Gold weight guide
How many grams is a tola of gold?
One tola of gold weighs 11.6638 grams, exactly. If you've seen jewellery quoted "per tola" and wanted to check it against a gram scale, that's the number to use — it isn't rounded, and it doesn't change by country or by jeweller.
Reviewed 15 Oct 2026 · by GoldC Team · How we calculate this
Where 11.6638 grams comes from
The tola is defined as 180 troy grains, and a grain is a fixed, tiny unit of mass — 0.06479891 grams, the same grain used to define the troy ounce and the pennyweight. Multiply the two and you get the exact figure: 180 × 0.06479891 = 11.6638 g. Nothing about it is an approximation or a rounded convention; it falls out of the grain definition the same way a foot falls out of an inch.
That's also why you'll sometimes see it written as 11.66 g, or even 11.7 g, in casual conversation. Those are rounded for convenience. For anything that involves money — checking a bill, valuing jewellery — use the full figure.
It wasn't always exactly this
Before the tola was tied to the grain, it was a regional weight that varied — sometimes by a fraction of a gram — depending on where and when it was struck. The 180-grain standard is a comparatively modern fix, adopted so that a tola in a bullion contract means the same thing everywhere it's traded. If you're ever reconciling a very old family scale or an antique weight against today's figure and it's off by a percent or two, that history is usually why.
For anything you're buying or checking today, the 180-grain, 11.6638 g figure is the one every calculator, refiner and jeweller in the modern gold trade actually uses.
Tola next to the units you'll actually see it mixed with
Gold is quoted in tola across South Asia and parts of the Middle East, but priced internationally in troy ounces — so the conversion between the two comes up constantly. It's a clean one: a troy ounce is exactly 480 grains, a tola is 180, so a troy ounce is exactly 8⁄3 tola — 2.6667 tola, no rounding needed to see why. Going the other way, one tola is exactly 3⁄8 of a troy ounce — 0.375 oz.
| Unit | Grains | Grams |
|---|---|---|
| 1 tola | 180 | 11.6638 g |
| 1 troy ounce | 480 | 31.1035 g |
| 1 pennyweight | 24 | 1.5552 g |
Quick conversions
The same multiplication, done for the amounts people actually ask about:
| Tola | Grams |
|---|---|
| 1 | 11.6638 g |
| 5 | 58.319 g |
| 10 | 116.638 g |
| 100 | 1,166.38 g |
Need a weight the table doesn't cover, or want to go the other way from grams? The gold weight converter does any amount, plus kilograms and troy ounces, instantly.
Quick answers
Is a tola the same weight everywhere it's used?
Today, yes — the 180-grain definition is standard across the bullion trade. It wasn't always the case historically, which is why very old weights can differ slightly.
How many tola are in a kilogram?
85.74 tola. A kilogram is defined independently of the grain, so this one doesn't come out to a clean fraction the way the troy ounce does.
Why isn't a tola a round number of grams?
Because it's defined in grains, not grams. The gram-based figure is just what 180 grains happens to convert to — the same reason a mile isn't a round number of kilometres.
Is "tola" only used for gold?
No — it's a general mass unit and shows up for other precious metals and, historically, for other goods too. Gold jewellery and bullion are simply where you'll meet it most often today.
Sources and limits
The grain is defined exactly as 64.79891 mg (NIST, precious metals conversion information). The tola is a traditional trade unit with no official definition we can cite; the value used here, 180 troy grains or 11.6638038 g, follows from the grain.
This page explains a unit of weight; it doesn't value your jewellery or check a bill — the weight converter and Gold Bill Check do that. Figures were reviewed on 15 October 2026.