What is the gold/silver ratio today?
The gold/silver ratio is 78.91 today: one troy ounce of gold buys 78.91 troy ounces of silver at the live spot asks of $3,905.06 for gold and $49.49 for silver. That is up 1.86 (+2.41%) from today's open, against a 52-week range of 45.66 to 83.54, and 5% above the average since 2011.
Half an ounce of gold is worth 39.45 ounces of silver, a tenth of an ounce 7.89, and a kilogram 2,536.94. These are spot-for-spot figures; a physical swap also pays each product's premium. Updated .
What is the gold/silver ratio?
The gold/silver ratio is the number of troy ounces of silver it takes to buy one troy ounce of gold. It is a pure number, not a price: divide the gold spot price by the silver spot price and the dollars cancel out. A ratio of 80 means gold is eighty times the price of silver per ounce; a ratio of 50 means fifty times. Because it strips out the dollar, the ratio is the cleanest single measure of how the two metals are valued against each other, and it has been watched for as long as both have been money.
Investors use it in two ways. The first is descriptive: a glance at the ratio against its history says whether silver is historically cheap or dear relative to gold right now. The second is tactical: some hold a mix of the two metals and tilt it toward whichever the ratio says is relatively cheap. Both uses depend on reading the number against a long record, which is why this page carries the 52-week range, the average since 2011 and the record high and low alongside the live figure.
How the ratio is calculated
We divide our live gold ask by our live silver ask, both in U.S. dollars per troy ounce and both from the same wholesale feed captured at the same moment. Using the same side of the market for both legs matters: a ratio built from gold's ask and silver's bid would overstate the number by the width of silver's spread, which is several times gold's in percentage terms. The bid-side ratio (gold bid divided by silver bid) is shown under the hero so you can see the difference, which is also roughly what a dealer's spread costs on a physical swap.
The historical series on the chart is built the same way from daily closes since 2011 and from annual LBMA and USGS averages for 1900 to 2010. We never quote the ratio from another site; every point is our own gold price divided by our own silver price for that day or year.
How to read the ratio
A high ratio means silver is cheap relative to gold compared with the past, or equivalently that gold is expensive relative to silver. A low ratio means the reverse. The ratio says nothing about which metal moved in dollars: a ratio that climbs from 70 to 90 could be gold rising while silver stands still, silver falling while gold stands still, or both falling with silver falling faster. The performance table on this page shows the ratio at earlier dates so you can see the direction and size of the move, and the two spot pages show what each metal did on its own.
Over long periods the ratio has tended to swing between roughly the 30s and the 80s and to come back toward the middle of that range after an extreme, but the swings last years and the extremes have become more extreme in the free-market era. The comparison with the average since 2011 above is a context figure, not a target. Treat the ratio as a measure of relative value today, and be careful with anyone who presents a particular reading as a prediction.
Gold/silver ratio history
For most of recorded history the ratio was set by governments, not markets. Ancient Egypt valued silver close to gold; Greece and Rome ran ratios near 12 to 1; medieval Europe settled around 12 to 15. The United States fixed it by law at 15 to 1 in the Coinage Act of 1792 and moved to about 16 to 1 in 1834, a bimetallic standard that lasted until silver was demonetised in 1873. Through the nineteenth century the free-market ratio drifted up as silver production from the American West outran gold, and by 1900 it was in the 30s.
The twentieth century saw the first true extremes. The ratio reached roughly 100 in 1940 and 1941, when silver had collapsed in the Depression and gold was fixed at $35. It fell through the post-war decades and plunged to about 17 in January 1980 at the peak of the Hunt brothers' silver corner, the lowest reading of the modern era. It then climbed for a decade, touching 100 again in 1991 as silver languished. The 2000s commodity boom pulled it down to around 32 in April 2011, when silver approached $50. The all-time high came in March 2020: gold held up during the pandemic sell-off while industrial silver was dumped, and the ratio briefly traded above 120 before silver's recovery pulled it back into the 60s and 70s over the following year.
In our own record the ratio has ranged from 45.66 to 83.54 over the past year; a year ago it was 82.74, a change of -3.84 (-4.64%) to today. The record high in our data is 122.16 (March 18, 2020) and the record low 16.59 (1968, annual average). Figures before 2011 are annual averages, so a brief intraday extreme in those years will read lower on a high or higher on a low than the day itself.
What moves the gold/silver ratio
The ratio moves because the two metals answer to different things. Gold is a monetary metal: central banks hold it, investors buy it when real interest rates fall or confidence in currencies wobbles, and industry uses little of it. Roughly half of silver demand is industrial, in solar panels, electronics, electric vehicles and brazing, so silver trades partly as an industrial commodity that rises and falls with the economy. When growth fears take hold, gold is bid as a haven and silver is sold with copper and oil, and the ratio rises. When inflation fears or speculative flows dominate, silver's smaller market moves further than gold's and the ratio falls.
Market size amplifies this. The silver market is a small fraction of gold's in dollar terms, so the same flow of investment money moves silver further in percentage terms in either direction. Supply is also different: most silver is mined as a by-product of copper, lead, zinc and gold, so its production responds slowly to its own price, and above-ground stocks have been drawn down for industrial use rather than hoarded as gold is. These structural differences are why the ratio trends for years rather than oscillating quickly.
Using the ratio: the gold-for-silver trade
The classic use is a rotation between the two metals rather than a trade against the dollar. When the ratio is unusually high an investor swaps some gold for silver, holding more ounces of metal in total; if the ratio later falls, they swap back and finish with more gold than they started with. The attraction is that the trade can work regardless of where the dollar price of either metal goes, since it is the relationship that is being traded. The risk is that the ratio stays extreme for years, or sets a new extreme, while the holding sits in the metal that is lagging.
The costs are real. Each swap pays the bid/ask spread on both legs and the premium on the product bought, and a physical silver position is heavier and bulkier to store and ship than the gold it replaced. In the United States a swap is a sale for tax purposes, so a gain on the metal given up is taxable even though the proceeds went straight into the other metal. The ratio also says nothing about timing: it identifies relative cheapness, not when it will correct. We do not give investment advice, and nothing on this page is a recommendation to buy, sell or swap either metal.
The ratio in physical bullion
The spot ratio is a wholesale number. Coins and bars trade at spot plus a premium, and the premium on silver is much larger than on gold in percentage terms, because a dollar-cheap metal still costs the same to mint, package and ship. A one-ounce gold coin might carry a premium of a few percent while one-ounce silver coins carry a double-digit percentage, so a buyer swapping gold for silver at a dealer receives fewer ounces than the spot ratio implies, and a seller of silver is paid a bid closer to spot than the premium they originally paid. The conversion table on this page is spot-for-spot; the live prices in our gold and silver shop pages show what the physical ratio works out to for each product, and our sell-to-us page shows the bid side.
How to read the ratio chart
The chart plots gold ask divided by silver ask, as an area or a line. The 24H, 7D and 1M ranges use our own 15-minute captures of both metals; 3M through 25Y use daily closes since 2011; and MAX extends back to 1900 with annual points, so the oldest part of the line is smoother than the recent part because it has fewer points, not because the ratio was calmer. The moving-average chips are in calendar days, so 200D means roughly 200 days on any range. There are no candlesticks because the ratio has no exchange volume and a candle would imply data that does not exist.
Gold/silver ratio FAQ
What is the gold/silver ratio today?
Today’s gold/silver ratio is shown live at the top of this page and in the summary just below it: the number of troy ounces of silver that one troy ounce of gold buys at the current spot prices. The live figure refreshes every 15 seconds; the summary, 52-week range and records refresh every 15 minutes from our own price record.
How is the gold/silver ratio calculated?
Divide the gold spot price by the silver spot price, both in U.S. dollars per troy ounce. We divide our live gold ask by our live silver ask, taken from the same wholesale feed at the same moment, so the two legs are never from different times. A bid-side ratio (gold bid ÷ silver bid) is shown under the hero for reference; the two differ slightly because silver’s spread is wider in percentage terms.
How many ounces of silver equal one ounce of gold?
In value, exactly the ratio: at a ratio of 80, one troy ounce of gold is worth 80 troy ounces of silver at spot. The table on this page converts common gold weights (1/10 oz to 1 kg) into their silver equivalent at today’s ratio. In weight the question has no meaning, since a troy ounce of either metal weighs the same 31.1035 grams.
What is a normal gold/silver ratio?
There is no fixed normal. For most of the twentieth century the ratio spent long stretches between roughly 30 and 70; the average of our daily record since 2011 is shown in the table above, and today’s reading is compared with it. Readings near 100 or above have historically been rare and short-lived, and readings in the teens have not been seen since 1980.
What was the highest gold/silver ratio ever?
In modern trading the ratio spiked above 120 in March 2020, when gold held up during the pandemic sell-off while silver, with its industrial demand, fell hard. Earlier peaks near 100 came in 1940–41 and in 1991. The record high and low in our own data, with their dates, are in the table above; our daily record starts in 2011 and annual data covers 1900 to 2010, so figures before 2011 are year-level.
What does a high gold/silver ratio mean?
That silver is cheap relative to gold compared with history, or that gold is expensive relative to silver; the ratio alone cannot say which. High ratios tend to appear in crises and recessions, when gold is bought as a store of value and silver is sold with other industrial materials. A high ratio is a statement about relative value today, not a forecast that it will fall.
How do investors use the gold/silver ratio?
The common use is a relative-value rotation: when the ratio is unusually high, some investors swap part of their gold for silver, expecting the ratio to fall back toward its long-run range, and swap back when it is low. Done with physical metal this costs the bid/ask spread and the premium on every coin or bar, and in the United States a swap is a taxable sale. We do not give investment advice; the ratio is one input, not a signal.
Does the gold/silver ratio predict gold or silver prices?
No. It describes the relationship between two prices at one moment. Both metals can rise together or fall together while the ratio barely moves, and the ratio can swing sharply while one metal is flat. Its historical tendency to return toward a middle range is a tendency, not a rule, and the time it takes has ranged from months to a decade.
Why is the physical gold/silver ratio different from spot?
Because premiums differ. Silver coins and bars carry a much larger premium over spot in percentage terms than gold does, since the metal is cheap relative to the cost of minting and shipping it. A buyer swapping a gold coin for silver coins therefore receives fewer ounces than the spot ratio implies, and a seller of silver receives a price closer to spot than the premium they paid. The conversion table on this page is spot-for-spot.
Can I get the gold/silver ratio as data or through an API?
Yes. The ratio series behind the chart is available from our chart API (spot-prices endpoint with metal=XAUXAG), and both legs are in our live JSON and plain-text spot feeds, the history API, the embeddable chart and signed webhooks. See the Precious Metals Market Data page and the Gold Price API documentation. Free with attribution.
Where does Standard Bullion’s ratio data come from?
From the live wholesale pricing feed we trade on ourselves, captured every 15 minutes for both metals, plus our daily close record since 2011 and published LBMA and USGS annual series back to 1900 for the long history. We compute the ratio from our own two legs rather than quoting another site’s number.
The ratio and prices on this page are computed from indicative live dealer quotes for information only and are not an offer to buy or sell. Data: Standard Bullion's own wholesale feed for both metals, daily record since 2011, and LBMA / USGS annual series to 1900. Also available as a free API and on the Market Data page. Nothing here is investment advice.