One tola of 24 carat gold in Karachi costs Rs 424,272 today. One tola of 22 carat — the grade nearly all jewellery is made from — is Rs 388,916. Both figures are the metal price only; making charges, wastage and tax come on top.
1 Tola Gold Price in Karachi — the local picture
Karachi is where imported bullion physically enters Pakistan, and that single fact sets the price for the whole country. The trade concentrates around Sarafa Bazaar near Bolton Market in the old city, with a second, more retail-facing cluster around Tariq Road. Because hundreds of dealers compete on the same few streets, margins here are the thinnest in Pakistan — which is why every other city quotes at or above the Karachi rate rather than below it.
Against the 10 markets these pages cover, Karachi is currently the cheapest . Buying the same weight in Lahore would cost Rs 200 more.
1 tola gold price in Karachi, by karat
| Karat | Hallmark | 1 Tola | Per Gram |
|---|---|---|---|
| 24 carat | 999.9 | Rs 424,272 | Rs 36,375.12 |
| 22 carat | 916 | Rs 388,916 | Rs 33,343.87 |
| 21 carat | 875 | Rs 371,238 | Rs 31,828.23 |
| 20 carat | 833 | Rs 353,560 | Rs 30,312.58 |
| 18 carat | 750 | Rs 318,204 | Rs 27,281.34 |
A tola is 11.6638 grams — not 12
This is the single most repeated error in the Pakistani gold market, and it is on rate sites, in shop conversations and all over social media. One tola is 11.6638 grams. It was fixed under British India as the weight of the one-rupee silver coin — 180 troy grains — and that is still the definition bullion markets trade on.
The "12 grams" figure survives because a tola is divided into twelve masha. Somewhere along the way that twelve got read as grams, and once one source printed it, others copied it.
| Weight used | Grams | 1 tola | 5 tola | 10 tola |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Correct tola | 11.6638 g | Rs 424,272 | Rs 2,121,360 | Rs 4,242,721 |
| "12 gram" tola | 12.0000 g | Rs 436,501 | Rs 2,182,507 | Rs 4,365,014 |
| Overstatement | 0.3362 g | Rs 12,229 | Rs 61,147 | Rs 122,293 |
A 2.88% error on every quote. In Karachi today that is Rs 12,229 per tola — enough to matter on a single purchase and serious across a holding.
There is a second version of this problem that affects data rather than conversation. Some market feeds publish a "Pakistan tola" of 12.4791 grams. No Pakistani sarafa market uses that weight, and passing it through inflates tola prices by roughly seven percent. Every tola figure on this site is derived from the gram price using 11.6638 g.
Tola quantity ladder in Karachi
| Quantity | Grams | 24K | 22K | 21K |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 ratti | 0.1215 g | Rs 4,419.50 | Rs 4,051.21 | Rs 3,867.06 |
| 1 masha | 0.972 g | Rs 35,356.01 | Rs 32,409.68 | Rs 30,936.51 |
| ½ tola | 5.8319 g | Rs 212,136 | Rs 194,458 | Rs 185,619 |
| 1 tola | 11.6638 g | Rs 424,272 | Rs 388,916 | Rs 371,238 |
| 2 tola | 23.3276 g | Rs 848,544 | Rs 777,832 | Rs 742,476 |
| 3 tola | 34.9914 g | Rs 1,272,816 | Rs 1,166,749 | Rs 1,113,714 |
| 5 tola | 58.319 g | Rs 2,121,360 | Rs 1,944,581 | Rs 1,856,190 |
| 7.5 tola (nisab) | 87.4785 g | Rs 3,182,041 | Rs 2,916,872 | Rs 2,784,286 |
| 10 tola | 116.638 g | Rs 4,242,721 | Rs 3,889,162 | Rs 3,712,381 |
| 50 tola | 583.19 g | Rs 21,213,604 | Rs 19,445,811 | Rs 18,561,904 |
| 100 tola | 1,166.38 g | Rs 42,427,208 | Rs 38,891,622 | Rs 37,123,807 |
7.5 tola is the gold nisab threshold for Zakat — the point at which 2.5% becomes payable on a holding held for a lunar year. The Zakat calculator works it out at today's rate.
Masha and ratti: what a jeweller means by a deduction
Pakistani jewellers commonly quote weight deductions on old jewellery in masha and ratti rather than in decimal grams. The system is simple once the ratios are clear:
- 1 tola = 12 masha. One masha is 0.97198 g — just under a gram, which is exactly why the two get confused.
- 1 masha = 8 ratti. One ratti is 0.12150 g, historically the weight of eight average grains of rice.
- 1 tola = 96 ratti. A deduction of "2 masha 4 ratti" is 2.4291 g.
The market convention when buying back finished jewellery is a minimum of one ratti per masha — that is 12 of 96 parts, or 12.5% of the weight. On a five-tola piece in Karachi you would be paid for 4.375 tola: Rs 1,856,190 against a metal value of Rs 2,121,360. A deduction of Rs 265,170 before any polish or stone adjustment.
Ask for the deduction in grams before you agree to it. A figure that sounds small in ratti is real money once it is multiplied by the gram rate.
Tola vs 10 grams — reading two quotes correctly
Pakistan quotes retail in tola; India quotes in 10 grams. Same metal, same global price, very different-looking headline numbers. The conversion:
- 1 tola = 1.16638 × the 10 gram price. A tola figure is always about 17% higher.
- 10 grams = 0.8574 tola.
- 1 tola = 0.375 troy ounces exactly — three eighths. The cleanest way to sanity-check a tola price against an international quote.
In Karachi today: Rs 424,272 per tola against Rs 363,751 per 10 grams. Both are the same metal at the same instant.