Yes. In France you can legally sell gold without holding the original invoice. No law requires a private seller to prove where their gold came from. But the missing invoice changes how you are taxed, and it never exempts the buyer from the mandatory identity check, police register entry and traceable payment.
Yes, it is perfectly legal. French law does not require a private individual to present a purchase invoice to sell jewellery, coins or bars. Gold inherited from family, received as a gift or bought long ago rarely comes with paperwork, and dealers handle such cases every day. The obligations that matter are placed on the buyer, not on you: a professional gold buyer must verify your identity, record the transaction in a police register and pay you by a traceable method. So the absence of an invoice is not an obstacle to selling. It simply means you cannot document what you originally paid, which is the one thing that affects your tax position rather than your right to sell.
Because it decides which tax regime applies to your sale. France offers two routes. The default is a flat tax on precious metals, applied to the whole sale amount regardless of any gain. The alternative is the capital-gains regime, which taxes only the profit you actually made and includes an allowance that reduces the bill the longer you have held the metal. The catch: the capital-gains option requires proof of the purchase price and date, which usually means the original invoice. Without that document you generally fall under the flat tax by default. Neither option is illegal, and for gold held a long time the flat tax is often simpler, but the choice, and its cost, hinges on whether you kept your paperwork.
Three obligations apply to every professional purchase, invoice or not. First, the buyer must check and record a valid photo ID, so selling anonymously is not possible. Second, the transaction goes into a mandatory register available to the police, which exists to deter trade in stolen metal. Third, payment above a low legal threshold must be traceable: bank transfer or cheque, never cash. A dealer offering an envelope of cash to keep things off the books is breaking the law, and that should be a red flag rather than a convenience. These rules protect honest sellers as much as they deter theft: a clear paper trail is proof that you sold your own gold, legally, for a recorded amount.
Focus on the buyback rate, because the metal value is not a secret. Your gold is worth its fineness times its weight against the daily spot price. Fineness is set by the hallmark: 24k is 999, 22k is 916, 18k is 750, 14k is 585, 9k is 375. Coins may carry an extra numismatic premium; condition matters less for scrap than for collectors. The spot price is public and identical for every dealer, so what actually varies between shops is the margin they take, the percentage of spot they pay you, which they are not obliged to publish. That opacity is where sellers lose money. Ask each buyer to state their rate as a percentage of spot before you commit, and compare gold buyers in your city so you can see who is transparent.
No. There is no legal requirement to prove ownership or origin to sell. The buyer must record your ID and log the sale in a police register, which is precisely what protects you if the metal's provenance is ever questioned.
No. The invoice is unrelated to payment method. French law requires professional gold purchases above a low threshold to be settled by bank transfer or cheque. A buyer paying cash is acting illegally, regardless of your paperwork.
Possibly. Without proof of purchase you generally default to the flat tax on the total sale, rather than the capital-gains regime that taxes only your profit and rewards long holding. Which is cheaper depends on your gain and how long you have owned the gold.