Current Iridium Price and Iridium Rate with Chart

The best known iridium quotation is the Johnson Matthey Base Price. Johnson Matthey defines it as the company’s quoted offer prices to customers for wholesale quantities of platinum group metals, set by its trading desks in the USA, Hong Kong and the UK, and specifies the product: metal in sponge form with a minimum purity of 99.9%.

Umicore is equally explicit about the status of its three daily quotations: "Prices shown on our websites thus are of pure statistical nature and must be looked at as indications only." Heraeus Precious Metals publishes a table with the columns Bid <1 kg, Bid, Offer Unfabricated and Offer Fabricated for gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium and ruthenium — populated only during the opening hours of its German trading desk.

For rhodium sponge the London Platinum and Palladium Market introduced an accreditation scheme in January 2023, which at least gives that metal a delivery standard. No comparable scheme for iridium appears in the sources consulted for this page. A buyer therefore relies on the refiner’s own assay and documentation.

A crustal abundance specific to iridium is missing here on purpose. The IPA gives around 1.5 ppb in the upper continental crust and 3.7 ppb in the crust as a whole for all platinum group metals combined, and calls iridium "one of the least abundant within this group" — without a figure. The per-element value in wide circulation is identical for iridium, rhodium and ruthenium in the same reference table, which indicates a placeholder rather than a measurement. A number that cannot be told apart from two other elements is not a fact about iridium. For ruthenium the IPA does name a single value; for iridium it does not, and this page follows the sources rather than filling the gap.

Under the EU REACH regulation only three iridium forms are registered: iridium metal, hexachloroiridic acid and diammonium hexachloroiridate. Iridium metal is not classified as hazardous to health under EU CLP. The two chloroiridate compounds have low acute oral toxicity but can irritate or burn eyes and skin; for diammonium hexachloroiridate no sensitisation potential was identified.

The interesting part is the number three. For a metal in widespread industrial use one would expect dozens of registered forms. That only three exist is itself a statement about the size of this market — the same seven tonnes a year that run through every other section of this page.

The largest block is coatings of iridium oxide, often together with ruthenium oxide, on electrodes. The IPA describes the mix: "Almost half of this primarily-supplied iridium (~3 tonnes, 80-100 koz) is currently used in a diverse mix of electrochemical applications, where iridium oxide coatings (often along with ruthenium oxide) are used in electrodes for applications across water treatment, hydrogen production, electrowinning and in the chloralkali process."

The most underrated item on that list is plating for copper foil production. Copper foil goes into batteries for electric vehicles and into printed circuit boards for data and AI applications — both of which the EU treats as key technologies. Johnson Matthey expects for 2026 "further gains in iridium demand for electrodes used to manufacture copper foil". An investor looking for iridium exposure to the electrification story will find more of it here than in hydrogen.

Substitution in this block is partial rather than absolute: plant operators can re-coat electrodes less frequently, which lowers the metal bill at the cost of higher energy use, and in some water treatment duties UV light can replace iridium altogether.

Iridium is the anode catalyst in PEM water electrolysis, and in most texts about this metal that sentence is followed by enthusiasm. The documented sequence is more sober, and it is worth following in order.

• ◆ 2020 and 2021 — the expectation. "Intense interest in the potential for iridium use in the hydrogen economy pushed prices dramatically higher", to a peak of 6,300 USD per ounce. The buying was for stock, not for installed electrolysers.
• ◆ 2022 to 2024 — the disappointment. Johnson Matthey: "demand in hydrogen applications has been slower to emerge than initially expected. With users relatively well-stocked, iridium purchasing slowed", and the price drifted to either side of 4,500 USD.
• ◆ 2025 — the bill for it. The USGS attributes the 9% fall in the annual average expressly to "increased production and the waning of investor enthusiasm in the hydrogen power market".
• ◆ 2026 — the first actual volumes. Johnson Matthey: "This year will see the first significant demand for iridium in PEM electrolysis, as large green hydrogen projects in Germany and Portugal near completion and PEM electrolyser arrays are delivered."

One technical point is worth keeping, because it explains why iridium and ruthenium rise together: "Ruthenium is increasingly used with iridium in PEM water electrolysis electrocatalysts for hydrogen production; ruthenium confers higher activity while iridium confers higher durability, so a well-designed combination has the potential to be optimal for commercial electrolyser operation" (IPA).

What this page does not state: iridium loadings per electrolyser, whether in milligrams per square centimetre or grams per kilowatt, and the kilograms of iridium per gigawatt of capacity derived from them. Those figures circulate widely, but they could not be established from Johnson Matthey, the IPA or the USGS, and a number that decides how much metal a hydrogen build-out would consume is not one to quote from secondary sources.

Iridium is a process catalyst for bulk chemicals, "particularly acetic acid", plus homogeneous catalysis. The history behind that is the most instructive rivalry in the platinum group: the older rhodium-catalysed Monsanto process for methanol carbonylation was displaced in large plants by the iridium-based Cativa process.

What limits that competition is inertia. Catalyst changes are "normally process-specific, qualification-intensive, and slow, as changing the catalyst metal can alter selectivity, by-products, water balance, and plant economics" (IPA). A price signal in this block works on new plant decisions, not on existing reactors.

• ◆ Crucibles for crystal growing. Iridium crucibles are "widely used for growing synthetic crystals, often of oxide materials, for electronic/electrical applications" and are "often preferred over much cheaper base metals such as molybdenum or tungsten, as they withstand the high temperatures used to melt the materials and impart no contamination to the product, which is vital in electronic materials" (IPA).
• ◆ Spark plugs. "All jet engine spark plugs and most of automotive spark plugs use iridium tips" (IPA) — a few milligrams each, which is also why they are not recycled.
• ◆ Platinum-iridium contacts and ignition tips, and OLED display materials, where "alternative pathways have been investigated, but they usually require a complex platform redesign".
• ◆ Medical technology. Many pacemakers use platinum-iridium electrodes on the leads to deliver pulses reliably over long periods; platinum-iridium alloys also appear in specialist stent applications.

The fourth block, "Other", accounts for 29.2% of 2025 demand — 69,000 ounces or 2.1 tonnes — and is not broken down in any of the sources consulted. It is the second largest line in the table, and nobody publishes what is in it. This page does not speculate about it, and a text that itemises it is inventing the detail.

The IPA names two opposing forces, and both belong in any honest account.

• ◆ Against substitution: "Iridium and ruthenium share many properties and so are frequently used together. Their synergy can increase performance, especially the industrially important combination of activity plus durability, even at low metal loadings. This reduces the risk of substitution to other metals and technologies, so supporting demand despite high prices." Because the quantity per device is small, a high metal price barely moves the unit cost of the finished product.
• ◆ For substitution: "Across all iridium applications, substitution potential is magnified by the small size of iridium primary supply; it remains an extremely geologically rare by-product metal."

Put together, the sentence that follows is the one to take away: iridium is not designed out because it is expensive, but because it is scarce. An engineer who builds a product line on iridium is building on seven tonnes a year, and looks for alternatives out of supply security rather than cost.

• ◆ The spread is the main cost. Measured over 142 quotation days from 1 April to 23 October 2026, a refiner’s iridium purchase price sat 30.0% below its sales price for unfabricated metal — more than four times the platinum figure of 7.0%. Buying and selling on the same day costs that 30%, before tax.
• ◆ Plus the highest fabrication premium of the group. A median 5.8% for fabricated over unfabricated metal in the same measurement — ruthenium 5.7%, palladium 3.8%, rhodium and platinum 2.9% each.
• ◆ No government bullion coins exist. None of the primary sources consulted lists one; the trade runs in bars, grains, sponge and powder. That also removes the coin-specific tax route available for other metals (see the tax section).
• ◆ Purity and documentation matter at resale. Johnson Matthey quotes wholesale iridium as sponge at a minimum 99.9%; refined PGMs are typically above 99.95% per the IPA. Unlike rhodium sponge, iridium has no accreditation scheme in the sources consulted, so the refiner’s own paperwork is what a buyer will ask for.
• ◆ Selling means finding the one buyer. There is no exchange to sell into, and on 26% of quotation days the reference quotation did not even move. The realistic counterparty is a refiner or specialist dealer, at their purchase price on the day.

Johnson Matthey’s May 2026 report gives exchange-traded holdings for platinum, for palladium (1.14 million ounces at the end of 2025) and for rhodium (around 22,000 ounces at the end of 2025). For iridium it reports none, and the IPA factsheet names no investment product either.

The careful wording matters here: that is the absence of a mention in two industry reports, not positive proof that no product exists. What can be said is that the two authoritative market reports for this metal list exchange-traded holdings for platinum, palladium and rhodium and not for iridium — which is itself informative about scale.

A basket product is no substitute. Platinum and palladium account for 86% of the PGM basket by mass and iridium for 2%; a basket does not track the iridium price in any meaningful sense.

The IPA names the integrated producers: in South Africa, Valterra Platinum, Sibanye-Stillwater and Impala Platinum operate full mine-to-metal processing, while Northam ships high-grade concentrate to Europe for final refining; in Russia the metal from Norilsk Nickel is refined by a third party, Krastsvetmet.

The risks that dominate these shares also have little to do with iridium: deep-level labour costs, weather, exchange rates, power supply and permitting cycles. In 2025 the operational events that mattered were rainfall at one mine and a halt at another.

• ◆ A trading spread of 30.0% plus a 5.8% fabrication premium, measured over 142 quotation days in 2026, constant and not a matter of negotiation.
• ◆ The smallest and least liquid PGM market, in Johnson Matthey’s own words, with seven tonnes of annual production. No futures, no fixing, no hedging instrument.
• ◆ No VAT exemption. The EU exemption covers investment gold only (see the tax section).
• ◆ No reported exchange-traded holdings, unlike platinum, palladium and rhodium.
• ◆ The price follows stocks, not the balance. Between 2008 and 2021 it rose to 11.5 times its level while supply and demand stayed close to balanced — a mechanism an investor cannot observe, because the stock movements are not published.
• ◆ Documented demand destruction after the last peak. Chinese crucible makers switched to platinum for some formats, and electrical demand halved from 50,000 to 26,000 ounces between 2021 and 2022.
• ◆ The hydrogen market arrived later than promised. The USGS attributes the 2025 decline in the annual average expressly to "the waning of investor enthusiasm in the hydrogen power market". Anyone telling the hydrogen story has to tell that disappointment with it.
• ◆ Not a crisis metal. No central bank reserves; the US government stockpile listed potential disposals of 15 kilograms for financial year 2025. Iridium has no safe-haven bid to fall back on.

Physical iridium is subject to the full German VAT rate of 19%. The reason is worth stating precisely, because it is frequently garbled: the exemption that makes investment gold VAT-free was introduced by Council Directive 98/80/EC and now sits in Articles 344 and 346 of Directive 2006/112/EC, and it is implemented in Germany in Section 25c of the VAT Act (UStG). Article 344 defines investment gold as bars or wafers of a weight accepted by the bullion markets and a fineness of at least 995 thousandths, plus gold coins of at least 900 thousandths minted after 1800 that are or have been legal tender and whose price does not exceed the gold value by more than 80%. Article 346 obliges member states to exempt the supply, intra-Community acquisition and import of investment gold.

Every word of that definition is about gold. There is no equivalent provision for iridium, ruthenium, rhodium, platinum, palladium or silver, so iridium is taxed at the standard national rate like any other industrial good. This applies to bars, grains, sponge, powder and fabricated items alike.

For platinum and silver, German investors often reduce the VAT burden through the margin scheme under Section 25a UStG: a dealer buying pre-owned goods may charge VAT on the trade margin instead of the full selling price. In practice that route runs through pre-owned investment coins.

For iridium that route is largely closed, for two independent reasons. First, iridium investment coins effectively do not exist — the trade runs in bars, grains, sponge and powder — so the second-hand coin market the scheme relies on is absent. Second, Section 25a (1) no. 3 UStG excludes precious metals in raw form, which is precisely the form iridium is traded in; German practice for collector coins has been handled differently, but an iridium bar or a sponge lot is not a collector coin.

We therefore do not quote an effective rate for margin-taxed iridium, because there is no settled practice to quote. Anyone who is offered iridium under Section 25a should ask in writing which goods the scheme is being applied to and have the treatment confirmed by a tax adviser before paying.

Physical iridium is a private asset in the sense of Section 23 (1) sentence 1 no. 2 of the German Income Tax Act (EStG). A gain on sale after a holding period of more than one year is not taxable, regardless of the amount. Sold within the year, the gain is taxed at the personal income tax rate. Note how the deadline is computed: it runs by calendar date, not 365 days, and a sale on the anniversary itself is still inside the period — the first tax-free day is the day after.