Jewelry and Precious Metals Merchant Accounts: What Banks and FinCEN Require

A jeweler, a coin shop and an online bullion seller look like three different businesses to a customer. To an acquiring bank they share one profile: large tickets, goods that hold their value and resell easily, and a federal anti-money laundering rule most retailers never meet. Getting a jewelry or precious metals merchant account approved comes down to two things — showing the bank your fraud and dispute controls, and showing you know where you stand under FinCEN's dealer rule. This guide covers both, plus how the card networks code the business, how the largest bullion sellers price cards, and what an underwriter will ask.

Why banks underwrite jewelry and precious metals differently

What makes the category high-risk is the product, not a network rule. The ticket is large, and the goods are portable, hold their value and are easy to resell, which makes them a target for purchases with stolen cards. Prices move daily, which gives a buyer who regrets an order after the market falls a reason to dispute it.

The codes themselves are ordinary. In Visa's Merchant Data Standards Manual dated April 2026, retail jewelry stores use MCC 5944 (Jewelry Stores, Watches, Clocks, and Silverware Stores), whose listing names gems, precious metals and fine jewelry. Business-to-business and wholesale distributors of jewelry, precious stones and precious metals use MCC 5094 (Precious Stones and Metals, Watches and Jewelry). The Visa Core Rules dated April 18, 2026 define a quasi-cash transaction as the sale of items directly convertible to cash and list gaming chips, money orders, deposits, wire transfers, travelers cheques, prepaid cards with cash access and foreign currency. Bullion is not on that list, and neither 5944 nor 5094 is among the high integrity risk MCCs the manual lists — the codes that cover card-absent pharmacy, adult, dating and gambling merchants. The risk sits in the product, and that is what underwriting examines.

Do precious metal dealers need an AML program?

Many do, and few realize it until an underwriter asks for one. The rule is in 31 CFR part 1027, and it has required anti-money laundering programs since January 1, 2006. It covers dealers in covered goods: jewels, precious metals and precious stones, plus finished goods such as jewelry, numismatic items and antiques that derive 50 percent or more of their value from the jewels, metals or stones they contain. Precious metal means gold, silver, platinum, palladium, iridium, osmium, rhodium or ruthenium at 500 parts per thousand purity or more, or an alloy of them at that level. Jewels include pearl, amber and coral; precious stones include diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds and a long list of other gems.

A business is a dealer if, during the prior calendar or tax year, it both purchased more than $50,000 of covered goods and received more than $50,000 in gross proceeds from selling them. For finished goods, only the value of the metal and stones inside counts toward those thresholds. A ring sold for $3,000 that contains $2,000 of gold and diamonds adds $2,000, not $3,000, and a piece whose metal and stones make up less than half its price does not count at all.

Most retail jewelers are exempt. A retailer — a business that sells covered goods primarily to the public — is not a dealer unless in the prior year it bought more than $50,000 of covered goods from people other than dealers or retailers, such as members of the public or foreign suppliers. If it crosses that line, its program only has to cover those purchases, not its sales. Licensed pawnbrokers are excluded to the extent they are doing pawn transactions. Trade-ins do not count as purchases when the customer's trade-in value is credited to their account and no money is paid out.

That last point decides the question for many businesses. A store that buys gold from the public for cash, a coin dealer running a buyback desk, or an online bullion seller that buys metal back from customers is making purchases from non-dealers. Once those purchases pass $50,000 a year, and sales pass $50,000 as well, the business is a dealer and needs a program. A business importing stones or metal directly from a foreign supplier crosses the line the same way.

What the AML program must contain today

Under the current section 1027.210, a dealer must have a written program approved by senior management and available to FinCEN on request. At minimum it must include four things:

• Policies, procedures and internal controls based on a risk assessment of the business, taking into account the products it buys and sells, its customers, suppliers, distribution channels and locations, how much it deals with parties other than established customers and suppliers, and whether payments route to or from high-risk jurisdictions.
• A designated compliance officer responsible for running the program, keeping it current and making sure staff are trained.
• Ongoing training for the people who need it.
• Independent testing, which can be done by an employee as long as it is not the compliance officer or someone running the program.

The rule lists the warning signs a program should look for: large amounts of cash, multiple or sequentially numbered money orders, traveler's checks or cashier's checks, payment from third parties, customers or suppliers who will not give complete contact details, requests to keep the transaction off the books, and purchases that are unusual for that customer or out of line with industry practice.

Two related obligations sit alongside the program. FinCEN's guidance says dealers are not required to file suspicious activity reports but are strongly encouraged to file them voluntarily. And every trade or business, dealer or not, must file Form 8300 within 15 days of receiving more than $10,000 in cash in one transaction or a series of related ones. Personal checks and funds transfers from a financial institution, such as wires, are not cash for Form 8300. Cashier's checks, bank drafts, traveler's checks and money orders of $10,000 or less are cash when received in a designated reporting transaction — which includes the retail sale of a collectible, a term the IRS defines to include metal, gems and coins, and the retail sale of a consumer durable priced above $10,000. FinCEN has delegated to the IRS the authority to examine dealers for compliance with the rule.

What FinCEN proposed in April 2026

On April 10, 2026 FinCEN published a proposed rule, 91 FR 18704, that would rewrite the anti-money laundering program rules for eleven types of financial institution at once, with dealers in precious metals, stones or jewels among them. Comments closed on June 9, 2026. FinCEN said it does not intend to finalize its July 2024 program proposal and that the new proposal withdraws and supersedes it. As of September 30, 2026 the Federal Register shows no final rule, so nothing below is in force yet.

For dealers the proposed text keeps the $50,000 definitions and the retailer carve-out, and replaces section 1027.210 with a standard that is more specific about what the program must do:

• A dealer would have an effective program only if it both establishes the program and implements it in all material respects. A written policy that is not followed would not be enough.
• The risk assessment would have to be documented, cover products, services, distribution channels, customers and locations, review and, where appropriate, incorporate the government's published AML/CFT priorities, and be updated promptly when the business's risk changes significantly.
• Controls would have to put more attention and resources on higher-risk customers and activities than on lower-risk ones.
• The person responsible for the program would have to be located in the United States and be accessible to FinCEN.

FinCEN proposed that a final rule take effect 12 months after it is published. Its own economic analysis puts the number of dealers at 6,742, an estimate drawn from Census data on jewelry, watch, precious stone and precious metal wholesalers that leaves out jewelry manufacturers and jewelry retailers.

How the large bullion dealers handle cards

The biggest online bullion sellers publish their card policies. APMEX's payments FAQ, read in September 2026, says it gives a 4% discount off its list price to customers who pay by paper check, eCheck, bank wire or trade, and that the prices on its site include that discount unless the customer pays by credit card, PayPal or certain cryptocurrencies. JM Bullion's pricing pages describe the same 4% discount for check and wire payments, and its card page caps credit and debit card purchases at $5,000, which it says is to prevent fraudulent card activity, and requires the shipping address to match the card's billing address.

The framing matters. A price difference offered as a discount for paying another way is different from a surcharge added to a card payment. Visa's rules allow a US merchant to offer a discount to encourage payment by a means other than a Visa card. A surcharge on Visa credit is capped at the lesser of 3% or the merchant's cost of acceptance, cannot be applied to debit, needs 30 days' notice to the acquirer and must be disclosed. Several states restrict surcharging outright. If you want a two-price model, set it up as a cash discount, show it clearly, and have your processor confirm the setup before launch.

Visa's rules also let a merchant set its own refund and cancellation policy, provided it is properly disclosed to the cardholder. For a metals seller that is where price-lock and market-loss terms belong. APMEX's FAQ, for example, explains how a customer pays a market loss if they cancel an order. A policy the customer accepted at checkout is far stronger dispute evidence than one buried in a terms page — and it shapes which Visa chargeback reason codes you can answer with a document rather than a shrug.

What an underwriter will ask

Put the FinCEN rule and the card risk together and the questions on a precious metals or jewelry application are predictable:

• What you sell, split between finished jewelry, numismatic coins and bullion, and your average and largest ticket.
• Whether you buy from the public or import directly, and how much. If either passes $50,000 a year, expect to be asked for your written anti-money laundering program, the name of your compliance officer and the date of your last independent test.
• How you handle cash and cash equivalents, and whether you file Form 8300 when you should.
• Your card controls: per-order and per-customer limits, address verification, 3-D Secure, holds on first orders from new customers, and whether you ship only to the billing address.
• Shipping: insured, signature-required delivery and tracking you can produce, because a signed delivery record is the evidence you need to answer a claim that the goods never arrived.
• Your price-lock, cancellation and market-loss terms, and how the customer accepts them at checkout.
• Your processing history, including chargeback and fraud ratios for the last six to twelve months.

If you can answer these before you apply, underwriting moves at the speed of your paperwork instead of the speed of follow-up questions.

What does a good merchant account look like for this category?

There is no single best merchant account. The best account for a jewelry store or metals dealer is the one underwritten for your actual product mix, ticket size and buyback volume, at a bank that approves MCC 5944 and 5094 deliberately rather than by accident. Three things separate an account that lasts from one that gets shut off:

• Pricing you can read before you sign, with every fee disclosed in the merchant service agreement.
• Reserve and rolling-hold terms in writing up front, not discovered on your first large settlement.
• An underwriter that saw your bullion sales, your buyback desk and your AML program on the application — because an account approved for what you actually do is an account that survives its first review.

Our jewelry merchant services are built around exactly these questions, from product-mix underwriting to card limits and shipping controls.

What to do before you apply

1. Work out whether you are a dealer. Total last year's purchases of covered goods from the public and from foreign suppliers, and your sales, counting only the metal and stone value of finished pieces. If both pass $50,000, you need a program.
2. If you need one, write it down: a dated risk assessment, the controls that follow from it, a named compliance officer, a training record and an independent test. Building to the proposed standard now saves a rewrite later.
3. Set a card limit and enforce it at checkout. Many dealers take cards for smaller orders and require wire or check above a set amount.
4. If you price cards differently, structure it as a discount for other payment methods, disclose it at checkout and confirm the setup with your processor.
5. Put price-lock and cancellation terms in the checkout flow and require the customer to accept them before paying.
6. Keep one honest storefront. Running bullion sales through an account approved for something else is transaction laundering under card network rules, and it can put your business and its principals on the MATCH list.

How we approach jewelry and precious metals

We place jewelry stores, coin dealers and precious metals sellers with acquiring banks that underwrite high-ticket goods deliberately, and we structure the account around your product mix, ticket size, channel and controls. Expect to be asked for your product breakdown, buyback and import volumes, your anti-money laundering program if you are a dealer, and your card limits, shipping and cancellation terms. Most merchants are approved within 24 hours.

We do not give legal advice, and whether you are a dealer under FinCEN's rule is a question for your compliance counsel. What we can tell you is what a bank will need to see to approve you — and we will tell you plainly if anything in your application will slow that down. When you are ready, apply with your most recent processing statements and we will take it from there.