Do I pay tax when I sell gold jewellery in the UK?

What is the £6,000 rule, exactly as HMRC states it?

Jewellery is a chattel: an item of tangible, movable property, something you can both touch and move, in the words of HMRC’s helpsheet HS293. Chattels are chargeable assets, but with a threshold that removes most household sales from the system entirely. HS293 puts the trigger like this: you only need to include in your tax return a gain on the disposal of personal possessions where the disposal proceeds were more than £6,000. The written valuation that gives you a dated record of the disposal is part of the standard process for selling unwanted jewellery.

Two details do most of the work. The threshold is per item, not per sale, so a parcel of a dozen rings and chains is a dozen disposals rather than one. And it is a proceeds test rather than a profit test: what matters first is what the item sold for, not what you made on it.

Where proceeds do exceed £6,000, marginal relief usually softens the result. Subtract £6,000 from the proceeds, multiply by five-thirds, and that figure is the maximum chargeable gain. Compare it with the actual gain and use whichever is lower. HS293 frames the calculation for proceeds between £6,000 and £15,000.

Losses are treated asymmetrically, which is worth knowing before you assume a scrap sale generates a useful one. HS293 says that where the disposal proceeds were less than £6,000, the loss is restricted by treating the proceeds as £6,000 and recalculating. For most jewellery sold as scrap that removes the loss altogether.

When do several pieces count as one item?

The exception that catches people is the sets rule. HS293 defines a set as items that are similar and complementary to each other and worth more together than separately. Where pieces of a set are disposed of to the same person, or to connected persons, or to a number of people acting together, the £6,000 limit applies to all of the set collectively and not to each member of the set individually.

HS293 illustrates it with a 32-piece antique chess set that cost £3,200 and was sold piece by piece at £1,000 each. Treated as 32 separate chattels, every disposal is under £6,000 and exempt. Treated as a set, the whole £32,000 comes into scope and the chargeable gains are £28,800. Applied to jewellery, the obvious cases are a matched suite of necklace and earrings, a graduated set of dress rings, or a full canteen of flatware.

Selling the pieces to different buyers on different dates does not automatically escape this, because the rule extends to connected persons, and arranging a sale specifically to get round it is what the rule exists to catch. Where a genuine set is worth real money, that is a conversation to have with an accountant before the parcel is packed rather than after.

What is your base cost if the jewellery was inherited?

For inherited items the base cost is the market value at the date of death, not what the deceased originally paid. gov.uk’s guidance on working out a gain on personal possessions says to use the Inheritance Tax value, or market value where you do not know it. A sale at or below the probate figure produces no gain at all.

This is why probate valuations matter twice over. The figure set at death fixes the Inheritance Tax exposure and the future Capital Gains Tax base cost simultaneously, and it moves them in opposite directions. If you are administering an estate rather than selling your own jewellery, the executor position works differently again: see whether executors pay Capital Gains Tax on estate jewellery.

What rates and allowances apply, and what actually gets reported?

Personal representatives and trustees sit outside that two-band structure and pay 24%. The annual exempt amount for most trustees is half the individual figure, £1,500 for 2026 to 2027. These numbers are set at Budgets and the allowance has halved twice in three years, so use the figure for the tax year of your own disposal rather than one you remember.

Where a gain does need reporting there are two routes. HMRC’s real time Capital Gains Tax service takes gains on assets sold during the tax year, and asks you to report by 31 December in the tax year after the gain and pay by 31 January. Otherwise the gain goes on a Self Assessment return.

What records should you keep?

• The written, itemised valuation from the sale, showing each piece, the purity it assayed at, its weight and the rate used.
• Your base cost: the purchase price if you bought it, the date-of-death value if you inherited it.
• Any selling costs, with the receipts behind them.
• Copies of any professional valuations, and the dates they were made.

HMRC’s record-keeping guidance asks for receipts, bills and invoices showing the date and the amount, contracts for buying and selling the asset, and copies of any valuations, and says to keep them for at least a year after the Self Assessment deadline. Longer is sensible where an estate or a set is involved, and businesses are required to keep records for five years.

What about gold coins, bars and scrap?

The tax rules sort by what the object is before they look at the amount, so find your row first.

The coin exemption is a currency rule, not a gold rule. HMRC’s Capital Gains Manual, at CG76881, says coins which are sterling currency are not chargeable assets, and only legal-tender coins are currency; a sovereign struck in 1837 or later is legal tender, while a 999.9 bar holding the same gold is not. Two other taxes are often confused with CGT. VAT applies to supplies made in the course of business, so a private sale is outside it, and investment gold is an exempt supply in any event. Inheritance Tax is a question about the value of an estate at the date of death, not about a later sale.

What are the limits of this page?

• It describes published HMRC rules for individuals resident in the UK. Non-residence, domicile and trust situations sit outside it.
• It assumes the jewellery was owned personally rather than held as trading stock. If you buy jewellery in order to sell it on, the trading question comes first and Income Tax may apply instead of CGT.
• It does not cover UK legal-tender coins, which are not chargeable assets at all. That distinction is set out in why UK gold coins are CGT-free and bars are not.
• Thresholds, rates and allowances change. Every figure here is stated with its tax year for exactly that reason.

Sources

1. HMRC helpsheet HS293: personal possessions and Capital Gains Tax (2026)
2. GOV.UK: Capital Gains Tax on personal possessions, work out your gain
3. GOV.UK: Capital Gains Tax rates and allowances
4. GOV.UK: Capital Gains Tax record keeping
5. GOV.UK: report and pay Capital Gains Tax on other gains
6. GOV.UK: Capital Gains Tax on gifts to your spouse, civil partner or a charity
7. GOV.UK: reporting rules for digital platforms
8. GOV.UK: Universal Credit, money, savings and investments
9. HMRC Capital Gains Manual CG76881: chattels, coins and bank notes
10. HMRC VAT Notice 701/21: gold acquisitions, imports, investments and VAT

Checked against these sources on 11 September 2026. This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice.