Gold Purity Chart

The full karat-to-fineness table

Why 22K is the standard in India, not 24K

Pure, 24K gold is very soft - soft enough that a ring or bangle made from it would bend and scratch easily in everyday use. Jewellers alloy gold with small amounts of other metals (typically silver, copper and zinc) to make it hard enough to hold intricate designs and survive daily wear, while keeping the gold content as high as practical. 22K (91.6% pure) has become the standard purity for jewellery across India because it strikes that balance well, and it is what the karat table in our gold rate calculator leads with by default. 24K remains the standard for coins and investment bars precisely because those don't need to withstand the physical wear jewellery does.

Worked purity examples

A few concrete ways to apply the purity fractions above:

• 10 grams of 22K gold contains 10 × 0.916 = 9.16 grams of pure gold, with the remaining 0.84 grams being alloy metal.
• 5 grams of 18K gold contains 5 × 0.750 = 3.75 grams of pure gold.
• 1 tola (11.6638g) of 24K gold contains 11.6638 × 0.999 ≈ 11.65 grams of pure gold - 24K is never quite mathematically 100% pure in refined bullion, which is why the fineness stamp reads 999, not 1000.
• 8 grams (1 pavan) of 22K gold, the traditional Kerala unit, contains 8 × 0.916 = 7.328 grams of pure gold.

How to check a purity claim yourself

In India, jewellery sold as a given karat should carry a BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) hallmark stamped with the fineness number - 916 for 22K, 750 for 18K, and so on - alongside a BIS logo and a jeweller's identification mark. That hallmark is an independent, government-backed verification of the purity claim, separate from whatever the price tag or the shop assistant tells you. If a piece has no hallmark, or the fineness number stamped on it doesn't match the karat you were quoted, that's worth asking about directly before buying. See our Hyderabad gold rate page or the full gold rate by city table for local live prices alongside this purity reference.

How purity affects the price you pay

Because the gold value of a piece scales directly with its purity fraction, a 22K item will always cost less per gram than a 24K item of the same weight, and an 18K item less again - see the full rate-by-purity table on the gold rate today calculator, which shows all five common karats side by side using today's live price. What the purity fraction does not capture is making charges: the labour cost of turning raw gold into a finished piece, which is added on top of the gold value itself and varies by design complexity and by jeweller, independent of karat.

International karat systems: US, UK and Gulf markets

India's 22K-standard jewellery market differs from several other major gold markets. In the United States and much of Europe, 14K (58.5% pure) and even 10K (41.7% pure) jewellery is common and legally sold as "gold" provided it meets the local minimum-karat threshold, because lower-purity gold is cheaper and more scratch-resistant for everyday Western jewellery styles. The United Kingdom permits 9K (37.5% pure) as its legal minimum for an item to be described as gold. Gulf markets, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia, commonly trade 21K and 22K alongside 24K bullion, closer to the Indian standard than the US/UK markets are. If you are comparing a price you saw quoted abroad against the rate on this site, always check which karat was quoted first - a US "14K gold price" and an Indian "22K gold rate" are not directly comparable numbers without converting for purity.

Gold-filled, gold-plated and vermeil: not the same as solid karat gold

This purity chart applies to solid gold - where the karat fraction describes the composition of the entire piece. It does not apply to gold-plated jewellery (a thin layer of gold, often only a few microns thick, electroplated onto a base metal), gold-filled jewellery (a thicker but still bonded layer of gold over a base metal core, typically 5% gold by weight), or vermeil (gold plated over sterling silver, with a minimum plating thickness in some jurisdictions). All three contain dramatically less actual gold than even a low-karat solid piece of the same size, and their value should not be estimated using the per-gram rates on this site, which assume solid gold throughout.