What is the Shanghai silver price today?

The Shanghai silver price is the price of silver traded on the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), China's primary precious metals exchange. It is quoted in Chinese yuan per gram but we convert it to USD per troy ounce for easy comparison with Western spot prices. Check our live tracker for the current price.

What is the Shanghai Premium?

The Shanghai Premium is the price difference between precious metals in China (SGE) and Western markets (COMEX/LBMA). A positive premium indicates higher prices in China, suggesting strong local demand. A negative premium (discount) suggests weaker Chinese demand. It's a key indicator watched by global investors.

Why are silver prices different in China vs Western markets?

Silver prices differ between China and Western markets due to: 1) Import restrictions and quotas limiting supply in China, 2) Strong local jewelry and industrial demand, 3) Currency exchange rate fluctuations (USD/CNY), 4) Transaction costs and VAT taxes, 5) Physical delivery requirements on SGE vs paper trading on COMEX.

Is the Shanghai Premium a good indicator for precious metals investing?

Yes, the Shanghai Premium is closely watched by investors as an indicator of Chinese physical demand. A rising premium often signals strong buying in China (the world's largest gold consumer), while a declining or negative premium may indicate weakening demand. Some traders use premium divergence for arbitrage opportunities.

What is the difference between SGE and SHFE?

The Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) is China's spot market for physical precious metals delivery, while the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) trades futures contracts. SGE prices reflect immediate physical demand, while SHFE prices include future delivery expectations. Both are important for understanding China's precious metals market.

When is the Shanghai Gold Exchange open for trading?

The Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) trades Monday to Friday with multiple sessions: Day session 9:00 AM - 11:30 AM and 1:30 PM - 3:30 PM (Beijing Time), plus a night session from 8:00 PM - 2:30 AM. This overlaps with Western market hours, allowing global price discovery.

What is the China silver price in dollars (USD)?

The China silver price in US dollars is calculated by converting Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) silver prices from Chinese yuan per kilogram to USD per troy ounce. This conversion enables direct comparison with Western spot prices from COMEX and LBMA. Our live tracker automatically converts SGE silver prices to dollars using real-time USD/CNY exchange rates.

Does the Shanghai silver price include VAT?

The SGE benchmark silver price does not include VAT directly, but China imposes a 13% value-added tax on silver imports. This tax is a key component of the Shanghai premium—when you see Chinese silver prices trading above Western spot, a significant portion of that gap is attributable to VAT and other import costs rather than pure demand-driven premium.

Why do traders watch Shanghai silver prices?

Traders watch Shanghai silver prices because China is the world's largest silver consumer, driven by massive solar panel manufacturing and industrial demand. The Shanghai premium serves as a real-time gauge of Chinese physical demand—when it rises, it often precedes global price moves. The SGE's physical delivery requirement also makes it a more accurate indicator of real supply and demand compared to paper-heavy Western futures markets.

How does China's solar panel industry affect silver demand?

China manufactures over 80% of the world's solar panels, and each panel requires approximately 20 grams of silver for its photovoltaic cells. As global solar capacity expands rapidly, China's industrial silver consumption continues to grow—solar panel production now accounts for a significant share of total global silver demand. This structural demand growth is a key factor supporting higher Shanghai silver prices relative to Western markets.

What price does the Shanghai Gold Exchange actually publish?

The SGE publishes intraday and closing prices for several physical contracts. For silver we use the Ag(T+D) deferred-delivery contract; for gold we use Au99.99 (24-karat 1kg). Both are denominated in Chinese Yuan per gram (CNY/g) for gold and CNY per kilogram (CNY/kg) for silver, and both require physical delivery rather than cash settlement.

What exchange rate do you use for USD/CNY conversion?

We use the spot USD/CNY mid-market rate sourced from major FX providers, refreshed alongside our hourly SGE pull. We deliberately do not use the offshore CNH rate, the PBOC daily fixing, or last week's average — using a stale or distorted rate is the single most common reason third-party Shanghai premium quotes disagree.

How often does the Shanghai premium update?

Hourly during SGE trading sessions (Beijing time 9:00-11:30 AM and 1:30-3:30 PM, Monday-Friday). Outside those windows the SGE benchmark is frozen at the most recent close, but the USD/CNY rate and US spot keep moving — so the premium can drift slightly even when the SGE itself is closed.

Why doesn't your premium match other sources I see online?

Three usual suspects: (1) different benchmark contract — some sites use SHFE futures rather than SGE spot, which trade at meaningfully different levels; (2) different exchange rate (offshore CNH vs onshore CNY); (3) some sources fold VAT into the headline premium while we publish the pre-VAT difference. Reconciling all three usually closes the gap.

Why don't you bake VAT into the Shanghai premium?

The SGE benchmark itself is quoted pre-VAT, so adding a 13% VAT to the comparison would double-count. The VAT is real but it's a cost-of-import structural floor, not a demand signal — folding it in would obscure changes in actual buying pressure, which is what most traders watch the premium for. We cover the VAT impact separately on the VAT explainer page.

What happens to the premium during Chinese holidays?

During Lunar New Year, Golden Week, and other multi-day SGE closures, the most recent close is held flat while Western markets keep trading. The displayed premium during those windows is mechanically meaningless — we flag it on the chart but do not recompute. Historical analysis should exclude those windows.

Shanghai Premium Methodology

How the MetalCharts Shanghai premium is calculated — data sources, conversion math, update cadence, and known edge cases.

What the Shanghai Premium Measures

The Shanghai premium is the percentage gap between the price of physically-deliverable metal on the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) and the global Western spot price for the same metal, expressed in the same currency and weight unit. A positive premium means Chinese buyers are paying more than the global benchmark — a real-time read on Chinese physical demand. A negative premium (discount) is rare and usually signals weak local demand or Yuan strength. The whole point of the figure is to surface the gap between paper-driven Western pricing and physical demand in the world's largest precious metals consumer.

Data Sources

Three independent inputs are required to compute the premium, and the answer is only as good as the weakest of the three:

SGE benchmark price. For silver, Ag(T+D) — the deferred-delivery contract that anchors the Chinese physical silver market. For gold, Au99.99 — the 1kg, 99.99% purity benchmark contract used by Chinese banks and jewelers. Both are sourced from the SGE's public data feed and are pre-VAT, in CNY per gram (gold) or CNY per kilogram (silver).
USD/CNY exchange rate. Spot mid-market rate from major FX providers, refreshed alongside the SGE pull. We use the onshore CNY rate, not offshore CNH, because the onshore rate is the one that actually applies to physical metal flows into China.
US spot reference price. The current Western spot price (XAU/USD or XAG/USD) sourced from our primary price provider with fallback redundancy. This is the denominator the SGE figure is being compared against.

Conversion Math

The SGE quotes silver in CNY/kg and gold in CNY/g. Western spot is in USD per troy ounce. Converting requires two steps: currency, then weight unit.

Silver (CNY/kg → USD/oz):
USD/oz = (CNY/kg ÷ USD-to-CNY rate) × (31.1035 g/oz ÷ 1000 g/kg)

Gold (CNY/g → USD/oz):
USD/oz = (CNY/g ÷ USD-to-CNY rate) × 31.1035 g/oz

The 31.1035 figure is grams per troy ounce — the unit used for precious metals globally — not grams per avoirdupois ounce (28.3495). Using the wrong constant is a surprisingly common error in third-party premium calculations and produces a systematic ~10% offset.

Premium Formula

Once both prices are in USD per troy ounce, the premium is a simple percentage difference:

Premium % = ((SGE Price USD − US Spot USD) ÷ US Spot USD) × 100

Worked example. If the Ag(T+D) close is CNY 7,500/kg, the USD/CNY rate is 7.20, and US silver spot is $30.00/oz, then SGE silver in USD/oz is (7500 ÷ 7.20) × (31.1035 ÷ 1000) ≈ $32.40. Premium = ((32.40 − 30.00) ÷ 30.00) × 100 ≈ +8.0%.

Update Cadence

SGE benchmark prices are pulled hourly during Beijing trading hours: 9:00-11:30 AM and 1:30-3:30 PM, Monday through Friday. Outside those windows the SGE is closed and the benchmark holds at its most recent close.

The USD/CNY rate and US spot price both keep moving 24 hours a day. This means the displayed premium can drift even when the SGE itself is shut — that drift is mathematical, not a real signal. During Chinese holidays (Lunar New Year, Golden Week, Mid-Autumn Festival, etc.) the SGE close-stale window can stretch to a week or more and the premium becomes effectively meaningless until trading resumes.

Historical premium data is preserved hourly, so charts on theShanghai overview reflect the actual cadence, including the holiday flat-lines.

Why We Exclude VAT From the Headline Number

The SGE benchmark is quoted pre-VAT. China levies a 13% value-added tax on silver imports (gold is largely exempt for investment-grade bars), but folding that tax into the headline premium would double-count once a Western-side buyer compared the figure to LBMA or COMEX spot. More importantly, the VAT is a structural cost floor — it doesn't move week-to-week with Chinese demand. Mixing it into the displayed premium would obscure the actual demand signal that traders watch this number for. The full breakdown of the VAT effect lives on our VAT explainer page.

Known Limitations

Holiday flat-lines. SGE closures of more than one trading day produce mechanically frozen premium values. These are visible on the chart but should be excluded from statistical analysis.
FX latency. Our USD/CNY refresh is hourly, aligned to the SGE pull. Intra-hour FX moves are not reflected in the displayed premium until the next refresh.
SGE vs SHFE. The SGE benchmark we use is the physical spot market. Some sources publish the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) silver futures instead, which trades at different levels. Our overview page also surfaces SHFE warehouse inventory but does not blend it into the headline premium.
Onshore vs offshore CNY. We use onshore CNY because that's the rate physical importers actually face. Sites using offshore CNH will report slightly different premium values, especially during periods of CNY/CNH divergence.

Frequently Asked Questions

What price does the Shanghai Gold Exchange actually publish?: The SGE publishes intraday and closing prices for several physical contracts. For silver we use the Ag(T+D) deferred-delivery contract; for gold we use Au99.99 (24-karat 1kg). Both are denominated in Chinese Yuan per gram (CNY/g) for gold and CNY per kilogram (CNY/kg) for silver, and both require physical delivery rather than cash settlement.
What exchange rate do you use for USD/CNY conversion?: We use the spot USD/CNY mid-market rate sourced from major FX providers, refreshed alongside our hourly SGE pull. We deliberately do not use the offshore CNH rate, the PBOC daily fixing, or last week's average — using a stale or distorted rate is the single most common reason third-party Shanghai premium quotes disagree.
How often does the Shanghai premium update?: Hourly during SGE trading sessions (Beijing time 9:00-11:30 AM and 1:30-3:30 PM, Monday-Friday). Outside those windows the SGE benchmark is frozen at the most recent close, but the USD/CNY rate and US spot keep moving — so the premium can drift slightly even when the SGE itself is closed.
Why doesn't your premium match other sources I see online?: Three usual suspects: (1) different benchmark contract — some sites use SHFE futures rather than SGE spot, which trade at meaningfully different levels; (2) different exchange rate (offshore CNH vs onshore CNY); (3) some sources fold VAT into the headline premium while we publish the pre-VAT difference. Reconciling all three usually closes the gap.
Why don't you bake VAT into the Shanghai premium?: The SGE benchmark itself is quoted pre-VAT, so adding a 13% VAT to the comparison would double-count. The VAT is real but it's a cost-of-import structural floor, not a demand signal — folding it in would obscure changes in actual buying pressure, which is what most traders watch the premium for. We cover the VAT impact separately on the VAT explainer page.
What happens to the premium during Chinese holidays?: During Lunar New Year, Golden Week, and other multi-day SGE closures, the most recent close is held flat while Western markets keep trading. The displayed premium during those windows is mechanically meaningless — we flag it on the chart but do not recompute. Historical analysis should exclude those windows.