North Carolina gold and silver money law

North Carolina exempts sales of non-coin currency, investment metal bullion, and investment coins from sales and use tax under General Statute 105-164.13(69), enacted as Session Law 2017-181 (House Bill 434) and in force since July 1, 2017. "Investment metal bullion" is defined as any elementary precious metal that has been smelted or refined into a state or condition where its value depends on its content and not its form, expressly excluding fabricated precious metal processed or manufactured for a specific and customary industrial, professional, or artistic use. "Investment coins" are numismatic coins or other forms of money and legal tender manufactured of metal under United States or foreign law with a fair market value greater than any statutory or nominal face value. "Non-coin currency" covers paper and other non-metal forms of money and legal tender on the same fair-market-value-above-face-value basis. Neither the statute as reflected in the Department of Revenue's current Sales and Use Tax Bulletin nor its Biennial Tax Expenditure Report imposes a purity percentage, a dollar transaction minimum, or a dollar transaction maximum anywhere in the exemption's text. The only exclusion, fabricated metal put to an industrial, professional, or artistic use, describes an item other than an ordinary bullion or coin purchase, so this record classes North Carolina as a full exemption.

Gold and silver are not recognized as legal tender in North Carolina as of the verification date above.

North Carolina has no state-level exemption for capital gains realized on the sale or exchange of precious metal bullion or coins as of the verified date. The 2025 Biennial Tax Expenditure Report's income tax chapter lists no bullion-related deduction or subtraction, and this record could not locate any Department of Revenue guidance describing one. A bill that would create one, discussed below, has not passed either chamber of the General Assembly.

North Carolina's only enacted sound money law is its sales tax exemption. House Bill 434 of the 2017-2018 session, enacted as Session Law 2017-181, created General Statute 105-164.13(69), exempting sales of non-coin currency, investment metal bullion, and investment coins from sales and use tax. The exemption carries no purity floor and no dollar transaction minimum or maximum anywhere in its text as reflected in the Department of Revenue's current Sales and Use Tax Bulletin, and its only exclusion, fabricated metal put to industrial, professional, or artistic use, does not describe an ordinary bullion purchase. The Department of Revenue's 2025 Biennial Tax Expenditure Report confirms the enacting legislation and its July 1, 2017 effective date, and reports the exemption's continued cost to the state at roughly 0.9 to 1.0 million dollars a year in forgone revenue. North Carolina has no bullion depository and, as of the verified date, no legal tender statute and no capital gains exemption for precious metals.

A bill that would add both a legal tender declaration and a capital gains exclusion has been before the General Assembly since early 2025 but had not passed either chamber as of the most recent information available to this record. House Bill 836, the "North Carolina Sound Money Act," would recognize investment coins and investment metal bullion made of refined gold or silver, stamped or marked with weight and purity, as legal tender, while making clear no one is compelled to accept it outside a contract, and would separately allow a deduction for gain or loss on the disposition of investment coins and investment metal bullion for individual income tax purposes. It cleared the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee on April 29, 2025, and was re-referred to the House Finance Committee, where it remained without further floor action as of the most recent tracking data available. A second bill, House Bill 14, originally filed on an unrelated subject and later amended to carry both a gambling loss income tax deduction and the same Sound Money Act text, followed a similar path through Finance Committee referrals into June 2025 without a floor vote in either chamber. Because neither bill has passed, North Carolina's legal tender status remains false and its capital gains treatment of bullion remains ordinary income tax treatment as of this page's verification date.

This record was not able to load the North Carolina General Assembly's own website, ncleg.gov, or any of its subdomains, at any point during this session; every attempt returned an HTTP 403 response, including a plain request for the homepage, which points to a general access restriction rather than anything specific to these bills. Because of that, no citation in this record points to ncleg.gov, and the measure and narrative content describing House Bill 836 and House Bill 14 rests on the Department of Revenue's own reports where possible and, for the pending bills' legislative history, on the University of North Carolina School of Government's Legislative Reporting Service, a university-run bill tracking service rather than an official state record. Readers should treat the pending-bill history here as secondary sourced and subject to revision once the official record becomes reachable.