A thousand years ago, a Roman soldier could buy a good tunic with an ounce of gold. Today, that same ounce buys roughly the same quality of garment. That is the whole argument for monetary metals: not that they grow, but that they hold.
Most of the assets covered in this publication are finite because they require energy, skilled labour, or rare geology to produce. Gold and silver share those constraints, and they add one more: five thousand years of established convention as the thing people reach for when paper systems become unreliable. That track record does not guarantee future performance. It does suggest that the next time a government prints aggressively, others will not be reaching for copper or timber as a reserve.
This guide covers the practical mechanics for EU buyers: how the VAT rules work, which products make sense, where to buy, and how to think about storage. Prices reference spot rates as of writing (approximately EUR 3,900 per troy ounce gold, EUR 65 per troy ounce silver); your dealer’s live price will differ.
The difference between owning gold and having a claim on it
An ETF that tracks gold gives you exposure to the gold price. It does not give you gold. The distinction matters only at the margin in normal times. It matters considerably more when the custodian, the exchange, or the broader clearing system faces stress.
Physical metal held in your possession, or allocated in a vault under your name, is your asset. It is not a liability of a financial institution. It cannot be loaned out or counted as collateral for someone else’s position. There is no counterparty to default.
This is not a black-swan argument. It is a straightforward description of what you own. A one-troy-ounce coin is a one-troy-ounce coin. A share in a gold ETF is a legal claim, governed by a prospectus, held through a chain of custodians. Both track the gold price. Only one of them is the thing.
Investment gold and VAT in the EU
The EU VAT Directive (Council Directive 2006/112/EC) grants investment gold a full VAT exemption across all member states. The rules are specific, and worth understanding before you buy.
For bars and ingots, the metal must be at least 99.5% pure. Most standard investment bars from accredited refineries meet this threshold.
For coins, three conditions apply: the coin must contain at least 90% gold, it must have been minted after 1800, and it must be recognised as legal tender in its country of origin. The European Commission publishes an annual list of qualifying coins each December. The 2026 list includes the Vienna Philharmoniker, the Canadian Maple Leaf, the South African Krugerrand, and the British Britannia, among several dozen other sovereign issues.
The exemption applies to the full purchase price. A buyer in Germany, France, or the Netherlands pays EUR 0 in VAT on a qualifying gold coin or bar. This is worth stating plainly because it is not widely understood. Gold is treated differently from almost any other physical asset you can buy.
Silver is not exempt. Standard national VAT rates apply: 19% in Germany, 21% in the Netherlands, 20% in France. That materially raises the cost basis for a silver buyer. A 1oz silver coin bought in Germany costs around EUR 65 for the metal, plus approximately EUR 12 in VAT on top. The metal needs to rise roughly 18% before you break even on the tax, before accounting for the dealer premium.
This does not make silver worth avoiding. Its entry point is much lower: a single 1oz coin costs around EUR 65 at current spot, versus approximately EUR 4,000 for 1oz of gold. For someone building an initial position with a few hundred euros rather than a few thousand, silver is the more accessible starting point. The VAT arithmetic is a cost to factor in, not a reason to dismiss the metal entirely.
Coins or bars
For most buyers, coins are the better starting point.
Sovereign coins from major mints carry name recognition that makes resale straightforward anywhere in the EU. A 1oz Vienna Philharmoniker is immediately recognisable to any bullion dealer on the continent. A 100g bar from an accredited refinery is also liquid, but coins can be sold in smaller increments when needed.
The Philharmoniker is the most practical choice for EU buyers. It is the only major gold coin with a euro-denominated face value (EUR 100, though its metal value is roughly forty times that at current prices), it is produced by the Austrian Mint in Vienna, and it is universally stocked by EU dealers. The 1oz coin retails at approximately EUR 4,025 at current prices, a premium of roughly 3% over spot. The 1/10oz version is available for around EUR 450, which is a reasonable entry point if a full ounce is more than you want to commit at once.
The Maple Leaf and Britannia are both 999.9 fine and both widely available across the EU. Either is a sound choice. The Krugerrand is 916.7 fine (22-carat gold alloyed with copper for durability), which still clears the 90% threshold for VAT exemption and often trades at a slightly lower premium in some European markets.
Bars make more sense at larger amounts. A 100g or 250g bar from an LBMA-accredited refinery carries a lower percentage premium over spot than a 1oz coin, and storage per gram costs less. Below EUR 5,000, coins offer more flexibility. Above that, a mix of coins and modest bars is a sensible approach.
Where to buy
For physical delivery in the EU, two categories of dealer are worth knowing.
Pan-European dealers with physical presence across multiple countries offer the best combination of competitive pricing and reliability. Tavex Group operates in twelve European countries, has been active since 1991, and sources only LBMA-certified products. Geiger Edelmetalle, based in Germany, sells directly online with EU delivery and publishes live pricing. Both will ask for identity verification on larger purchases, which is standard under EU anti-money laundering rules.
For allocated storage (your metal held in a named vault account, segregated from other clients’ holdings and not available as collateral to anyone else), BullionVault operates professional vaults in Zurich and London. Annual storage runs 0.12% of the value held, including insurance through Lloyd’s of London. GoldBroker offers allocated storage with vaults in Zurich and Singapore, held outside the banking system. Both platforms allow buying and selling at spot-adjacent prices once your account is verified.
Home storage is legal across the EU with no quantity restrictions, but a few practical points apply. Standard household insurance rarely covers precious metals. You will need a certified safe and an explicit insurance rider. In the Netherlands, cash transactions are capped at EUR 3,000 per order; EU-wide, dealers are required to verify identity on purchases over EUR 10,000, and many set lower internal thresholds as a matter of policy.
There is no obviously correct answer between allocated storage and home possession. Allocated storage means trusting a custodian. Home storage means trusting your own physical security arrangements. Many buyers do both: smaller coins at home for direct access, larger positions in allocated storage for amounts that would be impractical to secure privately.
How metals fit the Finite Resources thesis
The argument running through this publication is that assets produced by intelligence and labour are falling in price, while assets produced by finite physical inputs are holding or rising. Gold and silver sit clearly on the finite side: they cannot be synthesised, they cannot be printed, and they cannot be scaled by a software update.
The monetary case is specific. Central banks collectively hold around 36,000 tonnes of gold as a reserve asset. They have been net buyers every year since 2010. That is not retail behaviour. It is governments choosing to hold a currency hedge that is not denominated in another government’s currency, at a time when most major economies are running fiscal deficits that will require either growth, austerity, or monetary accommodation to resolve. The gold price in euros has roughly doubled in five years. That reflects something.
For an individual buyer, physical metals serve the same function in smaller form: a portion of savings that does not depend on any monetary system to maintain its value. The argument is not that gold will triple. The argument is that in a decade of currency debasement and fiscal expansion, holding some fraction of wealth in an asset with no counterparty and no central issuer is prudent, not speculative.
The copper as the quiet protagonist of the AI boom piece makes the case for metals in industrial demand terms. The what Alden, Doomberg, and Gromen have been saying about real assets piece lays out the macro frameworks that inform this view. And the case for buying now covers the broader timing argument for finite physical assets.
Metals are not glamorous. They pay no dividends and generate no earnings. What they do is exist, reliably, in a quantity that no government can increase. Five thousand years of use as money is not a guarantee of anything. It is, however, evidence worth taking seriously.
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