What Is a Tola? Gold’s Traditional Unit Explained

One tola equals 11.6638 grams. That is the weight used for gold bars and tola quotes in Dubai and across the Gulf. In everyday Indian speech, though, "one tola" often means a round 10 grams, and that 1.66 g difference is enough to throw a price comparison off by more than 16%.

So when someone in the family says "gold is so much per tola", the first question is: which tola?

Where the tola comes from

The tola is a South Asian unit that goes back centuries. It was based on the weight of a set number of seeds and later fixed by the British as the weight of one silver rupee coin, which works out to 180 grains, or 11.6638 grams. The old Indian system around it ran like this:

• 8 ratti = 1 masha
• 12 masha = 1 tola

Grandparents in Punjab, Gujarat or Hyderabad may still describe a nose pin as "two masha" or a chain as "one and a half tola". India moved to the metric system in the late 1950s, but the tola never quite left the jewellery trade.

Why it survived in the Gulf

Traders from the subcontinent were central to the Gulf gold business for generations, and the tola came with them. That's why Dubai still sells the 10-tola bar, a chunky 116.64 g bar that is one of the most recognisable bullion sizes in the region. Our guide to the 10-tola bar covers its price, premium and what to check before buying one.

Myth or fact: clearing up tola confusion

"A tola is 10 grams." Myth, strictly speaking. The proper tola is 11.6638 g. The 10 g version is an informal shorthand that grew up after India adopted grams and newspapers started quoting gold per 10 grams. People kept the old word and attached it to the new round number.

"Dubai shops use the 10 g tola." Mostly myth. When a Dubai bullion dealer quotes per tola or sells a tola bar, it is the 11.6638 g tola. Jewellery itself is weighed and billed in grams.

"It doesn't matter much." Myth. On a 10-tola purchase the gap is 16.6 grams. At a 24K rate of, say, AED 400 per gram, that's AED 6,640 of gold you'd be miscounting.

"Some Indian jewellers still say tola." Fact. Especially in North India and among older buyers. Always ask which they mean before comparing.

What does a tola of gold cost in Dubai today?

At today's rate, one tola (11.6638 g) of 24K gold costs about ₹1,44,946 (AED 5,667.56). One tola of 22K is about ₹1,32,770 (AED 5,191.44). Those are gold-only figures, before any making charge or VAT.

The table below shows live tola prices for different karats, so you can match a quote from a shop or a relative against the current rate.

The Dubai gold price per tola page keeps these numbers updated through the day if you want to watch them.

A worked example: the "10 g tola" mistake

Imagine Rehana in Dubai is asked by her uncle in Lucknow to buy "two tola" of 22K for a family wedding. He has a budget in mind based on Indian prices per 10 grams. Use an illustrative 22K rate of AED 360 a gram.

That's a difference of over AED 1,300 on what both people think is "the same" order. The fix is simple. Agree on grams before anyone pays. Grams are what the scale shows and what the invoice states.

The weight also matters at Indian customs, where allowances are counted in grams. If Rehana has lived abroad for more than a year and carries the jewellery herself, 23.33 g sits inside a woman's 40 g limit. If her husband carries it instead, the men's limit is 20 g, so the same order would already be over it.

Converting between tola and grams in your head

You don't need a calculator for rough numbers. A few anchors are enough:

• 1 tola ≈ 11.66 g
• 5 tola ≈ 58.3 g
• 10 tola ≈ 116.6 g
• 1 gram ≈ 0.0857 tola
• 100 g ≈ 8.57 tola

To go from tola to grams, multiply by 11.66. To go from grams to tola, divide by 11.66. For a full table from half a tola up to ten, plus gram-to-tola lookups, see our tola and gram conversion table.

The pavan is a different thing

South Indian buyers sometimes mix up tola and pavan. A pavan (also called a sovereign) is 8 grams, a unit popular in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. A tola is nearly half as heavy again. If your family counts wedding gold in pavans, the per-gram rate is the cleanest bridge between the two.

Should you think in tolas or grams when buying?

For jewellery, grams. Every Dubai jeweller weighs and bills in grams, and making charges are quoted per gram too. Translating into tolas only adds a step where errors creep in.

For bars, the tola still has a practical use. The Gulf bullion market stocks 1-tola, 5-tola and 10-tola bars alongside metric bars like 10 g, 50 g and 100 g. If you are comparing a 10-tola bar with a 100 g bar, put both on a per-gram basis first. The tola bar holds 16.64 g more gold, so its total price will naturally be higher, and what you really want to know is which one carries the smaller premium over the gold value.

A quick way to sanity-check a tola quote

Take the tola price you're given and divide it by 11.66. The answer should sit very close to the shop's own per-gram rate for that karat. If it lands closer to the 10 g figure, the person has quoted you a "10 g tola" by mistake, or is pricing it that way on purpose. Either way, you've caught it before paying.

Tola prices also move through the day along with the gram rate, since they're the same gold multiplied by a fixed number. A shop that quotes you a tola price in the morning may revise it by the afternoon.

Where else the tola turns up

You'll still hear the tola in Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, and among Indian bullion traders. It is one of several traditional units that sit alongside the gram and the troy ounce. If you buy gold in different countries, our reference on gold units around the world lists the others, from the Thai baht weight to the Vietnamese chi.

For bars specifically, some buyers weigh up a tola bar against a round-gram bar. The choice mostly comes down to premium and resale, which our biscuit versus bar comparison goes through.

Before you buy by the tola

• Ask the seller: "Is that 11.66 grams or 10 grams?"
• Convert every quote to a per-gram figure before comparing shops.
• Check the live tola rate on the day, not one forwarded on a family group.
• Make sure the invoice shows weight in grams to at least two decimals.
• If you're flying to India with it, add up total grams against your customs allowance.