Ask where the best place to store precious metals is, and the internet offers a great many answers and very few useful ones. Mostly it is a league table of countries, and the order depends on who wrote it.
The problem is not the answer but the question. The storage location is not a property of the metal but a consequence of your situation. Two clients with identical holdings regularly end up at two different locations, and both are right.
This page therefore reverses the order. First the questions that determine the place. Then the weighing by situation. And only after that, what actually applies in the individual countries.
The four questions that determine the place
First: what job does this part of the holding have? A reserve you can reach quickly and a block of wealth meant to lie untouched for thirty years have nothing to do with each other. If you solve both in one place, you solve neither of them well.
Second: is there still buying to do, or is the metal already there? With silver, the tax on purchase is the largest single cost of all. If you are still buying, you can avoid it. If you paid it long ago, you cannot get it back, and all that counts for you now is where the existing metal is best kept.
Third: in which jurisdiction should it lie, and how far away? Accessibility and distance pull against each other. What you can reach in a day, others can reach in a day too.
Fourth: property or claim? This is the question that overrides the place. A claim against a custodian remains a claim, whatever country the vault stands in. We have taken it apart in detail in bank safe deposit box or high-security vault, and if you have not settled it, there is no need to think about countries yet.
The weighing by situation
This is the core of this page. Find the row that fits you.
| Your situation | What follows | What matters then |
|---|---|---|
| Small reserve that should be within reach in an hour in an emergency | It stays near you | The issue is not the place but the insured sum, and that the rest of your wealth does not lie there too |
| Silver position, purchase still to come | Buy and leave it outside the EU and your home country, do not buy at home and move it later | The location must favour the purchase, not just the storage. Since April 2026 that no longer holds for German bonded warehouses |
| Silver position, bought at home with VAT paid | The tax is lost, it will not come back | Now only the calculation of transport against dealing spread counts, not the tax |
| Mid-sized gold position, accessibility important | A location within a day's reach | Switzerland or Liechtenstein. Investment gold is exempt on purchase almost everywhere anyway, so the form of custody decides |
| Block of wealth meant to stay outside the EU for good, not coming back | Distance is an advantage, not an inconvenience | Singapore. There the exemption is not a consequence of a procedure but a genuine exemption |
| Bringing it home is likely | The free port model is the wrong solution | When it is released into free circulation, the tax falls due. Deferred is not waived |
| Heirs live in several countries | The storage location becomes an estate question | What decides is not the tax but how easily your heirs can actually reach the holding |
| The concern is discretion towards private parties, not tax | Form of custody and operator before country | A holding outside the banking system, in segregated custody, with clear allocation |
Two rows stand out as you go through the table. The most common wrong decision is in row three: clients move silver on which VAT has been paid, hoping to change something about the tax. That does not work. The move is often still worth it, but for a different reason, and you should know which.
The second most common is in row six. If you plan from the outset to bring the metal home one day, a free port vault builds up a tax bill for you instead of saving one.
What actually applies in the individual countries
Here, only what can be documented, two sentences each. For four of the six locations we add: we arrange nothing there. They appear because a weighing without them would be incomplete.
Switzerland and Liechtenstein
Transactions in gold for investment purposes of 995 thousandths and above, in bars bearing the stamp of a recognised assayer-melter and in state-minted gold coins, are exempt from tax, and so is the import of such gold. Silver, platinum and palladium bear the standard rate of 8.1 per cent, which does not arise, however, as long as the goods are under customs supervision in a free port vault and keep that status. Liechtenstein has formed a common customs territory with Switzerland since 1923 and a common VAT territory since 1994. Details in free port vaults in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Singapore
Investment precious metals have been exempt from Goods and Services Tax since 1 October 2012, on import as on supply within the country, for businesses and private buyers alike, and export is zero-rated. The difference from the free port model is fundamental: here the tax is not deferred, it never arises. The criteria are narrow, however, and palladium is not covered. Details in storing precious metals in Singapore.
Austria
We arrange nothing there. Investment gold is exempt from VAT, as across the EU; which gold coins meet the criteria is published by the finance ministry each year as an ordinance. The exemption carries no right to deduct input tax, however. Silver bears Austria's standard rate of 20 per cent, more than in Germany. Above all, Austria is EU law, EU customs territory and EU enforcement assistance. As a storage location for a client who wants metal outside the EU, it does not do the job you move metal for.
New Zealand
We arrange nothing there. Fine metal is defined as gold of 99.5 per cent and above, silver of 99.9 per cent and above and platinum of 99 per cent and above; its supply by a dealer and its import are exempt supplies. So attractive for tax, and political stability speaks for it too. Against it speak distance and time zone: a holding you will practically never visit, whose operator you never meet and whose legal system is foreign to you is a different kind of risk from a tax risk.
United Arab Emirates
We arrange nothing there. Investment metals, meaning gold, silver and platinum of 99 per cent purity and above in a form tradeable on the world market, are zero-rated. Since 2024, the reverse charge mechanism also applies to transactions between registered businesses. The infrastructure is first class and the connections are good. What would need checking is how robust legal enforcement and estate administration are for a European owner in the individual case, and that is a question no one answers wholesale.
Hong Kong
We arrange nothing there. Hong Kong is a free port: no customs tariff on imports and exports, and no VAT. For tax, that is hard to beat. The weighing here takes place entirely on the political side, and on that every client has their own view, which we do not take from them.
Why the question about the safest country leads you astray
In almost every first conversation, someone asks which is the safest country. The question is understandable, but it throws four different risks into one pot, and no country does equally well on all four.
Political risk is the question of whether the rules will still be the same in ten years. Legal risk is a different one: whether you can get to your property in a dispute, how long that takes and in what language. Physical risk lies with the building and the operator and has almost nothing to do with the country. And counterparty risk lies solely in the contract you sign.
A location can be politically stable and legally cumbersome. Another can be legally excellent and politically exposed. If you ask for the safest country, you get an answer to a question you did not ask, and you make the decision in the wrong place. It makes sense to assess the four risks one by one and then decide which of them is actually the greatest in your situation.
The three mistakes we see most often
Choosing the location by the tax table. The tax differences are real, but they only decide at the point of purchase. For metal you already hold, they decide nothing at all, and the form of custody always decides.
Putting everything in one place. The reflex is understandable, because it is simpler. But a holding at a single location shares every risk of that location, from the operator to politics. Above a certain size, spreading across two jurisdictions is the simplest improvement of all.
Not thinking about the way back. Every model has an exit, and it is rarely as comfortable as the entrance. For every location you consider, ask: what happens if I want to turn the metal into money in five years, and what if my heirs have to?
And if the holding already lies somewhere
Then the question is not where it would be best, but whether the change pays off. That calculation has two sides: a concrete transport quote against the dealing spread that a sale and repurchase would cost. How it is done is set out in transporting precious metals abroad. Why the place matters at all, and what was historically ordered, is covered in gold bans and confiscation.
What we do
We run neither vaults nor secure transport and do not trade in precious metals. Nor do we arrange storage in countries we do not know, just because they look good in a table.
What we do is the allocation: which part of your holding has which job, which location and which form of custody suit it, and which part can quite happily stay where it is. For most clients, the result is not "everything to Singapore" but a split you can explain in one sentence.
Friedrich A. Hennegriff goes through it with you, with your actual holding and your actual situation rather than a country league table.
👉 Book an appointmentFrequently asked questions
Where is the best place to store precious metals?
There is no best place, because the answer depends on the job. For a small reserve you can reach quickly, the place next door is right. For silver still to be bought, the tax on purchase decides. For holdings meant to stay outside the EU and your home country for good, jurisdiction and form of custody decide. These three jobs lead to three different answers.
Is Austria a good storage location?
Not for silver. Austria's standard rate is 20 per cent, above Germany's. Investment gold is exempt from VAT there, as across the EU, but without the right to deduct input tax. Above all, Austria remains EU law and EU enforcement assistance, and for most clients that is precisely the reason for moving metal in the first place.
What about Dubai, Hong Kong or New Zealand?
All three are attractive for tax. In the United Arab Emirates, investment metals of 99 per cent purity and above are zero-rated, Hong Kong is a free port with no VAT and no duty on gold, and in New Zealand the supply of fine metal is an exempt supply. Whether a location suits you is still not decided by tax, but by accessibility, legal certainty and how an inheritance is handled there.
Do you arrange storage in all the countries mentioned?
No. We work with locations in Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Singapore. Austria, New Zealand, Dubai and Hong Kong appear here because they belong to an honest weighing, not because we offer them. In any case, we run neither vaults nor secure transport.