Silver Price History in Pakistan: 1947 to 2026

Silver: the people's metal

For most of Pakistan's history, chandi (silver) has been the affordable precious metal — the default for nose pins, payal (anklets), gift coins and rural savings when gold was out of reach. At independence in 1947, silver traded at only a few rupees per tola; families of modest means could still gift silver at weddings when a tola of gold cost around Rs 100.

That accessibility is why silver ownership in Pakistan is far more widespread than gold ownership, even though it gets a fraction of the attention.

The decades in brief

Silver's PKR price followed the same two drivers as gold — the international spot price and rupee depreciation — but with wilder swings. The famous 1980 Hunt brothers squeeze briefly sent world silver near $50/oz and Pakistani chandi to then-unthinkable levels before collapsing. The 2011 spike repeated the pattern, touching $49/oz globally. Between spikes, silver spent long stretches flat while the rupee's slide quietly lifted its local price.

By the mid-2020s, sustained industrial demand — solar panels, electronics, EVs — plus the same global forces driving gold pushed silver in Pakistan to record levels above Rs 7,000 per tola, with the 2026 gold rally pulling silver along.

Why silver swings harder than gold

Silver's market is a fraction of gold's size, and roughly half of demand is industrial. In booms, investment and industrial demand stack and prices leap; in recessions, both retreat together. The gold-silver ratio — how many tolas of silver equal one tola of gold — has ranged from under 40 to over 90 in the modern era. A high ratio makes silver look cheap relative to gold, which is when Pakistani buyers on smaller budgets historically shifted to chandi.

Track the live relationship on our gold vs silver page and today's price on the silver rate page.

Silver in Pakistani culture and trade

Sarafa bazaars quote chandi alongside gold every day, and silver remains the working metal of Pakistan's ornament trade: heavier pieces, lower stakes, faster turnover. Nikkah gift coins, newborn silver, and the payal-and-jhumka economy of smaller towns all run on silver. For zakat purposes, the nisab threshold itself is defined partly in silver (612.36 grams), which makes the silver rate religiously significant for millions — our zakat calculator uses live rates for both metals.