There is still considerable disagreement in the published values for the energy position and capture cross section of the gold‐acceptor level in silicon. We have measured in a rather direct way the thermal emission rateenfor electrons andepfor holes in the 240–360 °K temperature range on gold‐contaminated MOS and Schottky structures. The results can be well explained by the single‐level Shockley‐Read‐Hall model when pinning the gold level either to the conduction band or to the valence band. That is the reason why there are various interpretations while crude results forenandepare in good agreement. For instance, depending on the case, the gold energy level is found to be 0.553 or 0.476 eV below the conduction band at 300 °K: these are the extreme published values. From a practical point of view, we show that at concentrations as low as 1010cm−3, gold is the major impurity controlling the generation lifetime in silicon devices.