At 37.429 grams, the Hong Kong tael is the traditional silver weight unit across HK and mainland China, and the silver price per tael below is the live spot rate in USD, tracking the CGSE-referenced HK tael silver price updated in real time as Asian markets trade. Check the silver tael price today and the 1 tael silver price in dollars via the live chart, exactly as the market moves.
Before modern commodity exchanges standardized silver pricing in troy ounces, China had its own system - and at the centre of it was the tael. For several centuries, the tael was not just a unit of weight; it was effectively the unit of money itself across much of East Asia. State taxes, merchant contracts, and foreign trade settlements were all denominated in silver taels. The weight of silver you held determined your economic position in a very literal sense.
That history did not vanish when China modernized its monetary system. The tael survived as a commercial weight unit, particularly in Hong Kong, where Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange Society (CGSE) trading conventions kept it in active use. Today, the Hong Kong tael - standardized at 37.429 grams - remains the unit of reference for silver transactions that flow through Hong Kong's bullion trade and for buyers across the broader East Asian market who have been quoting silver in taels for generations.
GoldPrice.Live displays the live silver price per tael derived directly from the international XAG spot rate in real time. If you are buying, selling, or tracking silver in a Hong Kong context, this is the number that matters without needing to convert from troy ounces yourself.
The international silver market prices everything in USD per troy ounce. The Hong Kong tael sits outside that system by weight - 37.429 grams is not a round number in troy ounces, and it does not divide cleanly into a kilogram either. It is a pre-metric unit that the Hong Kong bullion market standardized independently, and the CGSE built its trading conventions around it.
The conversion is straightforward: one Hong Kong tael equals 37.429 grams, which is 1.20337 troy ounces. The per-tael rate is calculated by multiplying the live silver spot price in USD per troy ounce by 1.20337. That conversion runs continuously, so the tael rate updates in real time as global silver markets move.
What makes the tael rate interesting for Hong Kong buyers specifically is that the HKD is pegged to the USD within a tight band managed by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Unlike the situation with the Indian rupee or Pakistani rupee - where currency depreciation against the dollar adds an independent layer of price movement to local precious metals rates - the HKD peg means that for Hong Kong buyers, the silver tael price in HKD moves almost exclusively with the international silver spot price rather than with local monetary conditions. The currency variable is largely removed. To see silver priced directly in Hong Kong dollars, the silver price in HKD page covers the XAG/HKD rate alongside that currency context.
The Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange Society, established in Hong Kong in 1910, is one of the oldest commodity exchanges in Asia still in active operation. It standardized the weight units, purity requirements, and trading conventions for gold and silver transactions in Hong Kong at a time when Chinese merchants across Southeast Asia used Hong Kong as their primary bullion clearing centre.
The CGSE's tael standard - 37.429 grams - became the benchmark not just for Hong Kong but for Chinese bullion communities in Singapore, Malaysia, and other parts of the region where overseas Chinese merchants operated. A CGSE-standard tael of silver was recognized and accepted without question across that entire network, which is exactly what a commercial weight standard is supposed to do.
Today the CGSE still operates, though electronic trading and international market integration have changed how much of the actual price discovery happens there versus on COMEX or in the OTC market. But the tael as a unit persists in Hong Kong retail bullion shops, in the pricing conventions of CGSE member dealers, and among buyers who learned to think about silver in taels because that is what every jeweller and dealer around them quoted.
The tael is not a single fixed standard across all of East Asia - and that is worth being clear about before assuming a tael quoted in one context means the same weight as a tael quoted in another.
The Hong Kong tael used here is 37.429 grams. But historically, different cities across China used their own local tael standards, and the weights varied meaningfully:
These differences were not trivial in historical trade. A merchant settling a large contract denominated in Shanghai taels and paying in Hong Kong taels was short-changing the counterparty by a small but meaningful amount per unit. The standardization of the Hong Kong tael at 37.429 grams resolved that ambiguity for modern commercial purposes, but if you are looking at historical silver contracts, antique weights, or older Chinese silver pieces described in taels, confirming which tael standard was in use matters for accurate valuation.
For current market prices and unit conversions across troy ounces, grams, kilograms, tolas, and taels, the silver calculator handles the arithmetic at the live spot rate automatically.
Beyond the institutional bullion trade, silver measured in taels still appears in a cultural context that the modern spot market does not fully capture. Traditional Chinese silver jewellery - particularly pieces from Yunnan, Guizhou, Miao minority communities, and older Hong Kong workshops - is often described and valued in taels by the craftsmen who make it and the buyers who collect it.
Silver in this context is not purely an investment or a commodity. It carries cultural significance as a gift metal for weddings and new births, as a material for traditional ornaments worn at festivals, and as a form of wearable wealth that has been passed through families for generations. A piece described as "three taels of silver" by a Miao silversmith in Guizhou means something very different from three taels on a CGSE trading slip - but the underlying metal content converts to the same spot value either way.
If you want to understand where the silver price has moved over recent months - relevant when valuing older pieces or deciding when to sell - the silver price charts show the full historical price picture from intraday through multi-year ranges.
For questions about how pricing data on this site is sourced or how the tael conversion is calculated, get in touch with us.