Taiwan · Gold Passbook
Bank of Taiwan Gold Passbook Bid-Ask Spread
The gap between what Bank of Taiwan pays you and charges you for a gram of gold passbook (黃金存摺), across every trading day since 2015. Taiwan's banks only show the last 12 months — this is the full decade.
Latest bid-ask spread
NT$48 / gram
≈ 1.09% · data through early 2026
Avg sell price
NT$4,399
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The finding: a fixed NT$ step, not a percentage
Spread · 2015
NT$14
Spread · 2025
NT$37
Share of price
1.20% → 1.14%
Bank of Taiwan does not set its gold passbook spread as a percentage. It sets a flat NT$ amount and nudges it up only a handful of times a year — in 2018, just two different values across the whole year. So as gold roughly tripled, the NT$ spread tripled with it, but the share it carves out of the price actually fell. Anyone quoting a single fixed percentage for the passbook spread is reading it wrong.
NT$ spread by year
The year's most common (modal) buy/sell spread per gram. Each step up is the bank re-pricing a fixed NT$ amount, not a percentage.
Ten years of the spread, year by year
| Year | Avg sell (NT$/g) | Spread (NT$) | As % of price | Price steps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | NT$3,466 | NT$37 | 1.14% | 16 |
| 2024 | NT$2,487 | NT$31 | 1.25% | 10 |
| 2023 | NT$1,959 | NT$26 | 1.30% | 6 |
| 2022 | NT$1,735 | NT$22 | 1.28% | 5 |
| 2021 | NT$1,625 | NT$21 | 1.30% | 4 |
| 2020 | NT$1,687 | NT$23 | 1.31% | 8 |
| 2019 | NT$1,392 | NT$16 | 1.21% | 5 |
| 2018 | NT$1,235 | NT$15 | 1.20% | 2 |
| 2017 | NT$1,237 | NT$15 | 1.22% | 6 |
| 2016 | NT$1,300 | NT$16 | 1.22% | 8 |
| 2015 | NT$1,190 | NT$14 | 1.20% | 5 |
Sell price is what a buyer pays; the spread is sell minus buy. The NT$ figure is the year's most common (modal) spread; "price steps" is how many distinct spread values the bank used that year. Source: Bank of Taiwan business-hours close.
Common questions
- What is the bid-ask spread on a gold passbook?
- When you hold gold through a bank's gold passbook (黃金存摺), the bank quotes two prices: a lower one it pays when you sell, and a higher one it charges when you buy. The gap between them is the bid-ask spread — a cost you bear on the round trip, separate from any transaction fee.
- How big is Bank of Taiwan's gold passbook spread?
- As of early 2026 it is about NT$48 per gram, or roughly 1.1% of the price. Across the full decade of data the spread has averaged about 1.24%, from around 1.1% in calmer years to 1.31% during the 2020 pandemic panic.
- Why does the percentage fall as gold rises?
- Because Bank of Taiwan sets the spread as a fixed NT$ amount, not a percentage. It raises that amount only occasionally, and more slowly than gold climbs — so when gold jumps, the same NT$ spread becomes a smaller share of a bigger number. That is why the ratio was tighter in 2025 (about 1.14%) than a decade earlier, even though the NT$ spread was far larger.
- Which matters more, the spread or the fee?
- The spread usually dwarfs the fee. Bank of Taiwan's gold passbook transaction fee is a small flat charge, while the buy/sell spread runs on the order of 1% of the amount you hold — so on anything but a tiny position, the spread is the dominant cost of a round trip. Compare the spread, not just the fee.
Data source
Figures are Bank of Taiwan's official gold passbook (黃金存摺) board prices — the business-hours closing quote (營業時間最後一盤) — published as annual open data on data.gov.tw and backfilled here across 2,722 trading days from 2015 to early 2026. Prices are New Taiwan dollars per gram.