Hard money
Gold to Silver Ratio, Live
It takes 76.5 ounces of silver to buy one ounce of gold right now — and the entire US national debt would take 10.1 billion ounces of gold to clear.
Gold
$4,022
spot, per troy ounce
Silver
$52.56
spot, per troy ounce
Gold / silver ratio
76.5
ounces of silver per ounce of gold
Silver / gold
0.0131
ounces of gold per ounce of silver
Where 76.5 sits historically
Reference levels are widely cited historical averages, shown for orientation. They are not forecasts, and the ratio has spent long stretches far from all of them.
What your dollars buy in metal
2.487 oz of gold or 190.3 oz of silver
At today’s ratio, swapping that gold for silver would give you 190.3 ounces of silver — the same thing, which is the whole point of the ratio.
The national debt, priced in gold
Dollars measure the debt with a ruler the debtor prints. Gold does not move for anybody’s convenience, which makes it a useful second opinion.
Debt in gold
10.1 billion oz
troy ounces to clear the debt at today's price
US official gold reserve
261.5 million oz
worth $1.05 trillion at market price
Reserve covers
2.59%
of the national debt — every ounce the US government owns
The Treasury still carries that gold on its books at the statutory price of $42.22 per ounce, set in 1973. At market price it is worth roughly $1.05 trillion — a gap of about 95× between the accounting value and reality.
What the gold-silver ratio actually tells you
The ratio is simply the gold price divided by the silver price: how many ounces of silver one ounce of gold will buy. Its usefulness comes from the fact that the two metals are pulled by different forces despite moving together.
Gold is overwhelmingly a monetary asset — bought by central banks and by people who want out of currency risk. Silver is roughly half industrial: solar panels, electronics, brazing alloys. So the ratio is a rough gauge of fear versus industrial demand.
- A rising ratio usually means gold is outrunning silver — capital moving defensively, often alongside recession fears or currency stress.
- A falling ratio usually means silver is outrunning gold — historically associated with industrial expansion and with the later, more speculative stages of a metals bull market.
Traders use extremes to swap between the metals rather than to time the dollar price of either. That is the honest use of it. Treating any particular level as a fair-value target has a poor track record: the ratio spent the entire 20th century drifting away from the 15.5 that was written into US law in 1792, and never went back.
Why this sits on a debt site
Because a debt denominated in dollars can always be paid — the question is what the dollars will be worth when it is. The national debt has grown roughly 1.32× the size of the entire economy. Metals are one of the few instruments that price that fact without a government’s permission, which is why people who watch one tend to watch the other.
What this shows
The prices here are a second opinion on the debt. Dollars measure it with a ruler the borrower controls; gold and silver do not. Pricing the debt in ounces of metal does not make it larger or smaller, it makes it independent of the currency it is denominated in, which is why the last chart behaves so differently from every other debt chart on this site.
The gold-silver ratio on its own is an old gauge of how defensive the market feels. It has no correct level. The 1792 Coinage Act fixed it at 15.5, and it has spent most of the past century somewhere between 40 and 80. Extreme readings tell you more about fear and industrial demand than about either metal as an investment.
Gold, silver and the debt since 1960
Monthly average prices. Choose a range, hide a line in the legend, or hover to read a month.
Gold price per troy ounce
Silver price per troy ounce
The gold-silver ratio
The national debt in ounces of gold
Gold and silver: World Bank Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), monthly averages of London fixings, updated October 02, 2026, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Ratio and debt in ounces calculated by NationalDebtFacts from those prices and US Treasury Debt to the Penny data.
Common questions
What is the gold to silver ratio today?
The gold to silver ratio is 76.5, meaning it takes 76.5 ounces of silver to buy one ounce of gold. Gold is trading around $4,022 per troy ounce and silver around $52.56.
What is a good gold to silver ratio?
There is no single correct level. The US Coinage Act of 1792 fixed it at 15.5, the 20th-century average was around 47, and since 1971 it has averaged closer to 68, spiking above 120 during the March 2020 panic. Traders generally treat extreme readings as opportunities to swap between the metals rather than as price targets for either one.
What does a high gold to silver ratio mean?
It usually means gold is outperforming silver, which tends to happen when capital is moving defensively — during recession fears or currency stress. Gold is mostly a monetary asset, while silver is roughly half industrial demand, so the ratio works as a rough gauge of fear versus industrial activity.
How much gold would it take to pay off the US national debt?
About 10.1 billion troy ounces at today's price — many times all the gold ever mined. The entire official US gold reserve of 261.5 million ounces would cover roughly 2.59% of the debt.
Pricing the debt in metal strips out the currency it is denominated in. For the conventional measures, see debt to GDP and every key figure on one page.