How Much Is a Gold Bar Worth?
$4,197.40 gold in a 1 oz bar, at spot
100 g bar $13,495 · 1 g bar $134.95
Gold spot $4,197.40/oz · updated
Quick answer: A gold bar is worth its weight in gold at the live gold price, which is $4,197.40 per troy ounce right now. That makes a 1 oz bar worth $4,197.40, a 10 oz bar worth $41,974 and a 1 kilo bar worth $134,950. That is the melt value of the gold. What someone will pay you for the bar, or charge you for it, lands on either side of that number.
What a bar is worth, size by size
Worth here means the value of the gold the bar contains, measured at today's spot price. Every figure is weight multiplied by price, so you can reproduce any of them with a calculator and the spot figure at the top of the page.
Starting small: a 1 g bar is worth $134.95, a 5 g bar $674.75 and a 10 g bar $1,349.50. A 20 g bar is worth $2,698.99, and a 50 g bar is worth $6,747.48. These sizes are packed in cards and sold as small first purchases or gifts.
The 100 g bar is worth $13,495. In troy ounces that is about 3.2 oz, so it sits between the single ounce and the ten ounce size.
Then the ounce sizes. A 1 oz bar is worth $4,197.40, a 5 oz bar $20,987 and a 10 oz bar $41,974. If you are holding a bar and are not sure how big it is, read the stamp on it, because the weight is marked on the face. Our guides to the 1 oz gold bar and the 10 oz gold bar describe what each size usually looks like.
For the big sizes, a 100 oz bar is worth $419,740, a 1 kilo bar is worth $134,950 and a 400 oz bar is worth $1,678,960. The 1 kilo bar holds 32.1507 troy ounces, which is why it is worth a little over thirty-two times the 1 oz bar. The 1 kilo gold bar page covers that size on its own.
A note on purity. These figures assume the bar is pure gold. A bar marked 99.99 percent, as many minted bars are, holds fractionally less than a pure bar of the same weight. The difference is tiny on a single bar, but on a very large bar it can show up in the last few digits, so read the fineness mark.
Worth when you buy versus worth when you sell
Here is the part that surprises people. A bar that is worth $4,197.40 at spot does not cost that to buy, and it does not sell for that either. Buying costs more than spot. Selling returns less than spot.
The reason is that every dealer lives in the gap. A seller pays a price to get the bar and asks a higher price to hand it over. A buyer, on the other side, offers a lower price to take a bar in and later resells it for more. The distance between those two prices is the spread, and it is how the business is paid.
The table below is an example, not a quote. It assumes a 1 oz bar, a premium of 4 over spot on the way in and a buyer's offer of $4,113.45 on the way out. Neither number belongs to any real seller. They exist to show how the arithmetic works.
| Example, not a quote | 1 oz bar |
|---|---|
| Gold at spot | $4,197.40 |
| Example asking price | $4,365.30 |
| Example buyer's offer | $4,113.45 |
| Gap between ask and offer | $251.84 |
In this example the gap is $251.84. If you bought at the example ask and sold straight away at the example offer, you would lose that gap even if the market did not move at all. Gold would have to rise by about that much before you broke even.
That is not a reason to avoid buying a bar. It is a reason to hold the number in your head when you compare offers. A seller who quotes a smaller gap is charging you less to enter and, often, offering more on the way out. You will not know until you ask. The guide on how to buy gold bars lists the questions to put to a seller, and the pillar page on where to buy gold bars compares the kinds of seller.
If you already own a bar, the same arithmetic runs in reverse. Your bar's worth is the figure in this guide. Your payout is whatever the buyer offers against it, and the offer depends on the buyer, the bar's condition, its papers and the day.
What changes the value of a bar
Three things set what a gold bar is worth, and only one of them moves in real time.
Weight. The weight stamped on the bar sets how many ounces of gold you own. The gold bar weight guide explains grams, troy ounces and kilos. A common mistake is treating a troy ounce like a regular ounce. A troy ounce is 9.7 percent heavier, so mixing them up gives a wrong value.
Fineness. Fineness is the share of the bar that is gold. A bar stamped .9999 is almost entirely gold. A bar stamped .995 holds slightly less gold per gram. Fineness is printed on the bar, and it is the number that links grams to ounces of pure gold.
The spot price. The spot price moves through the day. It is the only part of a bar's worth that changes while the bar sits in a drawer. Everything else on the bar, its weight and its fineness, stays the same.
What does not change the worth of an ordinary bar is a story about it. A bar is not worth more because a seller calls it special, and the worth of a plain bullion bar is not tied to a design. Collector items exist, but they are a different market, with their own prices, and they are outside this guide.
If you are choosing between a bar and a coin, the gold bar vs gold coin guide compares the two on premium, size and resale.
A quick way to work out your own bar
You can value any bar in three steps. First, read the weight and convert it to troy ounces if it is in grams, by dividing grams by 31.1035. Second, multiply by the spot price of $4,197.40. Third, multiply by the fineness if the bar is marked below pure, for example by 0.995 for a .995 bar.
For a bar in grams, you can skip the first step and multiply the weight by the spot per gram, $134.95. Either route gives the same answer. Writing the result down next to the date matters, because by tomorrow the number will be different.
The price page, gold bar price, keeps all of this in one table for the standard sizes.
What this can't tell you
This page can't tell you what your bar will fetch. A dealer, a bank or a private buyer will make an offer based on their own costs and on your bar's condition and papers, and it will sit below the figures here.
It also can't tell you what a bar will be worth next month. The spot price moves, and we make no prediction about which way. If you want a record of how the price has behaved, the home page shows a one-year chart.
And it can't settle questions of tax. The IRS taxes gains on collectibles, such as coins and art, at a higher maximum rate than ordinary long-term gains, and its Publication 544 says more about precious metals; ask a tax professional how your bar is treated.
FAQ
How much is a 1 oz gold bar worth right now?
At the current spot price, the gold in a 1 oz bar is worth $4,197.40. That is the melt value. A seller will ask for more than that when you buy, and a buyer will offer less when you sell, so neither side of a trade lands exactly on that number.
How much is a 1 kilo gold bar worth?
A 1 kilo bar contains 32.1507 troy ounces and is worth $134,950 at today's spot price. The multiplication is the same at every size. A seller's premium, delivery and insurance come on top when you buy, so the price you pay will be higher.
Why would I get less than spot if I sell a bar?
A buyer needs to resell the bar for more than they pay, so they offer below spot. The gap is how a dealer covers handling, storage and risk, and it also pays for the dealer's margin. Asking for a written buy-back price before you buy shows you the gap in advance.
Is a smaller bar worth less per ounce?
The gold in it is worth the same per ounce at spot. What differs is the premium, which is usually a bigger slice of a small bar's price. The gold bar price guide explains why costs weigh more on small sizes.
Keep reading
- gold bar weight: how grams, troy ounces and kilos relate
- 10 oz gold bar: the size where the premium often shrinks as a share of the price
- where to buy gold bars: the main places a bar is sold, compared
Data sources: Spot price via api.gold-api.com · COMEX futures (GC=F) via Yahoo Finance. Prices are for informational purposes only and may be delayed. Figures on this page were generated . Gold is quoted in US dollars per troy ounce.