Texas gold and silver money law

Texas Tax Code Section 151.336 is a single sentence: the sale of gold, silver, or numismatic coins, or of platinum, gold, or silver bullion, is exempted from the taxes imposed by the chapter. There is no minimum purchase amount, no purity threshold, and no storage condition in the statute. Until 2013 the section applied only where the total sales price of the items sold reached 1,000 dollars. House Bill 78 of the 83rd Legislature struck that threshold and broadened the reference from the sales tax subchapter to the whole chapter, effective October 1, 2013.

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

Texas Government Code 2116.101, added by H.B. 1056 (2025); enacted but not in force, this section takes effect September 1, 2026

Texas has no state personal income tax, so it does not tax capital gains from the sale of bullion, coin, or anything else at the state level. Article 8, Section 24-a of the state constitution, added in 2019, bars the legislature from taxing the net incomes of individuals. Section 24-b, added in 2025, separately bars a tax on realized or unrealized capital gains of an individual, family, estate, or trust. Both are general restrictions on state taxing power rather than provisions aimed at precious metals.

Texas has authorized a state bullion depository. See the depository guide for what that means in practice.

Texas built its sound money framework in two stages roughly a decade apart. House Bill 483 in 2015 created the Texas Bullion Depository as a division of the Comptroller's office, giving the state, its agencies, and Texas residents a facility to store gold and silver. That law, the first state administered bullion depository in the country, did not itself make gold or silver legal tender. It simply provided custody and administration for metal that state entities or private depositors chose to hold there.

House Bill 1056, signed by Governor Greg Abbott on June 22, 2025, went further. It recognizes gold and silver specie, marked with weight and purity, as legal tender in the state to the extent the United States Constitution allows, and it directs the Comptroller to build a transactional currency system backed by metal held at the depository, including a debit card and the option to redeem in dollars or physical bullion. The enrolled bill splits its own effective date: the legal tender declaration itself, Government Code Section 2116.101, takes effect September 1, 2026, while the broader transactional currency system does not take effect until May 1, 2027. As of this page's verification date, neither date has yet arrived, so gold and silver specie is not yet legal tender in Texas under this act, though the law establishing that status is already enacted and on the books.

Texas has no state sales tax on gold, silver, or platinum bullion, or on numismatic coins, a broad exemption that predates the depository and legal tender laws. A 1,000 dollar minimum transaction size that once limited the exemption was struck by House Bill 78 of the 83rd Legislature, effective October 1, 2013, and the section has read as a flat exemption ever since. Texas also has no state personal income tax, a constitutional restriction rather than a metals specific rule, so it does not tax capital gains on bullion sales at the state level.