IRS Form 8300 for Coin & Bullion Dealers: The Complete Guide

Who has to file Form 8300?

Any trade or business that receives more than $10,000 in cash in a single transaction, or in two or more related transactions, must file Form 8300 with the IRS within 15 days of receiving the cash. Coin shops, bullion dealers, gold buyers, pawnbrokers, and jewelers are squarely inside this rule, and precious metals businesses receive a disproportionate share of IRS examination attention because high-value cash deals are their normal Tuesday.

The obligation sits on the receiver of the cash. If a customer buys $12,000 of gold eagles across the counter and pays in currency, you file. If you buy a collection from an estate and the seller pays you nothing, there is no filing, because you paid the cash out rather than receiving it.

What counts as "cash"?

More than physical currency. For Form 8300 purposes, cash includes:

• U.S. and foreign currency (coins and paper money)
• Cashier's checks, bank drafts, traveler's checks, and money orders with a face value of $10,000 or less, when received in a designated reporting transaction such as a retail sale of a collectible or consumer durable, or when you know the customer is trying to avoid the reporting

Personal checks, wires, ACH transfers, and card payments are not cash for this purpose, no matter the amount. This is why documenting the payment method on every transaction record matters: the same $15,000 sale is reportable in currency and not reportable by wire.

Related transactions: where dealers get caught

The threshold is not per receipt. Transactions are related when they occur between the same buyer and seller within a 24-hour period, or beyond 24 hours when you know or have reason to know each is one of a series of connected transactions.

The classic coin shop failure: a customer buys $6,000 of bullion in cash on Monday morning and $5,500 more that afternoon. Neither receipt crosses $10,000. Together they do, and a filing is due. Structuring, where a customer deliberately splits payments to stay under the threshold, is itself a federal crime, and knowingly helping a customer structure exposes the dealer too.

Deadlines, statements, and recordkeeping

You must collect and verify the payer's name, address, taxpayer identification number, and ID document details. A customer refusing to provide a TIN does not remove the filing obligation; you file with what you have and document the refusal.

Penalties for getting it wrong

Civil penalties apply per unfiled or late form and step up sharply when the IRS finds intentional disregard, where the penalty becomes the greater of a five-figure floor or the amount of cash received, per form, with no annual cap. Willful violations can be prosecuted criminally. For a dealer doing regular five-figure cash business, a year of missed filings can exceed the shop's annual profit.

State-level obligations stack on top

Most states also regulate precious metals buyers separately: dealer licensing, per-transaction reporting to law enforcement, holding periods before resale, and ID requirements. These are the same secondhand-dealer frameworks that govern pawnbrokers, and they vary by state and sometimes by city. Form 8300 is the federal floor, not the whole compliance picture.

How to build 8300 compliance into your point of sale workflow

1. Record payment method on every transaction. Cash versus check versus wire is the difference between reportable and not.
2. Aggregate by customer automatically. The 24-hour and related-transaction tests require watching totals per person, which is not realistic on paper across multiple clerks.
3. Capture ID and TIN at intake. If the information is collected as part of the normal buy or sell workflow, the filing takes minutes instead of a scramble.
4. Flag at the counter, not at month end. The 15-day clock starts at receipt. A month-end review finds violations, not filings.
5. Keep five years of records searchable. An examiner will ask for specific transactions; retrieval time is your audit experience.

This is exactly the workflow Bravo automates for coin and bullion dealers: payment methods on every record, cash aggregation monitoring, ID capture at intake, and a five-year searchable history. The same engine handles gold buying spot pricing and payout calculations.

Does Form 8300 apply to bullion sales paid by cashier's check?

Often, yes. A retail sale of a collectible, which includes coins and precious metals, is a designated reporting transaction, so cashier's checks, money orders, bank drafts, and traveler's checks of $10,000 or less count as cash for that sale. A single cashier's check over $10,000 is not cash, because the bank already reports it under separate rules.

Do I file Form 8300 when I buy from the public?

No. The filing obligation applies when your business receives more than $10,000 in cash. When you are the buyer paying out, you have no 8300 obligation for that transaction, though state precious-metals and secondhand-dealer reporting usually applies to your buys.

What happens if a customer refuses to give a taxpayer identification number?

File anyway, on time, with the information you have, and document your request and the refusal. The refusal does not excuse the filing, and a documented attempt is your defense against a penalty for an incomplete form.

This guide is general information, not tax or legal advice. Filing requirements change; confirm current rules with the IRS or your accountant.