Current Rhodium Price and Rhodium Rate with Chart

Rhodium is the most single-purpose precious metal on this site. In a three-way catalytic converter it reduces nitrogen oxides to nitrogen, and no equivalent substitute metal exists for that step. The risk comes from the drivetrain: a battery electric vehicle has no three-way catalyst, which the IPA names as the long-term substitution risk, and the automotive share has already fallen from around 90% since 2019 to 84% in 2025. In glass, Pt-Rh alloys form bushings whose rhodium content is adjustable from 5% to 20% — the one place where a higher price measurably reduces rhodium use.

Rhodium plating of jewellery is the application most readers will have touched: rhodium is electroplated, not alloyed, which is why there is no rhodium equivalent of 585 gold. It falls under "Other" in the statistics, and no substantiated volume figure exists, so this page gives none. A crustal abundance specific to rhodium is missing on purpose too: the IPA gives about 1.5 ppb for all platinum group metals combined, and the widely cited per-element value is identical for rhodium, ruthenium and iridium — a placeholder, not a measurement.

The single most useful thing to understand is that rhodium supply is not steered by the rhodium price. Rhodium is nowhere mined as a main product: by mass it is about 5% of the platinum group metals basket, and against 21.8 tonnes of primary rhodium in 2025 stand an estimated 170 tonnes of platinum. What decides availability is which reef is being mined — the Merensky Reef is poor in rhodium, while in the UG2 Chromitite Reef rhodium, ruthenium and iridium together can exceed 20% of total platinum group metal content. Even when capital responds, time does not: the IPA gives 8 to 18 months for brownfield restarts and 6 to 8 years for deep shafts. One standard narrative needs correcting too: South African power cuts did not drive 2025 — the IPA reports 26 hours of load shedding early in the year and more than 231 consecutive days without any.

Secondary supply in 2025 was 312,000 ounces (9.7 tonnes) from spent autocatalysts — 30.8% of total supply, but open-loop recycling only. On Johnson Matthey estimates published in 2024, closed-loop recycling accounts for about 75% of all rhodium recycling: metal that never reaches the market. The familiar line about a third from recycling describes only the traded part, and the traded part moves the price.

Rhodium is an industrial raw material that happens to be expensive, not a monetary metal. There are no central bank holdings, and at the end of 2025 all rhodium exchange-traded holdings came to around 22,000 ounces, about 2% of a year’s demand, against 1.14 million ounces in palladium products. The trade runs in bars, grains and sponge, and the dominant cost is the measured 15.0% refiner spread. There is no exchange and no Irish quoting desk to sell into.

There is essentially one well-documented physically backed product: the 1nvest Rhodium ETF in Johannesburg, a debenture over allocated metal with Johnson Matthey as custodian, a fee of 75 basis points a year and 11,059 troy ounces at 31 December 2025. The entitlement per unit falls daily to reflect the fee, and the return is reported in rand while rhodium is quoted in dollars — a third currency for a euro-based investor. The rest of the risk list: no futures, a spread that is not negotiable, no VAT relief because the European exemption covers investment gold only, and drawdowns of minus 90% in 2008 and minus 77% from 2021 to 2024.

Ireland has its own rules here, not a copy of any neighbour’s. Nothing below is tax advice, and every figure is stated as at 25 October 2026.

Value-added tax. Physical rhodium carries the standard rate of 23% under s. 46(1)(a) VATCA 2010, on bars, grains, sponge and fabricated items alike. Investment gold is relieved by Schedule 1, Part 2, para. 9(1) with s. 90(1) VATCA 2010, enacting articles 344 to 346 of Directive 2006/112/EC — and every element of that definition describes one metal: fineness, minting date, legal tender status and a premium measured against the gold value. The relief turns neither on "bullion" nor on "precious metal" nor on coinage; it turns on the word gold, and there is no counterpart for silver, platinum, palladium or rhodium. Imports from outside the Union pay on importation instead.

Margin scheme and reverse charge. Section 87(1) VATCA 2010 defines "second-hand goods" "but not including … precious metals and precious stones", and defines precious metals by naming silver, gold and platinum. That is the one place in the Irish code where the identity of the metal matters — and the metals named are not rhodium, ruthenium or iridium. Less follows than it looks: Revenue has published no position and there is no decision on a rhodium lot, so this page quotes no effective margin rate. On the reverse charge there is a gap in the record rather than a rule: none reaching the platinum group metals could be established here, and none is asserted.

Capital gains tax. Section 28 TCA 1997 charges chargeable gains at a flat 33% for disposals on or after 6 December 2012 (s. 28(3), amended by s. 43 FA 2013). It is metal-neutral: neither the charging section nor the chapter of exemptions after it (Part 19, Chapter 7, ss. 601 to 613A) names a metal. And there is no holding period — proceeds, less documented cost, less the expenses of the transaction, whether held six weeks or six decades. Section 601 exempts the first EUR 1,270 of all chargeable gains in the year, applied after losses, not transferable between spouses and not carried forward.

The 33% is the rate for gains of a capital nature; repeated dealing can engage the badges of trade in s. 3(1) TCA 1997 and fall under income tax plus the universal social charge and social insurance. Where that line lies is not quantified anywhere — s. 551 settles only priority, and Revenue publishes neither a transaction count nor an amount, so this page names no figure. The tax is paid by 15 December for January to November disposals; the return is due 31 October of the following year on Form CG1, even where no tax arises. A listed product tracking the metal is a security and follows its legal form: fund structures carry an eight-year deemed disposal with exit tax at 38% from 1 January 2026.

Cash and reporting. The money-laundering threshold is EUR 10,000 and applies to cash only (s. 25(1)(i), Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010), in both directions; a trader dealing only by card or transfer, or only below that figure in cash, is not a designated person at all. There is no general cash limit today, but from 10 July 2027 article 80(1) of Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 caps business cash payments at EUR 10,000 and article 19(4) lowers the identification threshold to EUR 3,000. Supervision sits with the Anti-Money Laundering Compliance Unit, not the Central Bank. Cash of EUR 10,000 or more must be declared at the external frontier — and that definition names gold only.