Investment Gold: Bank Bars, Spreads and Storage

Gold is one of the oldest ways to store wealth, and buying a bar from a bank or dealer looks simple: you pay the posted price and take the metal home. The real cost is less visible. There is a gap between the price you buy at and the price you can sell at, the bar has to be stored somewhere, and selling it back can take more effort than buying it. This article explains what gold can and cannot do in a portfolio, how bars, coins and exchange-traded instruments compare, how to work out the true cost of getting in and out, and how the Ukrainian tax rules treat each option as of 20 October 2026.

It does not forecast the gold price or recommend where to buy. The aim is to explain how the instrument works so you can run the numbers for your own situation.

What role gold can play in a portfolio

Gold is a commodity, and its key difference from stocks and bonds is simple: gold pays nothing. A share may pay dividends, a bond pays coupons, a deposit pays interest. A bar in a safe produces no income, so the entire result is the difference between the selling price and the buying price, minus the cost of holding it.

Why do investors hold it at all? Three reasons come up most often:

• Diversification. Gold often moves differently from stocks and bonds, so a small allocation can soften a portfolio's swings in some crisis periods.
• Crisis insurance. In financial and geopolitical shocks, demand for gold as a "safe haven" often rises.
• Protection against currency debasement. Over very long horizons, gold has generally held its purchasing power better than cash.

Each of these roles comes with honest caveats:

• Long losing stretches. After its peak in early 1980, the nominal US dollar price of gold took about 28 years to get back to that level, and the loss after inflation was deeper still. Someone who bought at the top could have been underwater for decades.
• An unreliable short-term inflation hedge. Holding value over generations is not the same as rising every time inflation does. For more on inflation, see Inflation and Why Money Loses Value.
• High volatility. The gold price can move by tens of percent in a single year, which is a lot for an asset many people call "defensive". The trade-off is covered in Risk and Return.
• A currency layer. The world gold price is set in US dollars. If you measure your wealth in another currency, your result combines the change in the dollar gold price with the change in your exchange rate.

That is why gold is usually treated as a small insurance sleeve in a portfolio rather than its foundation or a source of income.

Ways to own gold

There are three main routes: physical bars, coins and exchange-traded instruments. They differ a lot in cost, convenience and risk.

Bars from a bank or dealer

Investment bars are refined gold of the highest purity (typically 999.9) with a quality certificate, sold in a range of weights. In Ukraine they are sold by banks, and you either take the bar home or leave it in storage.

A bar is not a bank deposit. In Ukraine, the Deposit Guarantee Fund covers hryvnia and foreign-currency funds held in accounts and deposits, not metal, so a bar has no deposit-guarantee protection.

Size matters too. As a rule, the smaller the bar, the more you pay per gram: minting, packaging and certification costs are spread over less metal, so small bars usually carry a higher premium over the value of the gold itself.

Coins

Gold coins come in two quite different kinds:

• Bullion coins sell close to the value of the gold they contain, plus a minting premium.
• Commemorative and collector coins often cost well above their metal value. That extra reflects design, mintage and collector demand, not gold, and you only get it back if a collector is willing to pay it when you sell.

If your goal is gold as an asset rather than collecting, compare a coin's price with the value of the metal it contains.

Gold ETFs and other exchange-traded instruments

Through a broker you can buy exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or exchange-traded notes that track gold. Physically backed funds hold real bars in vaults, and each unit corresponds to a set amount of metal. You can buy and sell at the market price on any trading day, with no safe and no inspection of the bar when you sell.

The cost is an annual fund fee, broker commissions and reliance on the broker and the fund as intermediaries. Gold mining shares are a different thing: they depend on the gold price but also on each company's costs and results, so they behave differently from the metal. Gold futures are a complex leveraged instrument that does not suit most private investors.

Comparison

The spread: what getting in and out costs

The spread is the difference between the price at which a bank sells gold and the price at which it will buy the same gold back. This is where physical gold usually loses to exchange-traded instruments: the spread on bars is noticeably wider than an ETF's exchange spread. Every bank sets its own spread, and it depends on bar weight, so compare both prices for the same bar on the same day.

Here is an illustrative example (round numbers, not any bank's actual prices):

• The bank sells a bar for 5,000.
• On the same day it buys the same bar back for 4,500.
• The spread is 500, or 10% of the purchase price.

If you bought the bar and changed your mind the same day, you would lose 500 even though the gold price did not move. Just to break even, the buyback price has to rise from 4,500 to 5,000, which is 11.1%.

Now add storage. Suppose a safe deposit box costs 150 a year. Over 5 years that is 750, and the break-even point moves: the buyback price has to reach 5,750, a rise of 27.8% from 4,500, or roughly 5% a year for 5 years, just to get your money back in your own currency.

The point of the example is the mechanics, not the figures: physical gold makes more sense to judge over a long horizon, and small amounts are especially sensitive to the spread and to fixed storage costs.

Reference prices and bank prices

When people search for "the gold rate", they often find an official reference price. In Ukraine, the National Bank publishes a daily accounting price for banking metals. It is an official benchmark, used among other things for accounting and tax purposes, but it is not the price at which a particular bank will sell or buy your bar.

Banks set their own buy and sell prices. As a rule the selling price sits above the reference price and the buyback price below it. The reference price is still useful as a yardstick: compare a bank's prices with it and you can see how wide that bank's spread is today.

Storage and insurance

Physical gold has to live somewhere, and each option has a cost:

• At home. Free, but exposed to theft, fire, and loss during a move or an evacuation. A standard home insurance policy will not necessarily cover valuables in full, so check the terms.
• A safe deposit box. Safer, but with an annual rental fee, and access limited to branch opening hours.
• Storage with the bank that sold the bar. Some banks offer this. Find out whether it is a separate contract, what it costs and how you get the metal out.

The condition of the bar matters too. A bank may inspect the bar when buying it back, so keep the certificate and do not damage the original packaging. Damaged packaging or a missing certificate can complicate the sale and lower the price. Each bank sets its own buyback terms, so find them out before you buy.

Taxes in Ukraine (as of 20 October 2026)

The rules below follow the Tax Code of Ukraine as amended on 17.09.2026. Other countries treat gold very differently, so if you are taxed elsewhere, check your local rules.

Buying

Supplies of investment gold are exempt from VAT (Tax Code, para. 197.26). The Code defines investment gold as bars or wafers of 995 purity or higher, and gold coins of 900 purity or higher minted after 1800 that are or were legal tender and sell for no more than 80% above the market value of the gold they contain (subpara. 14.1.279). A commemorative coin with a large collector premium may fall outside that definition. Silver, platinum and other metals are not covered by this exemption.

Selling banking metals

Under Ukrainian law, banking metals are "currency values", like the hryvnia and foreign currency. Income from transactions in currency values (other than securities) that transfer ownership is not taxable income (subpara. 165.1.51), unless another rule taxes it directly. In practice, income from selling banking gold bought from a bank is not subject to personal income tax, and the military levy does not apply either. You do not need to file a return for this income alone, but if you file one for other reasons, it is listed there. The State Tax Service issued a reminder to this effect on 11 September 2026.

Jewellery and household gold items are not banking metals, and selling them may be taxed under different rules.

Gold ETFs

An ETF unit is a security, not a currency value, so the 165.1.51 exemption does not apply. Profit from selling units through a broker is investment profit: as of 20.10.2026 it is taxed at 18% personal income tax plus a 5% military levy, and the year's result has to be declared.

For a Ukrainian investor, this tax difference is one of the real arguments for bars. It should be weighed together with the spread and storage costs, not on its own.

Selling gold back

Selling is the weak spot of physical gold, so plan it before you buy. Ask the bank:

• Will it buy back bars bought from other banks, or only its own?
• Does a buyback require an assay of the bar, and how much does it cost and how long does it take?
• How does it value a bar with damaged packaging or without a certificate?
• Which branches buy bars, and do you need an appointment?
• What is the gap between the selling and the buyback price for a bar of exactly the weight you plan to buy?

The answers often matter more than a small difference in purchase price between banks.

Summary

Investment gold produces no income, can stay underwater for years and, for anyone who does not measure wealth in US dollars, also carries currency risk, so it is usually treated as a small insurance sleeve rather than the core of a portfolio. In Ukraine, bank bars give you physical metal and, as of 20 October 2026, a sale that is free of personal income tax and military levy, but they cost you the spread, storage and some effort at buyback time. Gold ETFs are cheaper and easier to get in and out of, but their gains are taxed. Before you buy, work out the break-even point for your amount and horizon, compare the buy and buyback prices of the same bar on the same day, and find out the selling terms in advance.