Allocated vs Unallocated Gold: Which Storage Is Safer?

Disclosure Partner links are marked. We may earn a commission if you use one. It costs you nothing extra and never changes our verdict. How we review

Allocated vs unallocated gold is a question about legal title, not about two kinds of metal. Allocated storage, when the contract matches the name, is specific bars or coins held for you. Unallocated storage is a claim on a pool of metal, and you depend on the firm that owes it. The gold price is the same either way. You can follow that price on Baroq Markets. What changes is whose metal it is if the firm stops, what record you can ask to see, and how you get the ounces back.

Allocated vs unallocated gold, in one page

The metal is one thing. The account is another. The LBMA, the London Bullion Market Association, says this in its guide to precious-metal accounts: it is not allocated metal or unallocated metal that is traded, but the metal itself. The two words name the account the metal clears through after the trade. That guide, the LBMA's clearing page, its Loco London page and Annex 3 of its code were all still worded as quoted here when this comparison was checked on 10 November 2026.

In that wholesale market, an allocated account is opened when the client wants the metal physically segregated and wants a detailed list of bar weights. The client has full title. The dealer holds the metal as custodian. An unallocated account is a debit or a credit. The holder has a claim on the general pool of metal, rather than a specific bar, and a credit balance is credit exposure to the institution where the account sits. Annex 3 calls that the most commonly used method of holding metal. The clearing page says the customer does not own specific bars, and describes the arrangement as working very much like a bank currency account.

The same guide says that probably in excess of 90% of all precious metals traded on the interbank, wholesale, over-the-counter market clear over unallocated Loco London accounts. That sentence is about wholesale clearing in London. It is not a count of private buyers, and it is not a reason for you to pick a pool. It explains why the professional market finds the unallocated shape convenient, and why the allocated shape is the one people open when they want ownership of specific bars. The Loco London page says the same thing in shorter words: most bullion trading and settlement in London uses unallocated accounts, and an allocated account is opened when the customer requires ownership of specific bars.

A private vault contract is not automatically that London account. A dealer can use the same two words for a one-ounce coin in a bonded warehouse, for a kilo bar, or for a ledger entry that never leaves a database. The professional definitions are the standard to read the contract against. They are not a substitute for the contract. If a clause and a brochure disagree, the clause is the one that matters on the day something goes wrong.

Two things stay true across both shapes. The price you watch is the same spot price. And neither account pays you an income for holding it. You pay to store, you pay a gap when you sell, and you can sit through a long fall. Size the holding for that fall before you argue about the account type.

Legal title: bailment or a claim on the firm

Title is the whole comparison. Everything else is a detail of how title is proved.

A bailment is an old, plain idea. You hand a thing to someone to keep. They have possession. You still own it. They are not allowed to treat it as their own property, unless you have agreed that they may. A cloakroom ticket is the everyday picture. The coat is still yours. The attendant is not your creditor and you are not theirs, as long as the ticket means what it says.

Allocated storage is that picture when the contract is written that way. The LBMA's clearing page says allocated accounts are opened when a customer requires title or ownership of specific bars, with the dealer holding them on the client's behalf. It compares the account to a safe deposit box, and the account operator to a custodian. Annex 3 says the client has full title, with the dealer holding the metal as custodian. The guide adds that the investor does not have a credit exposure to the institution where the account is maintained.

Unallocated storage is the other picture. Annex 3 says the account holder has a claim on the general pool, rather than a specific bar, and therefore has credit exposure to the institution. The guide calls it a contractual claim against the clearer, analogous to a current account at a bank. You are not holding a coat ticket. You are holding the bank's promise that the balance is good.

That difference is what people mean by a creditor claim. If the firm stops, an unallocated balance is a claim in the insolvency for the ounces, or for their value, according to the contract and the law of that place. Where you stand in the line of creditors, and whether any metal is ring-fenced for you, is not something a blog can settle. It is in the contract, and it is in the insolvency rules of the country named in that contract. This comparison is not legal advice. If the amount is large enough that the answer would change your life, ask a lawyer who is allowed to practise where the metal sits.

One dealer describes its own storage in bailment language. Silver Gold BullPartner is the only dealer this comparison links to. That link is an affiliate link. We may earn a commission if you use it. It does not add to the price you pay. How this blog marks a partner is on How we review.

Two articles on that firm's own FAQ were each marked last updated on 29 June 2021, and they were still worded the same way on 10 November 2026. One says fully allocated storage means the exact type of product you bought is stored in the vault under your name, with physical metal behind the holding. The other says the metal is held in bailment and is in the customer's title while it is stored. Those are their sentences, on pages that carry a 2021 date. Read the current storage terms before you treat them as present fact. This comparison did not visit a vault and did not audit a holding.

A bailment sentence on a help page is a start. The document you sign is the document a court would read. Ask for that document before you send metal or money. If the firm will not send it, you do not yet know which of the two pictures you are buying.

Is allocated gold safer than unallocated?

Allocated gold is safer when the firm stops, and only when the contract gives you title to identified metal. It is not safer against a fall in the price. An unallocated balance is easier to sell in exact ounces, and that ease comes with credit exposure to the firm.

Counterparty risk is the risk that the other side does not perform. In storage, the other side is the firm that has the metal, or that owes you the metal.

On an allocated account, as the LBMA describes it, that risk is narrowed. The guide says there is no credit exposure to the account operator. In a default, it says, the holder could in theory go to the vault and remove their bars. It then says the practice is more complicated, because these are high-security buildings that do not welcome visitors. Title is not a key to the door. Title is a claim you can take to the operator, to an administrator, or to a court, with a list that identifies the pieces. The pieces still have to be where the list says they are.

That leaves real risks on the allocated side. The list can be wrong. The vault operator and the seller can be the same company, so a failure of one is a failure of the record-keeper. The contract can say "allocated" on page one and "the metal remains our property until delivery" on page four. Insurance can be your job, and you may not have bought it. The bars can have been leased out if you agreed to that. Annex 3 of the LBMA code says precious metals may be placed on deposit, borrowed, leased or lent on unallocated or allocated terms. Allocated does not, by itself, mean "never lent". It means "not lent unless the terms allow it". Ask.

On an unallocated account the credit exposure is the product. The firm owes you ounces from a pool. If the firm has lent those ounces on, your claim depends on the loan coming back. If the firm fails with less metal than the sum of the balances, the shortfall is a loss for the people who held claims. How that loss is shared is the insolvency question above. The Loco London page says that in that market all risks, including credit, exist only between the two counterparties. There is no exchange standing in the middle of a private storage contract either, unless your contract names one.

Neither shape removes the risk that gold falls in price. A numbered bar and a pool balance both track the same market. A custodian does not owe you the price you paid. They owe you the metal, or a claim to metal, on the terms you signed. If you cannot sit through a deep fall, a safer title does not fix that. Buy a smaller amount, or do not buy.

There is a third risk that sits beside both: operational failure that is not insolvency. A fire, a theft, a bookkeeping error, a sanction that freezes a vault, a government order. Allocated title tells you whose metal it was. It does not tell you that the metal is still there. That is what the audit and the insurance clause are for. Read them as separate sentences.

Audits and the bar list

A bar list is the allocated record. The LBMA clearing page says a client's holding is identified in a weight list of bars, showing the unique bar number, the gross weight, the assay or fineness of each bar, and its fine weight. The guide says the same for bars, plates or ingots, and adds that for gold the list shows fine weight. Credits and debits happen by physical movement of those pieces into or out of the client's holding. An allocated account cannot, by definition, be overdrawn. You cannot have a negative pile of specific bars.

That list is the thing to ask for. A sentence that says "your metal is allocated" is not a list. A PDF that says the company holds gold somewhere is not a list of your pieces. A login balance of "10.000 oz" is the unallocated record, even if the font is gold. The allocated record names the objects.

An audit is a check that the list and the vault agree. The LBMA pages read for this comparison do not set a calendar for how often a private client must be shown an audit, and they do not name a required auditor for a retail vault. This post will not invent one. Ask the firm four things, and write down the answers.

1. Who counts, and are they independent of the firm that sold you the metal?
2. When was the last count, and can you read the report, or only a summary?
3. Did they count your pieces against your list, or did they count a pool and publish a total?
4. What happens on the day the count and the list disagree? Who makes you whole, and from which document?

A good answer is specific. A weak answer is "we are fully audited" with no name, no date and no page you can open. Treat the weak answer as "not yet shown".

There is a second list that people mix up with the first. The London Good Delivery List, which Annex 3 describes, is a list of refiners whose bars are acceptable in settlement between members and their clients. It is a list of makers, not a list of your holding. A bar from a refiner on that list is easier to sell in the professional market. It is not proof that the bar is in a vault with your name on it. You want both facts, and they come from different documents: the refiner's standing, and your weight list.

Fine weight is worth understanding before you read a list. Gross weight is what the bar weighs. Fineness is the purity. Fine content is gross weight times fineness. Annex 3 gives a worked bar so the arithmetic is visible, and it is an example, not your bar. When a list shows both numbers, the fine content is the gold. Do not add the gross figures and call that your holding.

For a private buyer of coins and small bars, the list may show serials, mint or refiner, weight and purity rather than a 400-ounce bar number. That is still a list, if it identifies the objects and the contract ties those objects to your title. A template that could describe any customer's metal is not a list of yours. Your name, the date, and the identities belong on it.

Segregated, allocated and the pool account

These three phrases get sold as if they were one product. They are three different sentences.

Allocated, in Annex 3, already includes physical segregation. The account is opened when the client requires the metal to be physically segregated and needs the list, and the client has full title. In the wholesale definitions, you do not get a pure "allocated but mixed in a pile" product. The segregation and the title travel together.

Segregated, in a retail brochure, is often only the first half of that sentence. It can mean the bars sit in a cage, on a pallet, or in a packet that is not mixed with the day's working stock. That is a fact about shelves. It becomes your metal only when a second sentence says the title is yours. A firm can segregate bars to make its own stock easier to count, and still own every bar in the cage. If the contract says the metal is the firm's property until you take delivery, the cage is their cage.

A pool account is the unallocated shape under another name. Your statement shows a number of ounces. The firm holds a stock of metal against all of those statements together. Annex 3 calls it a claim on the general pool. You cannot point to a bar. You can point to a balance. Some pool contracts say the firm must keep metal equal to the balances and must not lend it. Some say the opposite. The word "pool" does not tell you which. The lending clause does.

A useful way to sort a brochure is to force it into one of three pictures.

1. Your pieces, your title, a list. The bars or coins are identified, set aside, and the contract says you own them. The firm is the keeper. This is allocated storage in the LBMA sense, even when the objects are coins rather than Good Delivery bars.
2. A separate pile, their title. The metal is physically apart from other customers, and the contract still makes you a creditor, or still says the firm owns the metal. Segregated, and not allocated. Do not pay an allocated price for this picture unless you have decided a shelf is what you wanted.
3. A balance on a pool. No serial, a claim on the general stock, credit exposure to the firm. This can be an honest product. It is unallocated gold. Call it that.

If the firm will not say which picture the contract is, you do not have an answer yet. Leave the money where it is until the sentence arrives. Comparing two firms is only useful after both have answered the same question. This page will not name a second firm. You can ask the question anywhere you are thinking of sending metal.

Fees, insurance and the spread

This comparison does not quote a storage fee. A fee you have not read on the firm's own page, on the day you ask, is a guess. Charges move, and two firms with the same adjective on the door do not charge the same way.

What the LBMA's own guide says, about wholesale accounts, is the shape of the cost, not a tariff. Investors pay a maintenance fee on an unallocated account or a storage fee on an allocated account. Charges vary between operators. The guide says a fee was traditionally levied on the number of bars, with no reference to the metal price, and that more recently charges have tended to be calculated as a slice of the value of the metal, assessed daily and charged later. It prints a worked example and says the charge depends on the clearer, on the metal, and on whether the metal is in London or Zurich. This post does not copy that example. An example in a market guide is not the number on your invoice. The clearing page does describe unallocated accounts, in that London market, as the most convenient, cheapest and most commonly used method of holding metal. "Cheapest" there is the LBMA's word for the wholesale method. It is not a promise about the dealer in front of you.

Ask for three numbers in writing, on the same day.

• The storage or maintenance charge, what it is calculated on, and when it is billed.
• The premium over spot on the way in, and the buy-back price on the way out. The gap between those two is a real cost, separate from rent. How that premium works is set out in How to buy physical gold.
• Any charge to switch from a pool balance to identified bars, or to take the pieces out. The LBMA guide says a switch at a London clearing member is often done the same day and generally no later than the spot date, and that whether there is a charge depends on the clearer. A retail firm can set a different clock. Their sheet wins.

Insurance is a fourth line, and it is not a fee until you know who pays it. The LBMA guide says the owner of allocated metal is responsible for arranging their own insurance, unless there is an express agreement to the contrary with the institution that keeps the account. Read that twice. In the professional description, allocated title and an insurance policy are different jobs. A retail contract may say the firm insures the metal while it is in the vault. That can be the express agreement the guide allows. It can also be a brochure line that the policy does not match. Ask for the clause, the name of the insurer, and the events the policy actually names: theft, fire, employee dishonesty, mysterious disappearance, the failure of the firm. A policy that pays only if a named event occurs will not pay because you are unhappy.

Do not copy a premium from another country's article. Do not copy a basis-point figure from a guide. Write down the figure the firm sends you, and the date they sent it.

Silver changes the arithmetic without changing the title question. The same value in silver takes far more space and weight than gold, so a fee that notices weight feels different, and a pool of silver is a different bulk of metal from a pool of gold. That comparison is in Gold vs silver. The title test in this post is the same for both metals: specific pieces in your name, or a claim on a pool.

Liquidity, delivery and switching

Liquidity here means how quickly you can turn the holding back into money, or into metal in your hands, without discovering that the product you bought cannot move.

Unallocated metal, in the wholesale account, is built for that speed. The guide says settlement over unallocated accounts is quick and simple, and that a specific quantity can be bought or sold, calculated to three decimal places of an ounce. The dollars and the metal credit move on the spot date. Someone who already trades currencies will recognise the shape. You are not waiting for a forklift. You are changing a balance. That convenience is the reason the guide gives for why anyone accepts the credit exposure. The answer it offers is one word: convenience.

Allocated metal moves when the pieces move. A credit or a debit is a physical movement into or out of your holding. You cannot overdraw it. If you want to sell, either the firm buys those pieces from you, or the pieces go to another buyer, or you take delivery and sell them yourself. Each of those has a timetable that is not "a balance, tonight".

The wholesale unit is large, which is why private buyers and London bars are easy to confuse. Annex 3 says the unit for delivery of gold is the London Good Delivery bar. It must have a minimum fineness of 995 parts per thousand, and a gold content of not less than 350 and not more than 430 fine troy ounces. Bars are generally close to 400 ounces, or 12.5 kilograms. A troy ounce, the unit those figures use, is the weight the same annex defines, and the plain version of that unit is on Troy ounces and grams. A one-ounce coin is not a Good Delivery bar. A private allocated account full of coins can still be allocated, if the coins are identified and the title is yours. It is just not the bar the London clearing system was built around. Do not expect a coin account to settle like a 400-ounce bar, and do not expect a 400-ounce bar account to behave like a coin you can sell at a local shop.

Switching is the bridge. The guide says metal bought into an unallocated account can be switched to allocated, or the other way, when your requirements change. Clearing members generally look to do that no later than the spot date, often on the day of the instruction, and the timing can slip with the market. Any charge is up to the clearer. For a private firm, ask whether a switch is even offered. Some will sell you a pool balance and have no path to a numbered bar. Some will store only the piece you bought, and have no pool. Those are different products. A firm that offers both should be able to say, in writing, what you sign to move from one to the other.

Delivery is the version of liquidity that does not need the same firm to buy the metal back. Ask where the pieces can be shipped, who may receive them, what identification they want, and what has to be true of your account before they will release anything. A right to delivery that lives only in a marketing line, with no procedure, is a right you have not tested. You do not need to test it by emptying the account on day one. You do need the procedure in writing while everyone is still answering emails.

Selling small pieces is a different skill from selling a vault balance. Coins and small bars are compared on premium and resale in Gold bars vs gold coins. A vault balance can be the wrong tool if what you wanted was the ability to sell one coin. A coin in a drawer can be the wrong tool if what you wanted was a bar you never have to carry. Decide that before you pick the account.

How a gold ETF differs

A gold ETF differs because it is a share, not a bar with your name on it. You buy it through a broker. The fund may hold gold, or it may follow the price. Your name is on the share account. It is not a weight list of bars. Most private holders leave by selling the share.

A share can be a sensible way to hold the price, with no vault contract to read. It is a different title from allocated metal. If the fund keeps bars, it keeps them for the shareholders as a group. The shareholder still owns the share. This comparison does not name a fund and does not quote a fund fee. The wider set of products is in Gold as a bar, a fund or a contract.

Questions to ask a custodian

Send these in writing. Keep the answers with the contract. A phone manner is not a record.

1. Whose name is on the title while the metal is with you? You want the words bailment, custodian, and title in the customer's name, or you want a clear statement that you have a claim on the firm. "Stored safely" is neither.

1. Will I receive a list that identifies the pieces? For bars, the LBMA fields are the model: unique number, gross weight, fineness, fine weight. For coins, serial or packet identity, weight, purity, mint or refiner. "Fully allocated" with no list is a slogan.

1. Are the pieces physically set aside, and does your word "segregated" mean I own them? Ask which of the three pictures above the contract is. If they say segregated, ask them to point to the title clause.

1. Is this a pool account? If yes, it is unallocated, whatever the heading on the page. Ask whether the pool must be backed ounce for ounce, and whether you can see the evidence of that, as distinct from a list of your own pieces.

1. Can the metal be lent, leased, pledged or used for someone else's trade? Annex 3 allows leasing on allocated terms and on unallocated terms. You want the clause that says your pieces may not be, or the clause that says they may, with what you are paid and what you can lose. Silence is not a ban on lending.

1. Who runs the vault, and are they the same company as the seller? A separate vault company does not remove the need to read the contract. It does tell you how many balance sheets stand between you and the door. Ask where the building is, and which country's law governs the storage.

1. Who audits, and what did they count last time? You want a name, a date, and whether the count was your list or the pool. Ask what you are sent if you are not willing to visit. The LBMA guide is frank that allocated holders do not simply drive to the vault.

1. Who insures the metal, and for which events? Put this next to the LBMA line: absent an express agreement, the allocated owner arranges insurance. If the firm says they insure it, the agreement should say so. Ask what is excluded.

1. What does it cost, in writing, today? Storage or maintenance, the buy-back price, the cost to switch into identified pieces, and the cost to take delivery. No figure from this page belongs in that answer. Their figure does, with the date.

1. What happens if you stop, or if you will not release the metal? Ask for the insolvency clause, the law and the court, and the procedure for delivery to you or to another vault. A firm that has not written this down has left you to find out later.

A useful pack is short: the contract, a sample list, the latest audit page they are willing to show, the insurance clause, and a fee sheet dated that week. If one of those is missing, say which one, and wait. Buying the metal and hoping the pack arrives with it is how people discover they hold a claim they did not want.

Compare at least one other arrangement, and do not take this page as the comparison. This guide will not name a second firm and will not link one. If the other place will not say, in writing, whether you have a specific piece or a claim on a pool, do not treat the two offers as the same product.

How to decide, then read the contract

Decide in this order. The order stops you from buying a price and calling it a title.

1. Write down why you want the metal. If the reason is "it is still mine if the seller fails", you are looking for allocated title, a list, and a clear answer on lending and insurance. If the reason is "I want an ounce balance I can sell in exact amounts, and I accept the firm's credit", you are looking for an unallocated account, and you should say that out loud.
2. Ignore the adjective until you have the clause. Allocated, segregated, fully backed, private, premium, vaulted: all of them can sit on top of either picture. The clause tells you which picture.
3. Match the object to the account. Coins and small bars can be allocated if they are identified. A London Good Delivery bar is a large wholesale unit, 350 to 430 fine troy ounces at a minimum fineness of 995, on the annex read on 10 November 2026. Do not buy a product aimed at one of those and expect the logistics of the other.
4. Ask the ten questions. Keep the written answers. If the fee, the buy-back and the exit procedure are not in the pack, you do not have a quote. You have a mood.
5. Check the price separately. The live gold price is on Baroq Markets. Storage does not improve it. A fall is still a fall. The guides on learn cover the other ways people get gold exposure, including funds and leveraged contracts, which are not this decision.
6. Only then send metal or money. And only to the firm whose pack you have read. One reading of a help page from 2021 is not that pack, even when the page is still up.

Keeping coins at home, or in a bank box, is a different decision about buildings, access and your own insurance wording. It is outside this comparison. The buying side, premiums and how to look at a dealer, stays in How to buy physical gold.

A short checklist, once you are in front of a real offer:

1. The contract says bailment and title in your name, or it says you have a claim. You know which.
2. You have a sample of the list you will actually receive, or you have accepted that there is no list because the account is a pool.
3. Lending is banned, or lending is allowed and you agreed to that on purpose.
4. The vault operator is named, and the governing law is named.
5. The last audit you were shown has a date and a scope.
6. Insurance is either your policy or an express clause, and you know which events are covered.
7. Fees, buy-back and delivery procedure are written down, dated, and free of numbers you copied from a guide.
8. You can leave the holding alone if the gold price falls a long way.

If a line fails, do not "fix" it by hoping. Pick the other picture, or pick a smaller amount, or walk away. Allocated gold that you have not checked is only a word. Unallocated gold that you understand is at least an honest claim.

A vault contract and a dealer are not Baroq's product. The desk, the research tools and the calculators are. For those, See plans.

Join the free Telegram channel: https://t.me/baroqtech

The pages behind the definitions, all read on 10 November 2026, are the LBMA clearing page, the LBMA page About Loco London, Annex 3 of the LBMA code and section 8 of the LBMA OTC guide, Precious Metal Accounts. The "probably in excess of 90%" sentence, the Good Delivery bar range of 350 to 430 fine troy ounces, the minimum fineness of 995, the insurance line, and the note that metal may be leased on allocated or unallocated terms, are on those pages. They describe the wholesale London market. They are not your dealer's fee sheet. The Silver Gold Bull sentences on allocated storage and bailment come from that firm's FAQ, each article marked last updated on 29 June 2021. They are not given a raw address here. The affiliate link above is the path this blog uses. If a line on a provider's page has moved, that page wins.

More in this subject is under gold and precious metals. The risk note for the wider site is on risk.

Educational content, not financial advice. Prices, fees and offers change: check them on the provider's own site before you sign up. Trading leveraged products carries a high risk of losing money, and you can lose all of it.