Current Ruthenium Price and Ruthenium Rate with Chart
Ruthenium is a platinum group metal with a small but strategically important market. It is used to harden platinum and palladium alloys, in the ruthenium oxide resistors of electronic components, in hard disk coatings and increasingly in the chlor-alkali and hydrogen industries. It is produced almost exclusively as a by-product, so supply responds slowly to demand. Ruthenium is not exchange-traded and has no fixing; the quotation shown here is a dealer reference price that the provider updates twice a day, typically in round steps. For that reason this page deliberately offers no seasonality chart, no performance calendar and no Fear & Greed index — those figures would measure the quotation rhythm rather than the market. The chart starts in 2023, because the earlier series could not be reconciled with the published Johnson Matthey base prices.
Here you see the current Ruthenium price per troy ounce in your selected currency, including daily change in percent and absolute.
Below you find the current exchange rate and the price in the second currency. At the bottom are the prices per gram, troy ounce and kilogram.
Source: Spot
Every point on this curve is a recorded Ruthenium quote from the window you have chosen. Run the pointer along the line and the tooltip reveals the exact level reached on that particular trading day.
The buttons above switch the window, running from Today through to Max. Drag across a stretch of the curve to magnify it. Beneath the chart, three summary cards report the peak, the trough and the net move.
Tip: Choose Today and the series resolves down to a single reading per minute.
(06/11/26)
(08/10/26)
(27/10/26)
(09/10/26)
Name a date and the lookup returns what Ruthenium was worth on it: the opening and closing levels, the extremes reached in between, and the equivalent figures per gram and per kilogram.
Tip: Pick your date. Should London have been shut that day, the lookup falls back to the closest session it holds.
| 06.11.2026 | GBP | USD |
|---|---|---|
| Open | – | – |
| High | – | – |
| Low | – | – |
| Close | 1,423.40 £ | 1,900.00 $ |
Source: Spot
Enjoying what you see and read?
We pour our heart into keeping preciousmetalprices.com fast, clean and free — no paywalls, no clutter, just reliable facts and live prices. If it helps you, the nicest way to say thank you is to pass it on. Every share helps a fellow investor discover us and keeps the project going. 💛
Enjoying what you see and read?
We pour our heart into keeping preciousmetalprices.com fast, clean and free — no paywalls, no clutter, just reliable facts and live prices. If it helps you, the nicest way to say thank you is to pass it on. Every share helps a fellow investor discover us and keeps the project going. 💛
Here you can see the current ruthenium price converted to different weight units: gram, troy ounce (31.1 g) and kilogram.
The second row shows the price in the other currency for comparison.
Tip: A troy ounce is the international trading unit for precious metals and equals 31.1035 grams.
1 Troy Ounce = 31.1035 Grams
This table shows the current price per gram for various Ruthenium alloys. The fineness indicates how much pure Ruthenium is contained in 1000 parts.
Example: : 750/1000 means 75% pure Ruthenium (for gold this equals 18 carat). The price per gram is calculated according to the fineness.
| Fineness | Carat | Price / Gram |
|---|---|---|
| 999/1000 | Fine Ruthenium | 45.70 £ |
| 999.5/1000 | Fine Ruthenium | 45.75 £ |
The performance table shows how the Ruthenium price has developed over various time periods: from today to 5 years.
You can see the absolute change in both currencies as well as the percentage change. Green values indicate gain, red values indicate loss.
Tip: Compare the EUR and USD performance to identify the impact of the exchange rate.
| Period | GBP | % GBP | USD | % USD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Today | +3.40 £ | +0.20 % | +0.00 $ | +0.00 % |
| 7 Days | +3.40 £ | +0.20 % | +0.00 $ | +0.00 % |
| 30 Days | +70.61 £ | +4.32 % | +75.00 $ | +4.11 % |
| since Jan 1 | +632.44 £ | +58.91 % | +702.00 $ | +58.60 % |
| 1 Year | +892.30 £ | +109.67 % | +992.00 $ | +109.25 % |
Here you can find a quick overview of the current prices of the other precious metals. The percentage shows the daily change.
Tip: Click on a metal to go directly to its detail page.
What Is the Ruthenium Price?
The ruthenium price states what one troy ounce (31.1035 grams) of refined ruthenium costs. As with rhodium and iridium there is no exchange, no fixing and no futures contract: every published figure is a refiner’s offer. Two reputable sources can name different prices on the same day, and the price keeps office hours — when the Heraeus table was retrieved on Saturday, 25 October 2026 at 12:10:41 CET, every ruthenium field read "n/a". A price that does not exist over a weekend is not an exchange rate.
| Ruthenium, 23 Oct 2026 | Purchase | Sale, unfabricated | Sale, fabricated |
|---|---|---|---|
| per kilogram | 40,650 EUR | 58,050 EUR | 61,350 EUR |
Umicore, 23 October 2026. Same day and category, per gram: ruthenium 61.35 EUR, iridium 309.25, rhodium 284.95, gold 128.25, platinum 47.80.
Ruthenium is the cheapest of the three exchange-less platinum group metals although less of it is mined than platinum: scarcity alone does not make a price.
Why this page gives no price in pounds: a British buyer carries one currency layer more than a euro-area buyer — the quotation is in US dollars per troy ounce, the invoice in euros per kilogram, the payment in sterling, each leg at its own rate. We hold no exchange rate with a stated date and source, so every figure stays in the currency it was published in.
How the Ruthenium Price Is Formed Without an Exchange
For gold the reference price comes out of an electronic auction in London, administered by ICE Benchmark Administration under Financial Conduct Authority supervision. For ruthenium none of that exists — no fixing, no spot market, no published stocks. The Guangzhou Futures Exchange has listed PGM futures since the end of November 2025, but for platinum and palladium only; ruthenium trades bilaterally.
Who Quotes Ruthenium — and What Those Quotations Are
The best known quotation is the Johnson Matthey Base Price, set by desks in the USA, Hong Kong and the UK for metal in sponge form at a minimum purity of 99.9%. The decisive sentence sits in its disclaimer: "In publishing the Prices, Johnson Matthey Plc does not engage or intend to engage in the administration of a benchmark."
So the most widely quoted ruthenium price is expressly not a benchmark; it is one dealer’s offer. The contrast is exact: the LBMA Gold Price is a regulated benchmark under United Kingdom law. Umicore says the same of its own figures: "of pure statistical nature and must be looked at as indications only".
The Spread Between Buying and Selling: 30.0%, the Widest of All
| Metal | Median | Min | Max | Days with a change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ruthenium | 30.0% | 29.9% | 30.0% | 70% |
| Iridium | 30.0% | 30.0% | 30.0% | 74% |
| Rhodium | 15.0% | 15.0% | 15.0% | 84% |
| Palladium | 8.0% | 7.9% | 8.1% | 96% |
| Platinum | 7.0% | 6.9% | 7.1% | 97% |
Own measurement from the published Umicore series, 142 quotation days from 1 April to 23 October 2026, per metal and price category, purchase against sale of unfabricated metal.
What the constancy proves: over 142 days the purchase price sat 30.0% below the sales price — not "around 30%", but 30.0% to the decimal place on almost every day. A genuine bid/ask spread narrows as a market becomes more liquid and widens in a panic. A figure that never moves is a fixed dealer markup, not a market measurement. A same-day round trip costs more than four times what it costs in platinum, and fabricated metal a median 5.7% more again.
The second result says as much as the spread: the price changed on only 70% of those days, against 97% for platinum. An unchanged ruthenium price does not mean supply and demand balanced; it means no new quotation was issued — the USGS published exactly 95.00 USD per ounce for every day in June and July 2009.
Ruthenium Price History and the Structural Deficit
The cleanest long series is the US Geological Survey reproduction of the Engelhard annual averages.
| Annual average, USD/oz | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 (est.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ruthenium | 576.12 | 577.02 | 466.49 | 451.02 | 690 |
| Platinum | 1,094.31 | 966.54 | 973.00 | 960.70 | 1,200 |
USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026; Engelhard annual averages via S&P Global Platts Metals Week. The 2025 column is the USGS estimate.
The 2025 estimate of 690 USD is up 53%, the largest increase of any platinum group metal that year (USGS).
The Deficit, and One Claim We Attribute Rather Than Repeat
In 2025 the shortfall was 23.2% of a year’s consumption, covered from stocks Johnson Matthey calls "much depleted". The 2026 forecast has demand falling and the deficit persisting.
Attributed, not asserted: Johnson Matthey reports that "Chinese export controls on ruthenium and ruthenium-containing materials, imposed in February 2025, may have intensified shortages in other regions". We could not confirm the legal basis. The MOFCOM and customs administration announcement no. 10/2025 of 4 February 2025 covers tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, molybdenum and indium — it does not name ruthenium. So a market report says so, and the published announcement does not name the metal.
Performance Table
Go to tableThe figures follow the quotation currency: a sterling return would differ by the movement of the pound.
Seasonality
Go to chartRuthenium has no buying season; it has a stock-release calendar, which is a decision rather than an event.
Performance Calendar (Heatmap)
Go to calendarMore pale fields than any other metal here: nearly one day in three, against 3% for platinum.
Ruthenium Price by Weight and Units
Ruthenium is quoted in two units at once: Johnson Matthey in US dollars per troy ounce, the continental refiners in euros per kilogram. One troy ounce is 31.1035 grams, so 58,050 EUR per kilogram came to about 1,806 EUR an ounce. The physical surprise runs the other way to the usual expectation: at 12.1 g/cm³ ruthenium is the light platinum metal, roughly half the density of iridium.
There are no bullion coins; what trades is sponge and powder (which need an assay at resale), grains and bars. One British point follows from the form rather than the metal: the Hallmarking Act 1973 exempts bars and bullion from marking, and the thresholds for compulsory marking are set for gold, silver, platinum and palladium — no ruthenium threshold is documented. Whether the Act reaches ruthenium at all our sources do not answer, so the gap is stated.
What Ruthenium Is Used For
Total demand in 2025 was 1,265,000 ounces (39.3 tonnes) across three substantial end-uses — a mix that has shifted enough to invalidate the figure most texts still quote.
| Demand, 1,000 oz | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Share 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chemical catalysis | 426 | 520 | 567 | 44.8% |
| Electrical and electronics | 300 | 365 | 413 | 32.6% |
| Electrochemical | 146 | 143 | 135 | 10.7% |
| Other | 136 | 142 | 150 | 11.9% |
| Total | 1,008 | 1,170 | 1,265 | 100% |
Johnson Matthey PGM Market Report, May 2026. Demand is net of closed-loop recycling and of sales back to the market.
The correction that matters most here: the widely repeated split "ruthenium — about half of it electronics" no longer describes 2025. The largest category is chemical catalysis at 44.8%, with electronics second at 32.6%. Electronics did not drive the growth of the last six years either: the IPA reports that growth was led by the chemical sector while electrical demand stayed essentially stable.
Key Drivers of the Ruthenium Price
The single most useful thing to understand is that nobody mines ruthenium. The IPA states it plainly: it "is not mined as a standalone metal but is recovered together with the other PGMs from the same ore deposit". How much exists in a year is decided by other metals’ mine plans.
2025, Johnson Matthey PGM Market Report, May 2026.
What decides availability is which reef is being mined: the UG2 chromitite reef carries markedly more rhodium, ruthenium and iridium than the Merensky Reef. The geology, not the price, sets the ratio, and lead times run from 8 to 18 months for a brownfield restart to 6 to 8 years for a deep shaft.
Two sources, two numbers — so here are both: Johnson Matthey publishes no country breakdown for ruthenium, only a world total, and states that South Africa accounts for "over 85% of global primary supply". The IPA, in its May 2026 factsheet, estimates "more than 90% of ruthenium output". We give both rather than picking one, because no tonnage exists that would settle it.
A trap in the supply series: Johnson Matthey reports no secondary supply line at all for ruthenium — its table has only total primary supply, and that figure includes releases of refined producer inventory. So the 44.1 tonnes of 2021 are not a production record; they include a large stock release, and the drop reported for 2025 is explained in the same terms, as "a large release of refined inventory in 2024 was not repeated". Mine output itself has been flat: the IPA puts production at around 30 tonnes for 2025, up roughly three tonnes since 2019.
That missing line is also why the deficit lasts: ruthenium has no recycling valve, because it sits in resistors, disk layers and electrode coatings in minute quantities and in mixtures.
Buying Ruthenium in the UK
- ◆ The spread is the dominant cost, and the largest in the group. A refiner’s purchase price sat 30.0% below its sales price across 142 measured days, against 7.0% for platinum. A same-day round trip costs almost a third of the stake, before tax.
- ◆ No bullion coin exists, which matters more here than anywhere else on this site: the most valuable British relief for metal investors attaches to sterling coins. Selling means finding the one buyer, at their purchase price on the day — and on 30% of days that price is simply yesterday’s.
- ◆ Exchange-traded products are not documented. Johnson Matthey reports holdings for platinum, palladium and rhodium and none for ruthenium — the absence of a mention rather than proof.
- ◆ Mining equities do not contain it either. The headline South African revenue metric is the 4E basket — platinum, palladium, rhodium and gold. Ruthenium and iridium are not in it; they appear only in the 6E content, so an equity proxy omits the metal from its own standard figure.
What we deliberately do not claim: retail dealer premiums, minimum order sizes and typical bar denominations for ruthenium could not be established from a primary source, and no sterling price for a retail bar is given here for the same reason. Any percentage quoted for those elsewhere should be checked against a written offer. The 30.0% refiner spread is measured; a retail markup sits on top of it.
What British Investor Protection Does Not Cover
Bullion is not a regulated investment in the United Kingdom. Dealing in physical metal is not an FCA-regulated activity: no Financial Services Compensation Scheme cover and no Financial Ombudsman Service. The perimeter here runs around the benchmark, not the trade. What applies is the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (ss. 9 to 11, 30-day right to reject), while regulation 28(1)(a) of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 removes the 14-day right to cancel for goods whose price depends on financial-market fluctuations.
Ruthenium, VAT and Capital Gains Tax in the United Kingdom
VAT: 20%, Because the Statute Says "Gold"
Physical ruthenium carries the standard rate of 20% on the full price. The relief British investors know from the gold pages sits in Group 15 of Schedule 9 to the Value Added Tax Act 1994 and is written for investment gold alone. Note which word the statute does not use: it does not say "precious metal"; it says gold. No equivalent provision exists for ruthenium, rhodium, iridium, platinum, palladium or silver, so all are standard-rated in every form, import included — and HMRC excludes precious metals from the margin schemes (VATMARG02100), so VAT falls on the whole price rather than a dealer’s margin.
Capital Gains Tax: No Holding Period, and No Coin Relief Here
A gain on selling physical ruthenium is a chargeable gain under the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, and British law has no holding period: a gain after two weeks is treated exactly like one after twenty years. The rate is 18% within the basic rate band of £37,700 and 24% above it, unchanged since 30 October 2024, after an Annual Exempt Amount of £3,000 (s. 1K) — an allowance against the gain, not a cliff edge. A bar is a chattel, so s. 262 leaves consideration up to £6,000 uncharged and caps the tax above it at five thirds of the excess.
The relief that makes British gold investing distinctive cannot reach this metal: gains on sovereigns from 1837 and the gold Britannia fall outside the charge because those coins are sterling legal tender (Coinage Act 1971 s. 2(1)) and sterling is not a chargeable asset (s. 21(1)(b), HMRC CG78305) — and no ruthenium coin exists at all. Self Assessment is needed if the gain exceeds the allowance or the proceeds exceed £50,000; cash has no statutory ceiling, but from £10,000 (SI 2026/621 reg. 9, HMRC ECSH51525) the dealer owes identification duties as a registered High Value Dealer.
Three questions stay open on purpose, because filling them would mean inventing an authority. Whether a domestic reverse charge applies to business sales of platinum group metal scrap our sources do not establish; they do say the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013 excludes gold and silver (s. 21(7)) and nothing about ruthenium. There is no statutory figure at which private investing becomes trading. And the border declaration duty attaches to cash from £10,000 and, in Northern Ireland, to gold — not to ruthenium.
The honest basis of this section: in none of the 27 countries covered by this site does a decision, binding ruling or item of case law exist that deals with rhodium, ruthenium or iridium by name. Legal definitions exist in a few — the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia — but not here. Every conclusion above therefore rests on the metal-neutral wording of a provision or on the reach of a code that names gold alone. This is the legal position as the statutes read, not tax advice.