Gold price history, year by year

The quiet years (2000–2005). Gold began the century cheap: a $279.11 average in 2000, dipping to $271.04 in 2001, then climbing steadily through the early 2000s to $444.74 by 2005 as the dollar weakened. Anyone who bought gold jewellery in these years bought the metal at what now look like giveaway prices — one reason the profit calculator’s earliest years produce such startling results.

The crisis climb (2006–2012). The average doubled to $603.80 in 2006 and kept going through the financial crisis: $871.96 in 2008, $972.35 in 2009, then through $1,000 to $1,224.53 in 2010 and a peak-era $1,668.86 average in 2012. Gold was doing the job its holders bought it for — holding value while financial assets shook.

The long plateau (2013–2019). The price then cooled and moved sideways for seven years: $1,409.51 in 2013 down to a $1,158.86 low in 2015, recovering gently to $1,393.34 by 2019. Buyers in this window have still done well at today’s snapshot, but nothing like the crisis-era buyers — the year you bought matters enormously, which is exactly what the profit calculator shows.

The new climb (2020–2025). Pandemic uncertainty pushed the average to $1,773.73 in 2020; after three years near $1,800, the price stepped up to $1,927.99 in 2023, $2,386.20 in 2024 and $3,431.54 in 2025 — the first year averaging above $3,000. The snapshot this site is built on, $3,904.51 on 2 November 2026, continues that run; 2026 will get its own row in this table when the year closes and an average can honestly be stated.

How to use this table

These are annual averages, not daily prices — the right tool for “what was gold worth the year I bought it?” and the wrong tool for “what was it worth on my exact wedding day?” Daily prices moved around these averages, sometimes by hundreds of dollars inside a single year. Averages compiled from LBMA London PM fix data (via YCharts) and Money Metals’ average-closing-price series; where the two sources differ slightly, the table follows the fix-based series.

Two reading rules follow from that basis. First, an annual average always sits below the year’s headline prices: 2025 averaged $3,431.54, but the year’s highest days printed above that figure, so never set a row of this table against a record price quoted in the news — they are different kinds of number. Second, the current-year rule: a year earns a row only once it has closed and a full-year average exists. That is why there is no 2026 row — 2026 appears on this site only as the dated snapshot ($3,904.51 on 2 Nov 2026, +0.74% on the snapshot day) until the year ends and its average can be stated honestly.