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

North Dakota has no statewide precious metal or secondhand dealer act. State law lets each city "license, tax, and regulate secondhand and junk stores" and pawnbrokers (NDCC 40-05-01), and each county license pawnbrokers "outside of municipalities" (NDCC 11-11-14). The state scrap metal law requires a dealer to have "a fixed business premises" and to keep its records there "or other reasonably available location within this state" (NDCC 51-35-01 and 51-35-02). No North Dakota statute registers or regulates a buyer with no premises in the state. We have no North Dakota premises; your items travel to our refinery in Oregon and the purchase happens there.

After you accept, you complete a simple online verification before we pay. Send only items that are yours to sell.

You get an itemized offer listing each piece with its weight and purity. Turn it down and we mail everything back with free return postage.* Accept and payment goes out the same day.**

There is no North Dakota statute that licenses jewelers, coin shops or gold buyers, sets a holding period, or requires them to report purchases to police. The Century Code leaves pawnbrokers and secondhand stores to local government: cities may license and regulate them, and may punish secondhand and junk stores, though not pawnbrokers, for buying from minors without a parent's or guardian's written consent (NDCC 40-05-01), and counties may license pawnbrokers outside city limits (NDCC 11-11-14). What a Fargo or Bismarck shop asks of you at the counter depends on its city.

The one statewide rule is the scrap metal law, NDCC chapter 51-35. A scrap metal dealer must register with the attorney general and keep a fixed place of business. For any purchase over fifty dollars it records the date, a description and weight of the metal, what it paid and how, and your name and address, plus a photocopy of your government photo ID, and keeps that record for seven years. It cannot pay cash above one thousand dollars, only check or electronic transfer. The law lists platinum among the metals it covers but does not name gold or silver, so whether it reaches a shop buying gold jewelry is not settled by its text. It sets no holding period.

NDCC 57-39.2-04(31) exempts the sale of "money, including all legal tender coins and currency," and of precious metal bullion refined to at least 999 parts per thousand whose value depends on its metal content and not its form. The tax rule at N.D. Admin. Code 81-04.1-03-05 adds that legal tender coins of foreign nations are exempt too. Jewelry gets no exemption and is taxed at the 5% state rate plus any local tax.

Sales tax is a buyer's cost, not yours. You pay no North Dakota sales tax when you sell your gold, silver or platinum, whether to a local shop or to us by mail.

North Dakota starts from your federal taxable income and, under NDCC 57-38-30.3, reduces it by 40% of your net long-term capital gain (after net short-term losses). That reduction covers long-term gains generally, including gains on metal held more than a year, and the remainder is taxed at North Dakota rates that top out at 2.5%. Gains on metal held a year or less get no reduction. HB 1379, which would have subtracted gains on gold and silver legal tender coins and bullion entirely, passed the House in 2025 but failed in the Senate on March 11, 2025.

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

HB 1441 would have added a chapter to the Century Code making gold and silver specie legal tender in North Dakota and addressing how it is taxed. It passed the House 61 to 30 in February 2025 and failed in the Senate 18 to 27 on March 10, 2025, so no such law exists. Buyers price your metal off the live spot market either way, not face value.