How much tax do you pay when you sell gold in Nepal?
Sell your personal gold in Nepal and you owe no capital gains tax, no income tax, no TDS. The 10% CGT and 1.5% TDS you read online are myths. The real cost is the spread.
A relative sells an old necklace she had kept for fifteen years. She bought it, she remembers, for a little over a lakh. The jeweller weighs it, checks the purity, and hands her Rs 2,80,000. Good news, except she was expecting more, and her first assumption is that "the gold tax" took a cut.
It did not. There is no tax on what she just did. The number she got was lower than the day's headline rate for one reason: the making charge she paid all those years ago does not come back, and the jeweller buys metal a notch below the price he sells it at. That gap feels like a tax. It is not one.
Why there is no tax when you sell your gold
Nepal does tax gains, but only on a defined list of assets. The Income Tax Act 2058, in its Section 2 definitions, describes a "non-business chargeable asset" as land, buildings, and an interest or security in an entity. That is the whole list. Sell shares and you meet the 5% or 7.5% capital gains tax; sell land and you meet the property version. Both are on the list.
Gold is not. A ring, a coin, a bar held in a locker, none of it is a chargeable asset for an ordinary person. So when you dispose of it, there is no gain to compute and nothing to withhold. The same logic exempts a personal vehicle: it is movable property the Act simply never brought into the capital gains regime.
This holds no matter how much the price ran up while you held the metal. Gold has roughly 16% compounded over ten years, so a piece bought a decade ago is worth multiples of its cost. On shares or land, that gain would be taxable. On gold, the whole appreciation is yours, untaxed, on sale.
The "10% capital gains, 1.5% TDS" myth
Search for gold tax in Nepal and you will hit confident posts quoting a 10% capital gains tax and a 1.5% TDS deducted when you sell. Both are wrong, and it is worth seeing exactly where each number came from so you can recognise the error.
- The "10%" is the capital gains rate that applies to actual chargeable assets, shares and property held by an individual. Someone copied it onto gold without checking whether gold is a chargeable asset in the first place. It is not, so the rate never attaches.
- The "1.5%" is the Section 89 withholding on contract and service payments above Rs 50,000. A jeweller buying your metal is purchasing goods, not paying you for a service, so Section 89 does not touch the transaction. Nothing is deducted from the cash he counts out.
This is the same species of error as the debunked "25% gift tax" that circulates about gifted money and land. A real rule from one corner of the Act gets pasted onto a situation it was never written for, then repeated until it looks official. When you sell gold, no percentage is skimmed at the counter. Check the TDS rate card if you want the actual list of what gets withheld and where; gold sales are not on it.
What actually costs you: the spread
If there is no tax, why did the necklace come back light? Because gold jewellery carries a cost the moment you buy it, and that cost never returns.
Work a single tola through a round trip at a flat price, so no market movement muddies the picture:
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Bullion value (1 tola, fine gold) | Rs 3,00,000 |
| Making charge (jyala) at 10% | Rs 30,000 |
| VAT on the making charge (13%) | Rs 3,900 |
| Skill promotion fee (0.5%) | Rs 1,650 |
| What you pay at the counter | Rs 3,35,550 |
| Sell it back the same day, metal value only | Rs 3,00,000 |
| Lost on a same-day round trip | Rs 35,550 (about 10.6%) |
Not one rupee of that Rs 35,550 is a government tax on the sale. It is the making charge you will not get back, the VAT that rode on it, and the small fee on the purchase. The jeweller pays you for the gold content at the day's buying rate, which is itself a little below the selling rate he quotes to the next customer.
Two things widen the gap in practice. Most ornaments are 22-karat, not fine gold, so the metal you sell back is worth less per tola than the headline "chhapawal" rate. And a piece with stones or intricate work loses more, because the weight of non-gold material and the labour both vanish on resale. The record-high gold post walks through why this 15 to 20% making-charge spread, not the market price, decides whether buying a tola today is a good idea.
The taxes you do pay, and when
Gold is taxed in Nepal. The taxes just land when you buy, not when you sell, and they are already inside the price the jeweller quotes.
| Levy | Rate | Falls on |
|---|---|---|
| Customs duty | 20% (FY 2083/84) | Imported gold, embedded in the FENEGOSIDA rate |
| VAT | 13% | The making charge (jyala), not the metal value |
| Skill promotion fee | 0.5% | Sale of gold and silver to a consumer, from Shrawan 1, 2083 |
The customs figure moved recently. It was 10% through FY 2082/83 and the FY 2083/84 budget doubled it to 20%, which is a large part of why the domestic rate carries a premium over the international spot price. Supply is the other reason: only Nepal Rastra Bank-licensed commercial banks may import gold, under a daily quota (raised to 25 kg a day in late 2025), and everything the jewellers sell flows through that pipe.
The 0.5% skill promotion fee is new and often confused with the old luxury tax. Here is the clean timeline. A 2% luxury tax on gold ornaments came in from Shrawan 1, 2081 on transactions above Rs 10 lakh, was broadened the next year, and collection was suspended in August 2025 after jewellers protested. The FY 2083/84 budget scrapped the luxury tax outright and replaced it with the smaller 0.5% skill fee, which the seller collects from the buyer and deposits with the IRD. So the levy you meet on a 2026 purchase is 0.5%, not 2%.
None of these three is charged again when you sell your gold back. You are not a licensed dealer, the metal is second-hand, and the fee sits on the sale to a final consumer, which is the buying side, not yours.
The one case where selling gold is taxed
There is a real exception, and it is worth stating so nobody over-reads the exemption. If you deal in gold as a business, running a shop, trading bullion, buying and selling as a livelihood, then your profit is business income and taxed like any other business income. That is not capital gains tax on an asset; it is ordinary income tax on a trade, with books, a PAN, and the usual filing.
The line is activity, not amount. Selling your own gold, even a large inherited collection, stays personal and untaxed. Turning gold into a buy-low-sell-high operation makes you a trader, and traders are taxed on the trade. If you are anywhere near that line, the freelance and side-income tax post covers how a personal activity tips into a taxable business.
What you actually need to know
Three things settle almost every gold-selling question in Nepal:
- Selling personal gold is tax-free. No capital gains tax, no income tax, no TDS, because gold is not a chargeable asset under the Income Tax Act 2058. The 10% and 1.5% figures online are myths.
- The spread is the real cost. The lost making charge plus a buyback rate below the selling rate means a same-day round trip can return 10 to 15% less than you paid, even with no price movement. Budget for it before you buy, not after you sell.
- The taxes are on the buy side. 20% customs sits inside the rate, 13% VAT rides on the making charge, and a 0.5% skill fee applies from Shrawan 2083. The old 2% luxury tax is gone.
Sitting on gold you are thinking of selling and want to sanity-check what you should actually get for it? Email parjanya57@gmail.com with the weight and purity and I will help you work the number.
This post is part of the Nepal Money Basics guide — the investing section.
Frequently asked questions
- Do you pay capital gains tax when you sell gold in Nepal?
- No. An individual selling personal gold, whether jewellery, coins, or bars, pays no capital gains tax in Nepal. Capital gains tax applies only to non-business chargeable assets, which the Income Tax Act 2058 defines as land, buildings, and an interest or security in an entity. Gold is not on that list, so a private sale is outside the capital gains net. The rule is different only if you deal in gold as a registered business, where profit is taxed as business income.
- Is there a 10% gold tax or 1.5% TDS when you sell gold in Nepal?
- No, and both figures are wrong. Several Nepali blogs claim a 10% capital gains tax and a 1.5% TDS on gold sales, but neither has any basis in the Income Tax Act. The 10% is the rate for actual chargeable assets like land and shares, copied onto gold by mistake. The 1.5% is the Section 89 withholding on contract and service payments, which does not apply when a jeweller buys metal from you. When you sell gold to a jeweller, nothing is withheld from what they pay you.
- What actually reduces the money you get back when you sell gold?
- The buy-sell spread, not tax. A jeweller pays you for the metal weight at the day's buying rate, which sits a little below the selling rate, and the making charge you paid when you bought the piece is gone entirely. On a typical ornament that making charge is 8 to 12% of value. So even if the gold price has not moved, selling a piece back the same day can return roughly 10 to 15% less than you paid, and none of that gap is a government tax.
- What taxes are baked into the price when you buy gold in Nepal?
- Three, all on the way in. Customs duty on imported gold rose to 20% for FY 2083/84, up from 10% the previous year, and it is embedded in the FENEGOSIDA rate. On top of the metal, 13% VAT applies to the making charge (jyala). From Shrawan 1, 2083, a new 0.5% skill promotion fee is collected by the seller on gold and silver sales to consumers. These raise your purchase cost; they are not charged again when you sell your gold back.
- Was the 2% luxury tax on gold scrapped in Nepal?
- Yes. The 2% luxury tax on gold ornaments was introduced from Shrawan 1, 2081 on transactions above Rs 10 lakh, then broadened in FY 2082/83, and collection was halted in August 2025 after trader protests. The FY 2083/84 budget formally abolished it. In its place, a smaller 0.5% skill promotion fee on gold and silver sales took effect from Shrawan 1, 2083.
- Do you need a bill to sell gold in Nepal?
- You do not need one to sell, because there is no gain to prove and no tax to compute. A FENEGOSIDA-member jeweller values the piece on weight and purity at the day's buying rate regardless of whether you kept the original invoice. A proper purchase bill still matters for other reasons: it records the making charge and VAT you paid, and it settles any dispute over purity. Most household gold in Nepal is bought and sold without one, and that changes nothing about the tax position.