Washington gold and silver money law

Washington exempted sales of precious metal bullion and monetized bullion from retail sales tax and business and occupation tax for forty years under RCW 82.04.062, enacted in 1985. Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5794, a broad tax preference bill, repealed that statute outright in Section 105(1). Governor Bob Ferguson signed the bill May 20, 2025 with a partial veto of two unrelated subsections of the same section, 105(4) and 105(5), which concerned a business and occupation tax deduction for community bank mortgage interest and had nothing to do with bullion; the veto message names only those two subsections, and the bullion repeal in subsection (1) was not touched. Section 105 as a whole took effect January 1, 2026 under the act's general effective date clause, which applies to every section not separately listed as an exception, and precious metal bullion and monetized bullion sales became subject to full state and local retail sales tax and to business and occupation tax under the Retailing classification on that date. The Department of Revenue's current industry guide and its special notice on the change both confirm the January 1, 2026 effective date and describe bullion as now taxable tangible personal property with no purity threshold, transaction minimum, or transaction maximum reinstated in its place, so this record classes the current law as a full repeal rather than a narrowed partial exemption. Washington's own administrative rule implementing the old exemption, WAC 458-20-248, has not been amended since 1986 and, read on its own, still describes bullion as tax exempt; the Department's special notice and industry guide, both newer and specific to this change, control over that stale rule.

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

Washington has no capital gains exemption specific to precious metal bullion. The state does impose a capital gains excise tax under RCW Chapter 82.87 on individuals' long-term capital gains above an annually adjusted standard deduction, currently around 270,000 dollars, at 7 percent, with an additional 2.9 percent on gains above one million dollars. That chapter's stated exemptions cover real estate, retirement accounts, certain agricultural and timber property, and a qualified family owned small business deduction; this record found no bullion or precious metal carve out anywhere in the chapter or in the Department of Revenue's capital gains tax guidance. In practice the exemption threshold and the chapter's focus on higher end investment gains mean many bullion sellers owe nothing under this tax regardless, but that is a function of the general deduction, not a bullion-specific exemption.

Washington is one of the two states in this batch that repealed a bullion sales tax exemption it once had, and the reversal is exact and well documented. RCW 82.04.062, enacted in 1985, excluded precious metal bullion and monetized bullion from the statutory definition of a taxable retail or wholesale sale for forty years. Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5794, a 2025 omnibus bill implementing recommendations from the state's tax preference performance review process, repealed that statute along with five other unrelated tax preferences in a single section, Section 105. The repeal of the bullion exclusion, subsection (1), was not among the parts of Section 105 the Governor vetoed; his partial veto struck only subsections (4) and (5), which concerned an unrelated business and occupation tax deduction for community bank mortgage interest, and his veto message discusses housing affordability, not precious metals. Under the act's general effective date clause, Section 105 took effect January 1, 2026, and Washington's own Revised Code Online disposition table for RCW 82.04.062 now reads exactly that: repealed by 2025 c 423 section 105, effective January 1, 2026.

Because the verified date on this record falls after that effective date, the repeal is fully in force: sales of precious metal bullion and monetized bullion to Washington buyers are taxed as ordinary retail sales, subject to combined state and local sales tax that the Department of Revenue and secondary reporting place in the roughly 7.5 to 10 percent range depending on jurisdiction, plus business and occupation tax under the Retailing classification on the seller's gross receipts. The Department's special notice and its jewelry industry guide both state the January 1, 2026 date and describe the new tax treatment in identical terms; this record treats those two Department of Revenue publications, read together with the enrolled bill and the Governor's veto message, as jointly establishing the current law. One loose end is worth flagging for transparency: Washington Administrative Code 458-20-248, the regulation that implements what is now a repealed statute, has not been amended since 1986 and, read in isolation, still describes bullion sales as exempt. That rule is simply outdated rather than in conflict with a considered agency position, since the Department's own newer, subject-specific guidance says the opposite in plain terms.

Washington has never enacted a legal tender law for gold or silver. House Bill 2731, introduced in the 2011-2012 biennium as the "2012 gold and silver legal tender act of Washington state," was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee and never received a vote before the biennium ended. Two further attempts, House Bill 2197 in 2015-2016 and House Bill 1417 in 2021-2022, met the same fate: referred to committee, never scheduled for a vote. Washington has no state bullion depository. Its capital gains excise tax, enacted separately in 2021 and amended since, carries no bullion-specific exemption; ordinary retail sales of bullion generally fall outside it in any event because the tax reaches only long-term gains above a six-figure annual deduction, a general threshold rather than a metals-specific carve out.