A live gold price looks different in every shop window, yet the metal underneath is the same everywhere. This guide explains how gold is priced globally, how the international benchmark converts into your local currency per gram or per tola, and why the rate at your jeweller sits well above pure-metal spot. You can read the current number from the live widget on this page, then use the gold price calculator to value any weight and karat exactly.
How gold is priced worldwide
There is one wholesale gold market, not a separate one per country. The reference is the LBMA Gold Price, set twice a day in London through an electronic auction and quoted in US dollars per troy ounce. Every national rate, from a Mumbai bazaar to a New York bullion desk, is derived from that single USD-per-ounce number.
Two conversions turn the global benchmark into the figure you see locally. First, currency: the USD price is multiplied by the USD-to-local exchange rate (the currency converter uses European Central Bank reference rates for exactly this). Second, weight: a troy ounce is divided into the unit your market quotes in, usually a gram, sometimes a tola or a pavan.
That formula gives the intrinsic, or spot, value of pure 24K gold. It is the floor under every price: a refiner, a bank, or a buyer who melts the metal works from this number. What it deliberately excludes is everything a retailer adds on top, which is the subject of the spot-versus-retail section further down.
The one-market principle
Because gold is fungible and globally traded, its pure-metal value cannot meaningfully differ between countries once expressed in the same currency. A genuine price gap between two countries is a tax-and-premium gap, never a metal-value gap. Keep that distinction in mind whenever someone claims gold is cheaper in a particular city.
Live gold spot, in your currency
The live widget below shows the current 24K spot in your currency, no refresh needed. Pick a currency, type in a weight, choose a purity, and it returns the per-gram rate, the per-ounce rate, and the intrinsic value of your gold. It reads the mid-market quote live from the same feed this page documents and converts it with European Central Bank rates, so the number is real and dated rather than a figure typed into the article.
Note what the widget reports and what it does not. It shows spot value, the worth of the metal itself. It does not show a jeweller's display rate, because that includes making charges and tax which vary by shop and city. For a full breakdown that layers those costs on top, open the gold price calculator. To sanity-check the unit conversion by hand, the troy ounces to grams converter confirms the 31.1035 g figure the formula relies on.
Weight units: gram, tola, troy ounce, pavan
Gold is sold in different units around the world, and mixing them up is the most common valuation error. A troy ounce is heavier than the everyday avoirdupois ounce used for groceries, and a tola is a South Asian unit with a precise modern definition. Here are the conversions you actually need, all expressed in grams so they chain directly into the per-gram rate.
| Unit | Grams | Where used | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 gram | 1.000 g | Global retail | The base unit most jewellers quote |
| 1 troy ounce | 31.1035 g | LBMA, bullion, COMEX | The international pricing unit; not the kitchen ounce (28.35 g) |
| 1 tola | 11.664 g | India, Pakistan, Nepal, UAE | Standardised at 3/8 troy ounce |
| 1 pavan / sovereign | 8.000 g | South India (Kerala, Tamil Nadu) | Quoted as 8 g; about 7.988 g of fine gold |
| 1 kilogram | 1,000 g | Bars, institutional | = 32.1507 troy ounces |
| 1 masha | 0.972 g | India (sub-tola) | 12 masha = 1 tola |
To value any quantity, convert the unit to grams from the table, then multiply by the per-gram rate for the right purity. Indian price boards usually quote a 10 g rate (close to one tola), so always confirm whether a headline number is per gram, per 10 g, or per tola before comparing. If you deal in lakh and crore amounts, the lakh crore converter keeps the zeros straight when a kilogram of gold runs into crores.
Karat and purity math
Karat measures how much of an alloy is pure gold, on a scale where 24 karat is theoretically 100 percent. Pure gold is too soft for daily-wear jewelry, so it is mixed with copper, silver, or zinc, and the karat number tells you the gold fraction. In India and much of Asia, the equivalent BIS hallmark stamps the purity in parts per thousand: 999, 916, 750.
| Karat | Hallmark | Purity | Value factor vs 24K | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24K | 999 | 99.9% | 1.000 | Coins, bars, investment |
| 23K | 958 | 95.8% | 0.958 | Some Middle East jewelry |
| 22K | 916 | 91.6% | 0.916 | India and UAE jewelry standard |
| 21K | 875 | 87.5% | 0.875 | Gulf region jewelry |
| 18K | 750 | 75.0% | 0.750 | Western and diamond-set jewelry |
| 14K | 585 | 58.5% | 0.585 | US and Europe everyday jewelry |
The math is one multiplication. The metal value of any piece equals the 24K per-gram spot times its weight in grams times its purity factor. If the 24K rate per gram is X:
18K value = weight (g) × 0.750 × X
14K value = weight (g) × 0.585 × X
The bars below show how much pure gold sits inside one gram of each common karat. The difference is exactly why a 22K chain and an 18K chain of identical weight are worth different amounts of metal, before a single rupee of making charge is added.
Spot vs retail: the gap, country by country
Retail jewelry always costs more than spot, and the markup has three named parts. A dealer or refining premium sits a small percentage over spot for fabricated metal. Making charges pay for labour and design, quoted either as a percentage of metal value (commonly 8 to 25 percent) or as a flat per-gram fee, and machine-made chains cost far less to make than handcrafted bridal sets. Finally, consumption tax is added at checkout, and this is where countries genuinely differ.
| Country | Currency | Popular karat | Tax on gold jewelry | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| India | INR (per 10 g / tola) | 22K (916) | 3% GST | 3% GST on value, plus making charges that attract 5% GST; import duty on bullion |
| UAE | AED (per gram / tola) | 22K, 21K | 5% VAT | Low making charges; Dubai gold souk is highly competitive |
| UK | GBP (per gram / oz) | 9K, 18K | 20% VAT (jewelry) | Investment-grade bullion is VAT-exempt; jewelry is not |
| United States | USD (per troy ounce) | 14K, 18K | 0 to ~10% sales tax | State-by-state sales tax; many states exempt investment bullion |
| Canada | CAD (per gram / oz) | 10K, 14K | 5% GST + PST | 99.5%+ pure bullion is GST/HST-exempt; jewelry is taxed |
| Australia | AUD (per gram / oz) | 9K, 18K | 10% GST | Investment gold of 99.5%+ is GST-free; jewelry carries 10% GST |
| Singapore | SGD (per gram / oz) | 22K, 18K | 0% on IPM | Investment Precious Metals are GST-exempt; other gold carries 9% GST |
| Germany | EUR (per gram / oz) | 14K, 18K | 0% on bullion | Investment gold is VAT-exempt EU-wide; jewelry carries 19% VAT |
Worked example (clearly illustrative numbers)
Suppose spot were around 4,500 USD per troy ounce. That is about 144.68 USD per gram of 24K (4,500 ÷ 31.1035). A 10 g 22K chain then holds 10 × 0.916 × 144.68 = about 1,325 USD of metal. Add 12% making charges (about 159 USD) and 5% VAT on the total (about 74 USD), and the till price is roughly 1,558 USD, around 17% above the metal value. Swap in the real live figure from the widget above for your own numbers; the structure of the calculation does not change.
Two practical takeaways follow. First, a lower headline rate in another country is mostly a tax-and-making-charge story, so a Dubai price that looks cheaper than an Indian one reflects the 5% versus 3%-plus-higher-making-charges gap, not cheaper metal. Before assuming a saving on gold bought abroad, price in travel and the customs duty levied when you carry it home. The TCS on foreign remittance calculator is useful when funding an overseas purchase from India. Second, making charges are effectively sunk: when you sell, a buyer pays close to spot for the metal and does not refund what you paid to have it shaped.
How to value the gold you own
Valuing your own holdings is the same spot math run in reverse, and it tells you the realistic resale floor rather than a shop's selling price. Follow four steps.
Weigh it. Use an accurate scale in grams. Remove stones, beads, or enamel where possible, because a buyer pays only for gold, not for set gemstones or non-gold components.
Read the purity. Find the hallmark: 999, 916, 750, or a karat stamp (24K, 22K, 18K). That sets the purity factor from the karat table above. Unmarked pieces may need an assay before a buyer commits.
Apply the live rate. Multiply weight in grams by the purity factor by the live 24K per-gram spot shown in the widget above. That is the intrinsic metal value.
Subtract the buy-back margin. A dealer pays you spot minus a small refining or handling margin, often 1 to 8 percent depending on form (coins and bars fetch the most, old jewelry the least). You will not recover the making charges from the original purchase.
For a guided version of this calculation that prints a clean per-gram and total figure, the gold price calculator takes weight, karat, and rate and shows the breakdown. To check whether your gold has held value in real terms over the years you owned it, run the purchase price through the inflation calculator; nominal gains can look impressive until inflation is netted out. And to compare any local quote against the global benchmark, convert it with the currency converter back to USD per ounce.
Buying versus selling, in one line
You buy at spot plus premium plus making charges plus tax, and you sell at spot minus a refining margin. The spread between those two is the real cost of owning physical gold, which is why coins and bars (low making charge, low buy-back margin) are the cheaper way to hold the metal as an asset, while jewelry buys you wearability at a markup.