Gold coin and bullion sales in Russia

Main article: Investment in gold

2025: Banks must now inform Rosfinmonitoring about all transactions with precious metals from 1 million rubles

On August 20, 2025, a law came into force, according to which banks are obliged to report  to Rosfinmonitoring on customer transactions with precious metals and stones more expensive than ₽1 million. This will help reduce the illegal circulation of jewelry, and with it the risks of financing terrorism. According to Akhmat   Salpagarov, deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Budget and Financial Markets, operations with precious metals are actively used in an attempt to legalize criminal proceeds due to their small volume and high cost.^[1]

2024: Russians acquire 75.6 metric tons of gold

In 2024, Russians bought a record amount of gold in an attempt to protect their savings, receiving the equivalent of about a quarter of the country's annual production.

Consumers purchased 75.6 metric tons (2.7 million ounces) of yellow metal in bullion, coins and jewelry in 2024, the fifth-highest of any country.

Russia is the second largest producer of gold in the world, producing more than 300 tons of precious metal per year.

2023

Purchase of 95 tons of gold in bullion by Russians

In 2023, individuals in Russia purchased about 95 tons of gold in bullion. A year earlier, this figure was measured at 100 tons, according to data from the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, published on February 1, 2024.

According to Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev, the purchase of gold by individuals was systematically reduced throughout 2023 and then increased sharply in the fourth quarter. According to the deputy head of the Ministry of Finance, in 2024 the demand for gold will grow, though not at such an explosive pace.

𝓲

Фото: Pexels

When the president and the government decided to abolish VAT on gold, [he had] several reasons [including] the replacement of citizens' cups. In one of the periods, the demand for bank cells exceeded supply. We see a gradual phased replacement, we do not know what is in these cells, but we see that the demand for gold to some extent replaces the demand for dollars. The demand for gold will grow, there will be no such strong bursts in this market as it was, but it will develop progressively. Gold was, is and will be, - said Alexey Moiseev.

According to him, the Ministry of Finance suspected that the export of gold by individuals could be a way to bypass the "exchange rate" duty and offered to limit its volumes. Moiseev noted that the Russians began to export gold from the country in their pockets so as not to pay a 7% duty.

At the end of 2023, a number of Russian banks noted that wealthy Russians maintain a consistently high demand for gold bars. Demand growth was recorded despite an increase in the price per ounce of precious metal from the beginning of the year by 9.8% to $2003.9 on December 8, 2023. Senior analyst at Gazprombank Vladimir Pantyushin in a gold market review predicted further gold growth, up to $2,300 per troy ounce by the end of 2024.^[2]

"Goznak" launched an application for the purchase and sale of gold coins

On February 16, 2023, Goznak announced the launch of a mobile application for gold investments. The service allows the user to remotely buy, sell and store gold and silver investment coins. Goznak is engaged in the sale of coins to investors, their repurchase and storage. Read more here.

2022

Russians bought a record amount of physical gold - 75 tons

Russians in 2022 bought a record number of gold bars in banks. Five of the 13 systemically important banks sold a total of 57 tons of precious metal. In addition, according to analysts, in just a year the Russians acquired about 64-67 tons of physical gold, Vedomosti writes in the issue of January 12, 2023.

Later in March 2023, it became known that the Russians bought 75 tons of investment gold in bullion in 2022. In 2020-2021, the volume of purchases was about 5 tons of gold per year.

According to the publication, the demand for gold in banks has grown many times, for example, in Sberbank - at 18, in Rosselkhozbank - at 16. The demand for precious metal, according to Mikhail Vasiliev, chief analyst at Sovcombank, will be supported by three factors: the rise in the dollar and ruble price of gold, increased uncertainty in the world and Russian economies, as well as the toxicity of the currencies of unfriendly countries. At VTB, the volume of transactions has grown by about 20% every month since July 2022.

Russians in 2022 bought a record number of gold bars in banks

Banks do not disclose proceeds from the sale of gold bars. However, the weighted average price of 1 g of gold for 2022, according to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, amounted to 3983 rubles. Based on these data, Vedomosti calculated that five surveyed banks could sell gold bars for about 200 billion rubles.

High demand for gold began in 2022, when the authorities in March exempted private investors from paying VAT, and in July - individuals until the end of this from personal income tax when buying precious metal. After the introduction of indulgences, banks faced a shortage of gold for several months, when the population's demand for physical gold increased.

In the spring of 2022, refineries that produce gold bars had to reorient production to a more "investment" size - less than 100 grams, which is why banks faced a shortage of this precious metal for several months. In November, a high demand for ingots was again recorded, but then it was possible to satisfy the demand of buyers.^[3]

Growth in sales to the population by 10 times to a record 50 tons

In 2022, Russians bought gold 10 times more than a year earlier. At the end of the year, private demand will be more than 50 tons, this is a record for the entire post-Soviet history.

Sberbank customers increased purchases of precious metals by 4 times

From the beginning of the year to mid-May 2022, the Russians purchased 10 tons of precious metal ingots from Sberbank, including 7 tons of gold, the bank said.

In 2021, over the same period, customers bought 2.6 tons of bullion precious metals from Sberbank, that is, purchases increased almost 4 times. The sharply increased demand for precious metals in ingots is due, among other things, to the abolition of VAT on the purchase of physical metal, the bank notes.

"We see a logical increase in interest in bullion, because this is an opportunity to preserve funds from inflation. Now we are actively working with suppliers to ensure the availability of ingots of different sizes in our offices, "said Sergei Shirokov, director of the Borrow and Save division of Sberbank

2020: More than 200 thousand coins and over a ton of bullion precious metals were purchased by Muscovites at Sberbank. 3x growth

Residents of Moscow in 2020 purchased 205,917 investment and commemorative coins from Sberbank, their total weight exceeded 2.5 tons, and the total cost at the time of acquisition amounted to about 6.5 billion rubles. This is almost 3 times more than in 2019, when customers spent 2.3 billion rubles on the purchase of coins. The greatest demand among Muscovites was the gold and silver investment coins "Victorious." They were sold about 160 thousand pieces and 12.5 thousand pieces, respectively, in the amount of 6 billion rubles.

Sberbank's clients actively invested in 2020 in precious metals, the sale of which is carried out in the form of ingots from one gram to several tens of kilograms. Residents of the capital invested the most in 2020

• in gold - more than 6 thousand ingots with a total weight of 389 kg. value of RUB 1.89 billion;
• in second place is silver (2.4 thousand ingots with a total weight of 759 kg. by 51.3 million rubles),
• then - platinum (338 ingots with a total weight of 13 kg. by 36.4 million rubles) and
• palladium (11 ingots with a total weight of 180 gr. per 1.1 million rubles).

In total, Muscovites purchased 8,879 bullion of precious metals for the year with a total weight of 1,162 kg. in the amount of over 1 billion 975 million rubles. This is 2.5 times more than was spent in 2019 (777 million rubles).

2016: Launch of coin trading on RTS Board

In May 2016, it became known that the RTS Board trading system launched a new sector of the over-the-counter market - Bullion Coins, which brings together large sellers of investment and commemorative coins, credit and non-credit organizations, as well as private investors. Previously, these tools could only be purchased from banks or private dealers.

More than 200 issues of investment and commemorative coins are available on the RTS Board OTC market - divided into various mints. They include all investment coins issued by the Russian Central Bank, including the gold and silver "George the Victorious" in denominations of 50 and 3 rubles. respectively, gold coins "Sochi 2014" in denominations of 50 and 100 rubles, as well as the silver coin "Sochi 2014" (3 rubles).

In addition, the new section of the RTS Board has the opportunity to purchase foreign coins - the American Buffalo, the Canadian Maple Leaf, the Australian Kangaroo, the South African Krugerrand, the Austrian Philharmoniker, as well as the Belarusian Slavyanka and Kazakhstan Bars. RTS Board explains the small number of foreign coins by the fact that the organizers of the auction have not yet obtained from officials a reduction in the barrage import duty for such instruments. However, in the future, the site plans to increase the number of traded issues to at least 1.5 thousand, a significant part of which will fall on foreign coins.

The investor receives the coin purchased in the RTS Board trading system directly from the dealer with whom he made the deal. All investment coins are sold in special plastic protective capsules or in blisters of several pieces, which protect them from damage, allowing them to maintain investment value. According to Konstantin Kuteinikov, an expert at the Over-the-Counter Market Development Department of the NP RTS Association, RTS Board is working to create a centralized coin storage system - a depository from which an investor can pick up his purchase at any time.

Six large participants from Moscow and St. Petersburg joined the trading in the new RTS Board market - coin dealers Derzhava, Finance Architecture and Golden Reserve, RIAL-Credit Bank, investment company Eltra and trading company Yarus. According to RTS Board, Otkritie Bank, Lanta Bank and Bank Russia may soon join them. Derzhava analyst Roman Taltanchik notes that the trading platform will help unite a large number of market participants on one platform, which will contribute to an increase in the volume of transactions with investment coins and, as a result, reduce the difference between purchase^[4] prices^[4].

Now on the most common investment coin on the Russian market - the golden "George the Victorious" with a face value of 50 rubles. - the spread when sold in banks varies from 4 to 35%. Coin dealers, including those trading in the coin section of the RTS Board, have spreads in the 2.2% to 4% range. Kuteynikov adds that a client can put up an application for the sale or purchase of a coin with his price, therefore, theoretically, the terms of the transaction can be even more profitable.

2013:30% increase in demand for coins in the first half of the year

In the first half of 2013, citizens purchased coins from precious metals from banks for 4.2 billion rubles, almost a third higher than in the same period in 2012^[5].

See also

• Investment in silver

Notes