The five storage location types

Every storage location you create has a type — one of five — and the type isn't cosmetic. It changes what the form asks for, how the location appears in the Custody Statement, and (for one type specifically) how the Tax Report treats disposals from items assigned to it.

This article is the reference for all five types in one place: when to use each, what the form expects, and the practical differences between them.

If you haven't read What a storage location is, that's the concept-level intro. This one is the type-by-type deep dive.

Four of the five are functionally identical for tax purposes; IRA Account is the one type that changes the math. The other four are organizational — they exist so the Custody Statement, the Dashboard widgets, and your own recordkeeping can tell custodial arrangements apart, but they don't divert taxable totals.

Anything you hold personally — a home safe, a fireproof box, a hidden compartment behind a bookshelf. You are your own custodian; no institution stands between you and the coins.

Pick Self Storage when the metal physically lives with you or under your direct, personal control: a home safe, a fireproof or waterproof document box, a storage unit you rent, a family member's safe you share access to. As long as no institution is custodying the metal on your behalf, this is the right type.

The Self Storage type leaves the Institution field as free text — there's no autocomplete, because there's no list of institutions to suggest. Fill it in if "Home Safe" benefits from disambiguation, or leave it blank. Reference and Notes are useful for a safe serial number, the safe's combination's whereabouts (sealed envelope, attorney's office), or the model number for insurance purposes.

Self Storage items are taxable on disposal — nothing about the type makes a home stash "off the books." The point of choosing it is recordkeeping clarity, not tax avoidance. Disciplined cost-basis tracking is what makes a self-stored stack defensible if you ever do sell.

Any non-bank, professional precious-metals depository — Brink's, Loomis International, Delaware Depository, IDS of Delaware, A-Mark Global Logistics, and the like. The metal is still yours; you've contracted physical custody out to a vault facility that does this for a living. This is where most investor-grade and HNW holdings end up.

Pick Depository when a precious-metals vault facility holds the metal under contract — your name on the account, but the depository's physical custody. That includes dealer vault programs (APMEX, JM Bullion, SD Bullion, Money Metals) where the actual storage is at a partner depository.

The Depository type renames the second form field to Depository and turns on autocomplete suggestions for the better-known facilities. The autocomplete is suggestive — you can type any depository's name. Reference is worth filling in with the account number the depository uses; it's what you'd reconcile against on an annual statement or audit.

A distinction depository customers ask about often enough to address here. Allocated means specific bars or coins are assigned to your account by serial number — you own those particular pieces. Segregated goes further and physically isolates your holdings from other customers'.

The app doesn't distinguish between the two for any calculation; both are Depository, both are taxable. If the distinction matters for your records, put it in Notes or work it into the location's name ("Delaware — Segregated").

A self-directed IRA holding physical metals at a qualified custodian. This is the one type that changes how the Tax Report calculates — items assigned to an IRA Account location are excluded from your taxable totals and surface separately in IRA Activity instead. If you hold any physical metal inside a self-directed IRA, getting this type right matters considerably more than getting the location name perfectly tidy.

Pick IRA Account when a qualified custodian is named on the account (Kingdom Trust, Equity Trust, Strata Trust, GoldStar Trust, Madison Trust, and similar), an approved depository physically holds the metal under the custodian's account, and the IRA is yours. If any of those isn't true, the holding isn't an IRA holding in the tax sense the app cares about, and one of the other four types fits better.

The IRA Account type renames the second form field to Custodian and turns on autocomplete for well-known IRA custodians. Reference is the account number the custodian issues — especially useful here, since IRA custodians produce annual statements you'd reconcile against.

Notes is a natural place for the depository where the metal physically sits (Delaware Depository, IDS, etc.), the IRA type (SEP, Traditional, Roth), or the beneficiary on file.

Every disposal of an item assigned to an IRA Account location is excluded from the Tax Report's capital gains totals. Short-term and long-term taxable subtotals ignore IRA disposals entirely. The collectibles callout, the by-metal taxable table, and the four stat cards at the top of the report all reflect non-IRA activity only.

The IRA disposals don't vanish, though. They appear in the Tax Report's IRA Activity section, with full per-disposal detail (date, item, proceeds, cost basis, gain/loss) so you can still see how the account is performing. They just aren't summed into anything taxable.

If you generate the Tax Report and IRA disposals are appearing in taxable totals, the location they're assigned to isn't typed IRA Account. Editing the type on the location retroactively reclassifies the items.

A few mistakes worth flagging early:

Two physical events sometimes happen with IRA holdings, and the right way to record each is the same: edit the item's location. A distribution out of the IRA moves items from the IRA Account location to a Self Storage or Depository location. From that point forward, they're taxable on disposal.

A rollover between custodians moves items from one IRA Account location to another — both ends stay tax-deferred.

Metal held in a rented compartment inside a bank or credit union vault. The bank owns the vault and rents you the box; the contents inside are entirely yours. This is the middle ground between Self Storage and Depository: more physical security than a home safe, less involved than a contract with a precious-metals vault facility.

Pick Safe Deposit Box when the metal is in a bank or credit union safe deposit box — your primary bank, a second bank specifically for storage, or a credit union. Operationally identical to a bank box; same type applies.

The Safe Deposit Box type renames the second form field to Bank and turns on autocomplete for major banks. The autocomplete is suggestive — type any institution's name, including credit unions that aren't on the list. Reference is the box number, worth filling in for any future identification.

This is the type most commonly confused with Depository, since both involve a third party physically holding the metal. The practical differences:

None of these differences affects how the app calculates anything, but they're worth filing in Notes if useful.

The catch-all type — anything that doesn't fit cleanly under the four named types. A foreign vault, a co-owned arrangement, business inventory, an estate-shared holding, something you'd rather not characterize publicly even inside your own records. Most users won't need this type, and that's fine.

Pick Other when none of the four named types describes the holding accurately. Representative cases:

A quick sanity check: is it in a precious-metals vault facility (Depository), a self-directed IRA with a qualified custodian (IRA Account), a bank safe deposit box (Safe Deposit Box), or physically with you (Self Storage)?

If yes to any of those, use the named type, even if the institution is non-US or unusually structured. Other is the right pick only when the answer to all four is genuinely "no."

The Other type leaves the second form field as free text — no autocomplete, since there's no list to suggest. Notes is especially valuable for Other locations, since the type itself doesn't communicate what the arrangement is; the depository's actual name, the jurisdiction, the contact person, or the share you own all belong there.

One thing Other doesn't do: it doesn't unlock any special tax treatment. If a holding actually qualifies as IRA metal, IRA Account is the correct type regardless of how unconventional the rest of the arrangement is. Other behaves the same as Self Storage, Depository, and Safe Deposit Box on the Tax Report — taxable on disposal.

Once you've assigned items to a typed location, the type shows up in a handful of places:

The type is editable later from the Storage tab. Changing a non-IRA type to another non-IRA type is purely organizational. Changing to or from IRA Account is the one edit that retroactively shifts items between taxable and IRA Activity in the Tax Report.