sovereign New tax rules on Gold Bond (SGB) have come into effect from today. From April 1, 2026, a hefty long term capital gains tax of up to 12.5 percent will have to be paid on the profits made from sovereign gold bonds. Under the new rules, investors who purchased SGBs through secondary market transactions, transfer or any other mode will have to pay capital gains tax on redemption. However, investors who bought sovereign gold bonds directly from RBI and sold them directly on maturity will not have to pay capital gains tax, they will get complete exemption from it. Let us tell you that in the budget presented on February 1, 2026, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced to levy long term capital gains tax on sovereign gold bonds.
Tax will have to be paid on gold bonds purchased from BSE, NSE, stock broking platforms or banks.
Here secondary market means any other platform except RBI from where you have purchased gold bonds. Apart from BSE, NSE, gold bonds were also purchased through many stock broking platforms and net banking platforms of banks. If you had purchased Sovereign Gold Bond through BSE, NSE, stock broking platforms or banks, you would have to pay long term capital gains of 12.5 percent, even if you hold it for the full maturity period of 8 years. Tax will not have to be paid on sovereign gold bonds purchased from the primary market, i.e. Reserve Bank of India.
Those buying SGB from Reserve Bank of India will have to pay special attention to this rule.
However, those buying sovereign gold bonds from RBI will have to hold them for full 8 years to get exemption from long term capital gains tax. If an investor had purchased Sovereign Gold Bond directly from RBI and sells it after 5 years, he will also have to pay Long Term Capital Gains Tax. Let us tell you that investors also get 2.5 percent annual interest on the amount invested in Sovereign Gold Bond, which will continue to be taxed as ‘Income from other sources’ at the applicable slab rates.