How the gold price is set in Saudi Arabia
No official body in Saudi Arabia publishes a daily gold price. Shops start from the world ounce price divided by 31.1035 grams, times the karat purity, times 3.75, the riyal’s fixed rate to the US dollar. Each shop then adds its own margin, and the market uses the live price boards of the large gold dealers as its reference.
Because the riyal is pegged to the dollar, only the ounce moves the gold price in Saudi Arabia. A 100-dollar rise or fall in the ounce changes the 21k gram by about SAR 10.87.
That is why gram prices are close from one shop to the next; the bigger difference is the making charge each shop sets for a piece.
VAT at 15% and the making charge
The quoted gram price includes neither the making charge nor VAT. VAT in Saudi Arabia is 15%, and on gold jewellery it is charged after the making charge is added, so it falls on the gold and the making together.
For example, take a 10-gram 21k piece with SAR 40 a gram making. The gold is worth SAR 4,493, the making is SAR 400 and the VAT SAR 734, so the total comes to about SAR 5,627.
Making charges on everyday jewellery run roughly SAR 15-70 a gram and can pass SAR 100 a gram on small pieces. According to ZATCA, the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, investment gold of 99% purity or more that trades on bullion markets is zero-rated, so no VAT is added to it.
Selling and buying prices: new and used gold
The selling price is what you pay a shop for gold; the buying price is what a shop pays you for your used gold. Today’s estimates for 21k are SAR 449.27 a gram to buy and SAR 431.81 to sell back, a gap of about SAR 17.46.
When you sell, the shop pays the gold weight × its buying price only, so neither the making charge nor the VAT comes back. The piece in the example above costs about SAR 5,627 today, and a shop would buy it back for about SAR 4,318.
Gold pound, bars, ounce and tola
Gold in Saudi Arabia is priced by the gram, and 21k is the most common karat for jewellery. The gold pound weighs 8 grams of 21k; its value today is in the units table above.
24k bars come in several weights, including 10 and 100 grams. A 10-gram bar holds SAR 4,985 of gold at the world price, or about SAR 5,135 at our shop estimate; a 100-gram bar holds SAR 49,849, or about SAR 51,345. Bars of 99% purity or more that trade on bullion markets carry no VAT.
An ounce is 31.1035 grams of pure gold and is worth about SAR 15,505 today (4,134.62 dollars × 3.75). The tola, 11.664 grams, is the unit many South Asian residents use; the units table prices it in 22 carat.
Before you buy gold in Saudi Arabia
- Check today’s gram price for your karat on this page before you walk in.
- Ask for the making charge per gram before the piece is weighed, and compare shops.
- Remember that the 15% VAT is charged on the making charge too, and work out the final price with the calculator above.
- Ask for an invoice showing the karat, weight, gram price and total; the Ministry of Commerce requires shops to show them.
- For saving, investment bars of 99% purity or more carry no VAT, while jewellery carries VAT and a making charge that do not come back when you sell.
- Nobody knows tomorrow’s price. The figures on this page are information, not a recommendation to buy or sell.
How this page calculates the live gold price
We compute the world price from the spot ounce and the riyal’s fixed rate (3.75 to the dollar). We then add 3% to estimate the shop selling price and take off 1% to estimate what shops pay for used gold. We chose that margin because the boards of large jewellers were about 3% above the world price when we checked on 20 October 2026.
That is why the prices here are labelled estimates. They move with the market second by second, but every shop sets its own margin, so the price in a shop may be slightly higher or lower.