Where to Sell (or Buy) Gold, Silver & Platinum in Florida

Florida regulates walk-in gold and jewelry buyers as secondhand dealers under Part I of chapter 538. Each dealer registers with the Department of Revenue, submitting fingerprints for a background check, and displays the registration at the shop. At every purchase the dealer fills out a transaction form with your name, address, workplace, phone numbers, date of birth and physical description, your right thumbprint, digital photos of the items, and the type and number of the government photo ID you show. You sign a statement that you own the goods or are entitled to sell them. The record goes to the sheriff or police chief within 24 hours, and the dealer keeps a copy for 3 years. Knowingly giving false ownership information or a false ID and taking payment is a felony.

Gold, silver and platinum items, gemstones and jewelry must stay at the registered location for 30 calendar days before the dealer may sell, melt or alter them, and police with probable cause can order a 90 day hold. Dealers may not buy from anyone under 18, from someone visibly intoxicated, or from anyone using a name other than their own, and they may not trade between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. or through a drive-through window. Coins and assayed bullion marked with weight and fineness are not "secondhand goods" under the law, so these record and hold rules do not reach a coin or marked-bar sale, and dental materials are left out of the definition of precious metals.

Selling outright to a Florida pawnbroker falls under the Florida Pawnbroking Act (chapter 539) instead: the pawnshop is licensed by the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, records your ID and thumbprint on a transaction form, holds what it buys unaltered for 30 calendar days, and may not buy from anyone under 18.

Since August 1, 2025, Fla. Stat. 212.08(7)(ww) exempts every sale of gold, silver or platinum bullion, after the Legislature dropped the old rule that a purchase had to top 500 dollars. Coins fall under 212.05(1)(j): a 6% tax applies to coins sold above face value or priced on their metal content, but it is not levied on U.S. legal tender coins or on gold and silver coin recognized under the 2026 legal tender law, and other coins are exempt when the coin portion of a purchase is over 500 dollars. Jewelry stays taxable at the 6% state rate plus county surtax of up to 2%.

None of this applies when you sell. Sales tax is a buyer's cost on a retail purchase, so nothing is deducted from what a Florida shop or we pay you for your metal.

The Florida Constitution (Article VII, section 5) bars a state tax on the income of natural persons who live in Florida beyond what can be credited against a similar federal tax, and Florida levies no personal income tax, so there is no state return on which to report a profit from selling gold, silver or platinum.

Federally, the IRS taxes physical precious metals as collectibles: gains on metal held more than a year are taxed at your ordinary rate up to 28%, and metal held a year or less is taxed as ordinary income. Inherited metal generally takes its value on the date of death as its basis. We are not tax advisers, so check with yours before you file.

Fla. Stat. 215.986 recognizes gold coin of at least 99.5% purity and silver coin of at least 99.9% purity as legal tender for debts incurred on or after July 1, 2026. The law's "coin" means rounds, bars, ingots or bullion coins valued for their metal and stamped with weight and purity, marked with no more than that and a refiner's or mint's name or symbol; it excludes jewelry and collectibles, and leaves the status of U.S. and foreign government coins to federal law. Nobody, including the state, can be made to accept it, and government bodies may take it only by electronic transfer. The Legislature ratified the implementing rules in June 2026 (chapter 2026-132). In practice buyers, including us, still price your metal off the live spot market.