this rule against the taxpayers in McNulty v. Commissioner in 2021.

How does the traditional and Roth split work when I roll my TSP out?

Each bucket rolls into a matching IRA. Ask the TSP to send the traditional balance to a traditional self-directed IRA and the Roth balance to a Roth self-directed IRA. Mixing the two would trigger a taxable Roth conversion on the pretax portion. Uniformed-services members who contributed tax-exempt combat pay to a traditional TSP have a third internal category that has its own tax treatment, and the receiving IRA should reflect it.

Which metals can I hold, and which are ruled out?

Only gold at .995, silver at .999, and platinum and palladium at .9995 qualify, drawn from commodity-market delivery standards. American Gold, Silver, Platinum, and Palladium Eagles qualify through the United States coin carve-out. Rhodium, iridium, most numismatic or graded "rare" coins, and any metal outside an approved depository do not qualify.

Are precious metals IRAs FDIC insured?

No. FDIC insurance covers cash deposits at insured banks, not physical metals. The depository holding the metal typically carries an all-risk insurance policy through a specialty insurer such as Lloyd's of London or a comparable carrier. Ask the depository for the insured value per account and the exclusions before you commit.

Do I still owe required minimum distributions on the rolled balance?

Yes on the traditional side. Required minimum distributions start at age 73 for most participants today and rise to 75 in 2033 for those born in 1960 or later, under the SECURE 2.0 Act. Roth IRAs have no lifetime RMDs for the account holder, which is one reason some savers roll a Roth TSP to a Roth IRA even when the pretax bucket stays in the plan.