IDS of Delaware Gold IRA Storage Review

IDS of Delaware shows up on the approved storage lists of multiple SDIRA custodians, which means gold IRA investors often encounter it without having chosen it specifically. This review covers what is publicly verifiable: certifications, storage mechanics, fee transparency (and the lack of it), and how the facility compares to other East Coast options.

What Is International Depository Services of Delaware?

International Depository Services of Delaware is a precious metals depository located in New Castle, Delaware, roughly ten miles south of Wilmington. It operates as part of the IDS Group, a privately-owned division of Dillon Gage Metals. Dillon Gage was established in 1976 and describes itself as one of the largest metals trading firms in the world, with operations that include metals trading, refining, depository services, and financial technology platforms.

The IDS Group operates three North American depositories under common ownership: the Delaware facility, a Texas location in the Dallas area, and a Canadian location in Mississauga, Ontario. Each facility shares the same parent infrastructure but operates within distinct regulatory environments and serves different regional custodian networks. The Delaware location is the easternmost of the three and the only one with COMEX approval at the exchange’s New York delivery point.

Industry sources sometimes reference an earlier operating name for the Delaware facility, but the current IDS website does not detail that history. The parent company Dillon Gage’s four-decade track record in the wholesale metals market provides the primary institutional background for evaluating the depository’s stability.

Certifications and Regulatory Approvals

IDS of Delaware holds the credentials that gold IRA investors and institutional traders look for in a depository. Each one carries a distinct meaning in practice.

COMEX/CME Approval

IDS Delaware is one of a small number of depositories approved by CME Group (which operates the COMEX exchange) to store gold, silver, platinum, and palladium for futures contract delivery. COMEX approval signals that the facility has met CME’s vaulting infrastructure, inventory controls, and auditing requirements. It is a functional institutional credential, not a government-issued rating. For gold IRA investors, COMEX approval is often treated as a baseline indicator that the facility operates at a standard that institutional market participants have vetted.

LBMA Associate Membership

The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) maintains membership lists that distinguish between full members and associates. IDS Group holds Associate status across all three North American facilities, including Delaware. For gold IRA investors, the practical significance of LBMA Associate status is that the facility maintains documented chain-of-custody procedures that support professional market transactions, including buyback and redelivery. This matters when you eventually exit the IRA and need your metals to be recognized by buyers in the secondary market.

For more context on what certifications mean for your IRA holdings, see our guide on how gold IRA depositories are audited.

UL(C) Vault Certification and Physical Security

IDS Group holds a UL(C) certificate (Underwriters Laboratories) for security excellence. All three IDS Group locations operate Class III gold vaults, which represent the highest tier under the UL vault classification system. Class III vaults are rated to resist forced entry under sustained attempts and are used by institutions storing high-value assets at scale. The company reports 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week monitoring at its facilities, along with dual-control access procedures that require two authorized personnel for any vault entry.

Insurance: Lloyd’s of London

IDS Group carries precious metals insurance underwritten by Lloyd’s of London. Coverage applies to all client assets stored at the facility. The specific policy limits and per-account coverage caps are not disclosed publicly; you would need to contact IDS directly or ask your custodian to provide the coverage documentation. For a broader look at how insurance works across the depository sector in the gold IRA market, see our guide on insurance coverage at gold IRA depositories.

NCBA Membership

IDS Group is a member of the National Coin and Bullion Association, a trade organization for the numismatic and precious metals industry. For gold IRA investors, this is a minor signal at most. NCBA membership is common among dealers and depositories and does not carry the same vetting weight as COMEX approval or LBMA status. It is worth noting for completeness.

Storage Types: Segregated and Allocated

IDS Delaware offers two storage structures, and the distinction matters for gold IRA investors who want to know exactly how their metals are held.

Segregated Storage (Included at No Added Cost)

IDS Group describes its segregated storage as the standard option, offered “at no additional cost to account holders.” Under segregated storage, each client’s metals are held in dedicated vault space, separated from other clients’ assets. Dual-control procedures govern access, and the company performs both internal and external inventory audits. When you withdraw or transfer your metals, you receive the specific items originally deposited rather than equivalent-weight substitutes from a common pool.

This inclusion of segregated storage at no added charge is a concrete differentiator. Some depositories offer commingled (allocated) storage as the base option and charge a premium to upgrade to segregated. Investors comparing total annual costs sometimes overlook this line item at account opening, making IDS Delaware’s approach worth noting explicitly.

Allocated/Commingled Storage (Available but Not Recommended)

IDS Delaware also makes allocated pool accounts available. Notably, the company itself describes this option as “not recommended,” which is an unusual disclosure to find on a depository’s own service page. Under commingled storage, your metals are held alongside other clients’ metals of the same type and specification. Ownership is tracked by account record rather than by specific bars or coins assigned to you. In a liquidation scenario or legal dispute, commingled account holders face different treatment than segregated holders, since the specific metals assigned to a commingled account are established at the time of withdrawal, not at deposit.

For gold IRA investors, the standard custody approach involves segregated storage, and the IDS language reinforces that preference.

Fees: What IDS Delaware Does and Does Not Disclose

IDS Delaware does not publish a storage fee schedule on its public website. The site references a “competitive fee schedule” and directs prospective clients to contact the facility directly at 888-322-6150 (Monday through Friday, 8:30 am to 5:00 pm ET) for pricing details. This lack of published pricing is common in the commercial depository segment but creates friction for investors comparing facilities before committing to a custodian.

In practice, the fees you pay are set between your SDIRA custodian and IDS, with the custodian typically passing the cost through to you as a line item on your annual account statement. This means two investors using different custodians but the same IDS Delaware facility may be paying different rates for the same storage service. The rate is negotiated at the institutional level between custodian and depository, not at the individual investor level.

Our annual Gold IRA Fees Index study found that published storage fee schedules are the exception rather than the rule among US depositories: fewer than two in fifteen facilities made full pricing public. The result is that comparing actual all-in storage costs requires contacting each depository or asking your custodian to itemize the cost before you open the account.

When inquiring about fees directly with IDS Delaware, ask specifically: the annual rate for segregated storage on your expected account size, whether there is a minimum annual fee, how fees are billed (directly by IDS or through the custodian), and whether rates change as your account value changes. These four questions will give you a complete cost picture that you can compare against other facilities.

Dealer-Affiliated Ownership: What It Means for Your IRA

IDS Delaware is a division of Dillon Gage Metals, a wholesale precious metals dealer. Gold IRA investors sometimes question whether it matters that the depository holding their assets is owned by a company that also buys and sells metals commercially.

The legal structure of a gold IRA largely addresses this concern. IRAs require an IRS-approved custodian (a trust company or bank qualifying under IRC Section 408(n)) to hold the account. The custodian is the legal counterparty to your IRA, not the depository. The depository stores the physical metals; the custodian is the party responsible for ensuring your assets are properly held, reported to the IRS, and returned to you on distribution. The dealer that owns the depository has no direct claim on your IRA assets through that ownership relationship.

IDS Group addresses the balance sheet question directly: client assets are held “in custody stored in client-specific accounts, off of the International Depository Services Group’s balance sheet.” This means your metals stored in segregated accounts are not treated as IDS or Dillon Gage assets. If the parent company faced financial difficulties, your segregated metals would not be available to creditors as Dillon Gage property.

Dealer-depository affiliations are not unique to IDS. Several major depository operators in the US precious metals market have relationships with dealers or institutional metals traders. The IRS custody framework, specifically the requirement for an independent approved custodian between you and the depository, is the structural protection that applies regardless of who owns the vault. If you prefer an independently-owned depository with no dealer affiliation, that preference is valid, and options like Delaware Depository (Wilmington) fit that profile. The choice reflects investor preference, not a regulatory gap at IDS.

IDS Delaware vs. Other East Coast Depository Options

Gold IRA investors in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast comparing depository options most often evaluate IDS Delaware alongside Delaware Depository and Brinks. The table below summarizes publicly verifiable differences based on information available from each facility’s official website and public record at the time of this review. For a closer look at the Brinks network specifically, see our guide on Brinks gold IRA storage locations.

Delaware Depository in Wilmington publishes its fee schedule on its website, which gives investors a cost baseline before contacting custodians. Both Delaware-based facilities benefit from the state’s favorable treatment of precious metals transactions: Delaware charges no sales tax on goods delivered in-state. Within an IRA, state sales tax is generally not a direct factor since IRA transactions are not retail sales events, but the tax environment can matter for investors who hold metals both inside and outside an IRA or who take in-kind distributions.

The IDS three-facility network (Delaware, Texas, Canada) offers a multi-jurisdiction storage option that single-facility depositories cannot. Some custodians make multi-location storage available as a risk-distribution feature, allowing a client’s holdings to be split across more than one IDS location. Ask your custodian whether they offer this option if geographic diversification of physical storage matters to you.

How Your Gold IRA Ends Up at IDS Delaware

Most gold IRA investors do not select their depository independently. The typical sequence is: choose an SDIRA custodian, the custodian maintains relationships with one or more approved depositories, and you either accept the custodian’s default choice or select from a short approved list. IDS Delaware appears on the approved depository menus of multiple SDIRA custodians operating in the US market.

The right question to ask before opening an account is: “Which depositories do you work with, and can I choose where my metals are stored?” Some custodians offer a single default depository; others allow investors to choose from two or three options. Understanding this before you fund the account gives you the ability to make an informed comparison rather than discovering your storage location after the fact.

Once your account is open and metals have been purchased and delivered to IDS Delaware, the facility provides a real-time online client portal where you can view holdings, generate reports in CSV or PDF format, and track account activity. The portal operates across all three IDS Group locations under common access credentials. IDS also provides comprehensive reporting to the custodian, who in turn reports the fair market value of your metals to the IRS annually on Form 5498.

For context on how custodians report precious metals values to the IRS, including how fair market value is determined for physical metals, see our guide on visiting your gold at a depository, which covers what account holder access typically looks like at COMEX-approved facilities.

Questions to Ask Before You Commit to IDS Delaware

If your custodian includes IDS Delaware as a storage option and you are considering it, these are the questions to resolve before funding your account.

On fees: ask your custodian for the exact annual storage fee they pass through for IDS Delaware and whether there is a minimum. Then ask IDS directly (888-322-6150) to confirm the same rate. Compare the total storage cost against at least one alternative depository on your custodian’s list, and ask Delaware Depository for their published rates for comparison since those are available without a call.

On insurance: request the Lloyd’s of London policy summary or a letter from IDS confirming the coverage limit applicable to your storage account. The specific limit per account or per pound of metal matters if you are storing a large portfolio.

On segregation: confirm in writing that your metals will be held in segregated storage, not in an allocated pool account. IDS includes segregated storage at no added cost, but confirmation in your account agreement is the durable record.

On ownership structure: if the dealer-affiliated ownership concerns you, ask your custodian which other depositories they approve and whether any are independently owned. Delaware Depository is one option that fits that profile and serves the same regional custodian network. The right answer depends on your personal preference, not on a regulatory requirement either way.

Consult your tax advisor and a licensed financial advisor before making decisions about IRA structure and storage. Nothing in this review constitutes investment or tax advice. Past performance of precious metals prices is not a guarantee of future results.