Imports play an important role in meeting India's demand for silver, making customs duties and import regulations relevant for travellers, bullion buyers, investors, and businesses alike. Changes introduced during May 2026 affected both import costs and the regulatory requirements applicable to certain categories of silver products.

Silver remains one of the most closely watched precious metals because it combines industrial demand with investment demand. As a result, its price is influenced by factors ranging from manufacturing activity and renewable-energy adoption to currency movements and monetary policy.

Put the two charts side by side, and the pattern is hard to miss: the US Dollar Index climbs, and silver sags. The dollar silver price relation is broadly inverse, and for an Indian buyer the story runs in two layers rather than one. A rising DXY tends to pull the global silver spot price down in dollars, and the USD-INR exchange rate then decides how much of that move actually reaches the rupee price on the local market. Sometimes the two layers reinforce each other; sometimes a weakening rupee quietly cancels a falling dollar price. This guide explains what the DXY measures, the three channels through which dollar strength presses on silver, how the linkage translates into Indian rates with a worked example, and a short checklist of signals worth watching.

Divide the karat by 24, multiply by 100, and the mystery goes out of gold purity. A 22-carat bangle works out to 91.67% gold. An 18-carat ring is 75%. That one sum is all a gold purity chart really encodes, and this page lays it out in full: every grade from 6K to 24K converted to its percentage purity and its millesimal fineness number, alongside the BIS hallmark stamp used in India and where each grade typically shows up. The chart matters beyond curiosity. The fineness number stamped on a piece decides its resale price, and it decides how much a lender may offer against it in a gold loan. So the guide also explains how to read a BIS hallmark, and how purity feeds into the per-gram value when jewellery is pledged. Bookmark the table; the rest of the page explains it.

The price on the app climbed overnight, yet international gold barely moved. That puzzle has a one-line answer, and it is the dollar rupee gold price link: gold is priced globally in US dollars, India imports most of what it consumes, and every rupee quote starts as a dollar quote multiplied by the USD-INR exchange rate. When the rupee weakens, the INR price of gold rises even on a flat international market, and digital gold platforms pass that change through in near real time. The effect is roughly proportional too, so a 5% slide in the rupee adds close to 5% to the rupee gold price, all else equal. This guide sets out why the pricing works this way, walks through the full conversion formula with two worked scenarios, and closes with what rupee movements actually mean for a digital gold holding.

A stubborn belief keeps people away from branch counters: that every loan begins with a payslip. For a gold loan without income proof, that belief is largely mistaken. The loan is secured by the jewellery itself, so eligibility rests on the purity and weight of the gold pledged rather than on salary records or tax filings, and where the loan stays within ₹2.5 lakh, the current regulatory framework does not mandate any income assessment, though individual lenders may apply their own internal policies. Basic KYC papers and the gold generally complete the file. What follows is the full picture: why the product is built this way, exactly which documents are needed and, just as usefully, which are typically not, how the gold's value converts into a loan amount with a worked illustration, and which borrower profiles gain the most from the design.

Start with the fact most articles bury: no Indian law caps how much gold a person can own. The numbers everyone quotes, 500 grams, 250 grams, 100 grams, come from a CBDT instruction issued on 11 May 1994, and they answer a narrower question about how much gold can i keep without questions during an income tax search. Within those thresholds, 500g for a married woman, 250g for an unmarried woman, and 100g for a man, tax officers are directed not to seize gold jewellery even if the owner shows no purchase proof. Above them, the gold stays legal, but the source has to be explained. Bars and coins sit outside the tolerance entirely and always need documentation. This guide sets out the limits in a quick table, separates the jewellery rules from the bar-and-coin rules, covers inherited and gifted gold, and summarises the capital gains tax position in 2026.

Most households own more silver than they realise. A box of old coins, a set of payals, a thali brought out twice a year. What none of those items carries is a price tag, and that is the gap a silver calculator closes. To calculate silver value, three inputs do the whole job: the weight in grams, the purity factor (0.925 for sterling silver, for instance), and the day's silver rate per gram. Multiplying the three gives the base value; 3% GST goes on top if a purchase is involved. This guide walks through the formula with a worked example, decodes the purity grades stamped on Indian silver (999, 925, 800 and 500), sorts out the weight units from tola to troy ounce, explains what GST and making charges add, and shows how lenders value silver when it is pledged for a loan.

India rewrote the rules of gold buying in June 2021, when mandatory hallmarking india came into force across 256 districts and unstamped jewellery could no longer be legally sold there. Five expansions later, the sixth phase of 2 March 2026 has taken coverage to 380 districts, roughly half the country, with over 60 crore gold items hallmarked along the way. Every mandatorily hallmarked piece now carries a HUID, a six-digit code any buyer can verify on a phone in seconds. This guide lays out the full phase-by-phase timeline with dates and district counts, explains the HUID and how to check one, lists who and what remains exempt, gives the current position on silver hallmarking, and covers a question compliance articles skip: what hallmarking means, and does not mean, when gold is pledged for a loan.

Take the same bangles to three different lenders and the offers will differ, but not for the reason most borrowers assume. The bank vs nbfc ltv question was settled by regulation: since 1 April 2026, banks, NBFCs and cooperative banks all operate under one RBI framework with identical loan-to-value ceilings, tiered by loan size at 85%, 80% and 75%. What still separates lenders is everything around that ceiling: valuation practice, repayment structures, branch reach, and, for cooperative credit societies outside the RBI net, a different rulebook altogether. This guide defines LTV with a worked example, compares the three lender categories side by side, shows how valuation quietly moves the real number more than the headline cap does, explains what happens if gold prices fall mid-loan, and ends with a decision framework matched to borrower priorities rather than a one-size answer.