Gold Rates in India Today - Live Prices

How gold rates in India are set

The domestic gold rate is not decided in India. It begins with the international spot price quoted in US dollars per troy ounce, which moves continuously with global demand for gold as a store of value, central bank buying, and expectations about interest rates. That dollar price is converted into rupees, which is why a weakening rupee pushes Indian gold rates up even on a day when international gold has not moved at all.

On top of the converted price sit import duty, the Agriculture Infrastructure and Development Cess, and a small refining and logistics margin, because India imports almost all the gold it consumes. Bullion associations then publish a benchmark rate for each state. State-level differences of a few rupees per gram come from transport costs, local levies and dealer margins, not from any difference in the metal itself.

Because the international market trades around the clock but Indian benchmarks are published on a fixed schedule, the rate you see quoted in the morning can differ from a jeweller's counter price later the same day. Treat the figures here as the metal benchmark for 30 August 2026 and confirm the live counter rate before a large purchase.

24K, 22K and 18K — which purity to buy

24 carat gold is 99.9% pure and is the reference from which every other purity is calculated. It is what coins, bars and digital gold are sold in, and it is the right choice when the purchase is an investment rather than something to wear, because you pay for metal and nothing else. It is also too soft to hold a stone or a clasp, which is why jewellery is not made from it.

22 carat gold is 91.6% pure — the 916 stamp on a hallmarked piece — and is the standard for Indian jewellery. The remaining 8.4% is an alloy of copper, silver or zinc that gives the piece enough strength to survive daily wear. At ₹14,349 per gram today it costs less per gram than 24K, but a jewellery purchase also carries making charges and GST that a coin does not.

18 carat gold is 75% pure and sits at ₹11,749 per gram. Its higher alloy content makes it harder and more scratch-resistant, so it is used for diamond settings and lightweight contemporary designs where the metal has to grip stones securely. It also takes rose and white finishes better than higher purities.

What you actually pay at the counter

The rate on this page is the metal rate only. A jeweller's bill adds making charges, which run from about 8% on plain machine-made chains to 25% or more on intricate handmade work, then a flat BIS hallmarking fee per article, and finally 3% GST calculated on the metal and the making charges together.

Making charges are the single largest variable and the one most open to negotiation, particularly on plain gold. Ask for the rate per gram, the making charge percentage and the wastage percentage as three separate figures before agreeing to a purchase — a low headline rate paired with a high making charge is a common way for a bill to end up above a competitor's.

Every piece of gold jewellery sold in India must carry a BIS hallmark: the BIS logo, the purity grade, and a six-digit alphanumeric HUID. Check for all three, and use the calculator on this page to sanity-check the total before you pay.

Retail and wholesale gold rates

Wholesale, or bullion, rates are what dealers trade at in bulk, typically in lots of 10 grams and above. Retail rates are what a walk-in customer is quoted and include the dealer's margin, so retail is always the higher of the two. A day on which the feed reports a wholesale figure at or above the retail figure is treated as a data error and withheld from these pages rather than published with a caveat.

The gap between the two is a useful indicator in its own right: it widens when demand is strong and dealers can hold their margin, and narrows in quiet periods. Individual buyers cannot transact at wholesale rates, but knowing the gap makes it easier to judge whether a quoted retail price is reasonable.

Ways to buy gold in India

Physical jewellery is the most common form and the least efficient as an investment, because making charges of 8% to 25% are sunk the moment you buy and are not recovered when you sell. It earns its place when the piece is meant to be worn, inherited or given, not when the goal is exposure to the gold price.

Coins and bars in 24K carry minimal making charges — often 2% to 5% — and buy-back at close to the prevailing rate, which makes them the straightforward choice for holding physical metal. Buy hallmarked pieces with a tamper-proof seal from a jeweller or bank, and keep the invoice, since it is what establishes purity and weight at resale.

Gold ETFs and gold mutual funds track the metal price without any storage or purity risk and can be bought and sold in a demat account on any trading day. They carry a small annual expense ratio instead of making charges. Sovereign Gold Bonds, issued by the RBI, additionally paid 2.5% annual interest on the invested amount and were exempt from capital gains tax if held to their eight-year maturity, though fresh tranches are no longer being issued — existing holdings and secondary-market units still carry those terms.

Digital gold sold through payment apps allows purchases from very small amounts and is backed by allocated physical metal held by the provider. It is not regulated by SEBI or the RBI, so the provider's credibility and the custody arrangement matter more than with an ETF or a bond.

Tax on buying and selling gold

Buying attracts 3% GST on the value of the metal and the making charges combined. If you give a jeweller your own gold and pay only for the labour, the job work is taxed at 5% instead. There is no GST when you sell gold back to a dealer.

Selling attracts capital gains tax. Physical gold, gold ETFs and gold funds held for more than 24 months are taxed as long-term capital gains at 12.5% without indexation; held for 24 months or less, the gain is added to your income and taxed at your slab rate. Sovereign Gold Bonds redeemed with the RBI at maturity are exempt from capital gains tax altogether.

Keep purchase invoices. Without a cost of acquisition on record, the entire sale value can be treated as a gain, and a hallmarked piece with no paperwork also fetches a lower price from a buyer who has to re-assay it. Cash transactions above ₹2 lakh are prohibited under Section 269ST, so large purchases must be paid by a banking channel.

When Indians buy gold, and why it matters to the rate

Indian gold demand is strongly seasonal. It concentrates around Akshaya Tritiya in April or May, Dhanteras and Diwali in October or November, and the wedding season that runs from roughly October to December and again from January to March. Jewellers discount making charges during these periods to compete for volume, but the metal rate itself often firms up on the extra demand.

That seasonality is worth planning around in the opposite direction. The quietest buying months — typically the monsoon weeks of July and August, and the Shraadh period — are when a buyer has the most negotiating room on making charges, even though the metal rate is set globally and is unaffected by local timing.

Because the rate is driven by international spot gold and the rupee, waiting for a domestic seasonal dip is not a reliable strategy. What a buyer can control is the making charge, the wastage percentage and the purity — and those, not the timing, are where the difference between two bills for the same piece usually comes from.

How to use this page

The spot rate card at the top shows today's per-gram rates for the selected city, each with the day's rupee change and percentage move so the direction is readable without relying on colour. Use the city picker to switch to your own city; the rates, calculator, chart and history all follow.

The calculator turns a weight, a purity and a making charge into a full bill including hallmarking and GST, which is the number to compare against a jeweller's quote. The trend chart plots every published day in the selected range, and hovering it gives a crosshair reading of every series on that date.

The city table lists today's rate across major cities with the cheapest and costliest marked, and the ten-day history shows how the current rate compares with the recent past. Every figure on the page is derived from the same unrounded per-gram base and rounded only at display, so the per-gram, ten-gram and hundred-gram numbers are always consistent with one another.