Sri Lanka Gold Price Calculator, Sovereign, Gram & Karat

The calculator values the gold content of a piece, the metal alone, at the market price for pure gold. It does not add making charges, wastage or a jeweller's margin, because those vary from shop to shop and have no published rate. Treat the figure as a fair-value benchmark to check an offer against, not a fixed quote.

Everything hangs on one number: P24, the price of pure 24-karat gold in rupees per gram. You can enter it two ways.

1. Rs per gram, type today's local 24K price directly. This is the quickest if a jeweller or news site has quoted a per-gram rate.
2. USD per troy ounce, enter the international LBMA benchmark and the USD/LKR rate, and the tool derives P24 with P24 = (USD per oz ÷ 31.1034768) × USD/LKR. One troy ounce is exactly 31.1034768 grams, the international standard. If you need the day's dollar rate, the LKR exchange rate page carries the USD/LKR figure this mode expects.

From P24 the value follows in three steps:

1. Apply the karat fineness. Karat measures purity. We use the millesimal hallmark figures stamped on jewellery, 22K is “916” gold (91.6% pure), 21K is 875, 18K is 750 and 14K is 585. The per-gram price at your karat is P24 × fineness.
2. Normalise the weight to grams. A Sri Lankan sovereign (පවුම්) is 8 grams, a troy ounce is 31.1034768 grams, and a gram is a gram. The tool converts whatever you enter into grams.
3. Multiply. Value = grams × P24 × fineness, rounded to the nearest rupee. The per-karat table repeats this for all five karats so you can compare purities at a glance.

What the karat stamp means

The number punched into your jewellery is the millesimal fineness, parts of pure gold per thousand. A “916” stamp means 916 parts in 1,000 are gold and the remaining 84 are alloy, usually copper and silver added for hardness. Sri Lankan jewellery is overwhelmingly 916, which is why 22K is the default here. Because the alloy has almost no resale value, the entire rupee figure comes from the gold fraction, and the ratio between any two karats is fixed no matter what the market does.

Illustrative only, the table assumes a 24K price of Rs 44,000 per gram. Enter the live rate above and the calculator rebuilds the same table for your own weight.

What the calculator leaves out, and why

Four things sit between this metal value and the number on a shop receipt, and none of them has an authoritative published rate we could hard-code honestly.

• Making charges and wastage. Added when you buy, quoted either as a percentage of the metal value or as a flat fee per sovereign, and negotiable. They differ by design complexity and by shop, so they are yours to ask about, not ours to assume.
• The buy-back spread. When you sell, a dealer pays under the market rate. The gap is their margin plus the cost of re-refining. Knowing the metal value is precisely what lets you judge whether the spread on offer is reasonable.
• Stones and non-gold parts. Gemstones, clasps, enamel and thread are weighed along with the gold on a shop scale but are worth nothing as bullion. Deduct their weight before you enter a figure, the gem-set bangle example below shows how much that matters.
• Plated and rolled gold. “Gold-plated”, “gold-filled” and “1 gram gold” items carry a microscopic layer of gold over brass. They have no meaningful bullion value and this calculator will badly overstate them. It is meant for solid, hallmarked pieces.

Tax is the one thing you can usually leave out with confidence: Sri Lanka's capital gains tax is charged on land, buildings, unlisted shares and partnership interests, see the Capital Gains Tax Calculator for the current scope, not on a chain sold out of a household jewellery box. Check with the IRD if you are dealing in gold as a business rather than selling personal property.

Edge cases the maths handles

Fractional sovereigns. Sri Lankan pieces are rarely a whole number of පවුම්. The tool works in decimals throughout, 2.5 sovereigns is simply 20 g, and only rounds the final rupee figure, so there is no drift from rounding an intermediate step.

Fine-gold weight versus gross weight. A 22K bullion coin sold as “one ounce of gold” contains one troy ounce of pure gold but weighs about 33.9 g gross, because the alloy adds mass. Enter the gross weight at 22K, or the fine weight at 24K, both routes land within a fraction of a percent of each other, as the fourth worked example shows.

0.916 against 0.9167. The hallmark figure and the raw 22÷24 karat ratio disagree in the fourth decimal place. We use the stamped 916, consistently, across every karat. On a 23.3 g chain the two conventions differ by roughly Rs 683, real, but far smaller than the day-to-day movement in the gold price itself.

Impossible inputs. A weight of zero or below, or one above 100,000 g, returns a named error rather than a silent zero. The same applies to a price of Rs 0 or an exchange rate outside any plausible range, the tool tells you which field is wrong instead of printing a confident wrong answer.

Verified two ways

The result is cross-checked. The direct route multiplies grams by the per-gram price; the sovereign route first converts grams to sovereigns, then prices each sovereign as 8 g, the way many Sri Lankan jewellers quote. Both produce the same rupee value, confirming the arithmetic. For the gold loan you can raise against the same piece, see the Pawning Calculator; for the gold portion of your Zakat, the Zakat Calculator; and for bringing gold through the airport, the Customs Baggage Allowance tool. If you are weighing gold against a bank deposit as a place to park savings, the Fixed Deposit Calculator gives you the other side of that comparison.

• LBMA: London Bullion Market Association Gold Price (global 24K benchmark, USD/oz)
• Central Bank of Sri Lanka: indicative USD/LKR exchange rate
• Hallmark fineness standard: 916 / 875 / 750 / 585 karat purities
• Troy weight: 1 troy ounce = 31.1034768 grams

The reference 24K price and USD/LKR rate were last observed on 2026-10-26. Gold moves daily, so always confirm the live figure via the LBMA and CBSL links before buying or selling. The 8 g sovereign and the hallmark fineness factors are fixed conventions.