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Guide
Nobody in India sets the price of gold from scratch. It is built up in layers, starting from the world price. Here is every layer, with the arithmetic.
India imports almost all its gold. So the Indian price starts life as the world price, and then things get added to it:
World price → + 15% import duty → what Indian traders actually pay → IBJA polls them and publishes → × purity → + GST and making charges at the shop.
Let us walk down that chain with real numbers.
Layer 1
Gold trades on one global market. Convert that international price into rupees for 10 grams and, in our July 2026 check, you get about ₹1,24,330 per 10 grams.
This number is the same for everyone on earth. It is not an Indian number yet — and if you ever see a site quoting this as “the gold rate in India”, it is roughly 13% too low.
Layer 2
Gold entering India is taxed. The import duty is currently 15%. It was raised from 6% on 13 May 2026.
₹1,24,330 × 1.15 = ₹1,42,980 per 10 grams.
This is the single biggest reason Indian gold costs more than the world price. And note: it is a government policy lever. It changes when the government decides it changes — which is why nobody can just add a fixed markup to the world price and call it the Indian rate.
Layer 3
Now the physical market takes over. The India Bullion and Jewellers Association (IBJA) asks 29 real bullion dealers, refiners, importers and jewellers what gold is actually changing hands at. It discards the highest and lowest quote and averages the rest.
On 10 July 2026 that published 24K rate was ₹1,43,368 per 10 grams.
Compare it with Layer 2: our world-price-plus-duty figure was ₹1,42,980. The real market was ₹1,43,368. The gap is under ₹400— roughly a quarter of one percent. The dealers’ own margin on bullion is almost nothing. The world price and the import duty explain nearly the whole thing.
IBJA publishes at about 12:05 PM and 5:05 PM IST, on working days only. More on this in what is the IBJA rate.
Layer 4
IBJA publishes the 999 / 24K rate. Every other purity comes from it by multiplying:
22K = ₹1,43,368 × 0.916 = ₹1,31,325 per 10 grams
18K = ₹1,43,368 × 0.750 = ₹1,07,526 per 10 grams
One warning, and it costs money. 22K is 0.916 — not 22 ÷ 24. The multiplier is the fineness (916 parts per thousand), not the karat fraction (0.9167). It looks like a rounding quibble. It is about ₹95 per 10 grams, and several well-known sites get it wrong. 18K happens to work out to 0.750 either way, which is how the bug stays hidden.
Layer 5
Everything above is still just the metal. At the counter, your bill adds:
Making charges of 8% to 25% (negotiable) · 3% GST on the metal · 5% GST on the making · about ₹45 hallmarking per article.
On our 10 gram 22K chain, that turns ₹1,31,325 of gold into a bill of about ₹1,51,857. The full breakdown is in why your jeweller’s price is higher.
Nobody, and everybody. It is worth being precise about this:
Your city. Look back at the five layers. The world price, the import duty, the bullion market, the purity multiplier and GST are all national or global. Not one of them changes between Kanpur and Kochi.
That is why a “gold rate in your city” page is almost always a national number in local clothing — and why we refuse to publish one. The full argument is in is the gold rate the same in every city.
Today’s live benchmark is on our gold rate today page, and our price calculator runs Layer 5 for you — weight, purity, making charge, both rates of GST, hallmarking — so you know the real bill before you reach the shop.