How to read India's gold rate without getting overcharged

Every morning a number goes around: gold is at ₹1,62,000. Then you walk into a shop and the bill is noticeably higher. Nobody is necessarily cheating you — the published rate and the billed price are measuring two different things. Here is how to read the gap.

The published rate is bullion, per 10 grams, before tax

India quotes gold per 10 grams, not per gram or per ounce. The benchmark most newspapers use is the daily fixing published by the India Bullion and Jewellers Association (IBJA), which surveys dealers and publishes an AM and a PM rate. That figure is for the metal alone. It has no GST in it, and no fabrication cost.

999, 916, 750: purity is a fraction, not a grade

The three-digit numbers are parts per thousand of pure gold. 999 is 24 carat, effectively pure, and is what coins and bars are sold in. 916 is 22 carat — 91.6% gold — and is the standard for Indian jewellery, because pure gold is too soft to hold a setting. 750 is 18 carat, common in diamond and stone-set pieces where strength matters more.

So a 22K rate is not a discount on the 24K rate: it is the same metal price multiplied by 0.916. If a shop quotes a 22K price that works out to more than 91.6% of the day's 24K rate, the difference is coming from somewhere else on the bill.

What gets added at the counter

• GST at 3% on the value of the gold, plus 5% GST on making charges. This is statutory and appears on any legitimate bill.
• Making charges — the fabrication cost. Quoted either as a flat rate per gram or as a percentage of the metal value, typically 8–25%. Machine-made chains sit at the low end; intricate handwork at the high end. This is the most negotiable line on the bill.
• Wastage or 'VA' (value addition) — metal notionally lost in fabrication, sometimes charged as an extra percentage. Many large retailers have folded this into making charges. If you see both, ask why.
• Hallmarking charge — a small fixed fee per article, currently ₹45, for BIS certification.

Check the hallmark, not the promise

Since 2021 hallmarking has been mandatory for most gold jewellery sold in India, and since 2022 each piece carries a six-digit alphanumeric HUID. A compliant hallmark shows three things: the BIS logo, the purity mark, and the HUID. You can verify the HUID in the BIS Care app before you pay. A piece sold as 22K with no hallmark is worth exactly what you can prove it is.

Two questions worth asking before you buy

First: what is today's rate per gram for this purity, and what are the making charges as a percentage? Getting both numbers separately makes the bill checkable. Second, if you are buying as an investment rather than to wear: what is your buy-back policy? Making charges are rarely recovered on resale, which is why coins, bars and sovereign gold instruments behave very differently from a necklace even when the metal is identical.

How this site's rate is calculated

The rate panel on Tathya Post carries the IBJA fixing for 999, 916 and 750 gold and 999 silver, taking the later of the day's two fixings, and shows the with-GST figure separately. There is no per-city adjustment, because bullion is a national market — what genuinely varies between Mumbai and Chennai is the making charge, not the metal. If the IBJA source is unreachable we fall back to international spot converted to rupees and the panel says so, because a spot-derived estimate runs several thousand rupees below the Indian counter price and should never be presented as the real thing.