18K rate today in Thanjavur

How this rate is worked out

Gold and silver trade internationally in US dollars per troy ounce, and a troy ounce is 31.1035 grams. Multiply the dollar price by the rupee exchange rate, divide by 31.1035, and you have the base cost of one gram of pure metal in rupees.

Indian retail sits well above that base. Import duty, refining and the local jeweller's premium all stack on top, and we carry that as a single multiplier which is checked against published Chennai rates and corrected when it drifts.

Karat purity comes last. 24 karat is 99.9% gold, 22 karat is 91.6% and 18 karat is 75%, which is why the 22 karat rate is always 91.6% of the 24 karat one. The international price we started from is printed on this page, so you can redo the arithmetic yourself — most rate sites will not show you their working.

What you will actually pay at the counter

The figure here is the metal, not the jewellery. A shop adds making charges on top, usually between 8% and 25% depending on how intricate the piece is, then 3% GST on the combined total, and sometimes a separate hallmarking fee.

A worked example at today's rate: one sovereign of 22 karat is ₹1,16,752 of metal. Making charges at 12% add ₹14,010, and 3% GST on that total adds ₹3,923, giving roughly ₹1,34,685 at the counter. That is meaningfully more than the metal price, which is why the making charge percentage is the number worth asking about.

Making charges vary between shops and are usually negotiable, so pricing the same piece at two jewellers is rarely wasted effort. Check for the BIS hallmark before you pay, whatever the rate.

22K, 24K or 18K

24 karat is as close to pure as gold gets. It is too soft to hold a setting, so it goes into coins, bars and investment products rather than jewellery. Today it is ₹15,932 per gram.

22 karat is 91.6% gold with silver or copper making up the rest, and that alloy is what makes it hard enough to wear daily. Most Tamil Nadu jewellery is 22 karat, at ₹14,594 per gram today.

18 karat is 75% gold. It is used for diamond and stone-set pieces because the harder metal grips a stone properly. It costs less — ₹11,949 per gram — but it also carries less gold, so it returns less when you exchange or sell it.

Why the rate moves every day

Three things drive it. First the international price, which moves continuously with global demand, central bank buying and investor sentiment. Second the rupee against the dollar: if the rupee weakens, Indian gold gets more expensive even when the international price has not budged.

Third, local demand. Through the wedding season and around Diwali and Akshaya Tritiya, buying rises and the retail premium widens a little. Import duty changes in the union budget show up in the rate within a day of being announced.

How the Thanjavur rate compares with Chennai

The Thanjavur rate today is identical to Chennai. That is deliberate rather than a rounding accident: we apply no local spread to Thanjavur, because we have no evidence that one exists. Inventing a difference to make the page look locally researched would be the easy thing to do and would make the number worse.

Across the 12 cities we publish, today's lowest is Coimbatore at ₹14,589 and the highest is Tirunelveli at ₹14,597 — a spread of just ₹8.

Either way this is an estimate of the prevailing market rate, not a quotation from any particular shop in Thanjavur.