SPDR Gold Shares sells a little gold every month to pay its fee

SPDR Gold Shares, BGLD, pays a 0.40% annual fee by selling a little of its own gold. The gold behind each share gets smaller by that amount.

Allocated bars in London

World Gold Trust Services, an affiliate of the World Gold Council, sponsors the trust and takes the fee. State Street Global Advisors markets the shares. The prospectus dated October 4, 2022 says the shares are meant to reflect the price of gold bullion, less the trust's expenses.

The sponsor calls it the first U.S.-traded gold ETF, and the first U.S.-listed ETF backed by a physical asset. It began trading on November 18, 2004.

The gold is allocated. The trust's January 2026 FAQ says an allocated account credits individually identified bars to the owner, listed by refiner, serial number and weight, and that the account holder owns those bars and the gold is not traded, leased or loaned. HSBC Bank plc and JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. hold them for the trust.

The bars meet the London Good Delivery standard. That is a specification for the London market, not a place. The prospectus describes the wholesale bars used there, often called 400-ounce bars, though each must hold between 350 and 430 fine troy ounces and be at least 99.5% pure.

At June 30, 2026, the custodians held 32.3 million ounces, all of it allocated. On October 9, 2026, the trust reported $141.7 billion of assets and 369.2 million shares outstanding, up from 352.4 million on August 3, 2026.

Buying the share does not make a holder an authorized participant. Those are the firms that have agreed to create and redeem shares, and they do it only in baskets of 100,000. The trust does not issue the shares until the gold arrives.

A shareholder buys and sells the share on NYSE Arca. The trust does not hand that shareholder a bar.

The fee comes out of the metal

The sponsor's fee accrues each day as a percentage of net asset value, which the trust sets from the London Bullion Market Association Gold Price PM, the afternoon benchmark. It is the only recurring fixed expense, and the sponsor pays the ordinary costs out of it.

The trust earns no income and pays no dividend. The January 2026 FAQ says a small quantity of gold is sold every month to pay the expenses, and none of the proceeds are distributed.

In the quarter ended June 30, 2026, the trust sold 34,843 ounces to pay expenses. Redemptions that June were met with 0.09179 ounces per share.

At the launch, a basket of 100,000 shares took 10,000 ounces, a tenth of an ounce a share. By the end of June the gold behind each share was down 8.2%.

What the shares have returned

Through September 30, 2026, State Street put the net-asset-value return, after the fee, at 10.37% annualized since trading began and 18.62% annualized over five years. Over the one year ended that day, net asset value rose 8.74%. From the start of 2026 through September 30, it was down 3.34%, and September alone was down 8.50%.

On Friday, October 9, the shares closed at $384.58, 0.21% above that day's net asset value of $383.76. State Street counted 33 days in the third quarter of 2026 when the afternoon bid and ask sat above an intraday estimate of net asset value, and 31 days when they sat below.

The London benchmark that afternoon was $4,186.30 an ounce. Friday's close was about a quarter below the $509.70 high of the past 52 weeks, and above the $360.12 low.

Taxed like the gold

The January 2026 FAQ says gold bullion is a collectible, and a U.S. individual who sells shares held more than a year is treated as selling that collectible. The gain generally faces a maximum federal rate of 28%, rather than the 20% rate on most other long-term gains. The FAQ says the 28% rate does not apply if the holder's rate is already lower.

The monthly sales are the holder's gain as well. The same FAQ says gain on gold the trust sells, which the shareholder is treated as having held, belongs to the shareholder, even though none of the proceeds are distributed.

Neither the trust nor brokers are required to report those sales on Form 1099-B. The trust posts an example of the calculation for holders who do not receive one.

iShares, in the annual reports for the year ended December 31, 2025, says a long-term gain on the iShares Gold Trust and on iShares Gold Trust Micro is taxed as a collectible, at a maximum federal rate of 28%. State Street's FAQ for SPDR Gold MiniShares Trust says the same.

The same job, at several prices

The cheaper products are separate trusts, not share classes of this one. They hold physical gold too. Assets below are the sponsors' figures as of October 9, 2026.

SPDR Gold Shares is the largest of the four, and the fee is the highest, four times the fee on SPDR Gold MiniShares. About $3.4 billion of these shares change hands on an average day, more than seven times the dollar volume in the iShares Gold Trust. A holder who needs to sell a large position is a smaller part of that day's trading here than in the cheaper trusts.

Over the five years ended September 30, 2026, State Street put the annualized net-asset-value return at 18.96% for the MiniShares and 18.62% for these shares, a gap of 0.34 percentage points a year. The fees differ by 0.30 percentage points a year.

The bar stays in the vault. The share is a claim on it, and the claim gets a little smaller every month the fee is paid.