In this guide
A gold ornament sold by a registered jeweller in India has to carry a hallmark. A silver one does not. That single asymmetry is the most important thing on this page.
The consequence is that the number 925 does more work in silver than 916 does in gold. On a gold chain, 916 sits beside an independent assay. On a silver anklet it very often sits alone — a figure punched by whoever made the piece, on their own authority. Reading a genuine BIS silver hallmark takes about a minute; working out whether you are looking at one is the harder job.
What does 925 silver mean?
925 means sterling silver — 92.5% silver by weight, with the remaining 7.5% made up of another metal, almost always copper.
The number is the fineness: purity expressed in parts per thousand. Out of 1,000 parts, 925 are silver. It is the same convention that gives gold its 916 and its 750, and it describes the metal directly, without the carat scale — silver has never used carats.
Sterling is simply the older name for that alloy. A piece described as sterling, as 92.5, or as 925 is describing one specification in three ways.
The silver fineness grades — and which ones you actually meet
Indian silver is hallmarked across seven fineness grades, not one — 800, 835, 925, 958, 970, 990 and 999. Any of the seven can legitimately occupy the purity position of a hallmark, so 925 is the grade you expect on an ornament rather than the only grade you should accept.
The earlier version of the standard listed six and included 900. The revision dropped that one and added 958 and 999. In practice, on a Tamil Nadu counter, three of the seven do nearly all the work: 925 for ornaments, a lower grade such as 800 or 835 for heavier vessel work, and 999 for bars and coins. The rest exist on paper more than on the shelf. Grade by grade — including the marks used outside India, which are a different list again — is in our silver purity chart.
The gap between them is not cosmetic. A 250-gram kuthuvilakku — the traditional oil lamp — at 925 holds 231.25 grams of silver; the same lamp at 800 holds 200 grams. Two pieces identical on the scale, and 31.25 grams of metal apart. That is why the purity position is worth reading as carefully as the weight.
Today's silver rate in Vellore is per gram () — see the silver rate page, updated every morning. Rates are indicative and confirmed at the time of billing at the showroom.
Why is jewellery 925 and not pure silver?
Pure silver is too soft to make jewellery from. At 999 it bends under thumb pressure, will not hold a clasp under tension, and loses a polished edge almost immediately. Roughly 7.5% copper gives the alloy enough hardness to be drawn into a chain, to grip a setting, and to survive an anklet's life on a tiled floor. That is the whole reason 925 exists: it is the point where silver becomes workable without ceasing, in any meaningful sense, to be silver.
The same logic pushed harder is why a hallmark on a lamp may honestly read 800. Vessel work is handled, cleaned and knocked about for decades, so it is alloyed harder than an ornament. Ornament silver and vessel silver are not the same metal, and they are not meant to be.
The copper is also a large part of why sterling darkens, and a piece worn weekly darkens least, because handling keeps it polished. Tarnish is the alloy behaving normally, not evidence of a fake.
How to read a BIS silver hallmark
A silver hallmark applied under the current Indian standard carries three marks — the same count as gold, with one addition that tells you which metal you are looking at.
- The BIS Standard Mark, carrying the word SILVER — the mark of the Bureau of Indian Standards, with the metal named as part of it. On gold the BIS mark stands alone; on silver the word is there so the two can never be confused.
- The purity grade — the fineness number: 925, or 800, or 999, whichever the article was assayed at. This is a tested figure, not the maker's description.
- The six-digit HUID — a Hallmark Unique Identification code, alphanumeric and laser-engraved, belonging to that single article and no other. It is the same six-digit code gold has carried for years.
The marks are small and put somewhere unobtrusive: the inner face of a bangle, the clasp of a kolusu (anklet), the underside of a lamp base. Ask the counter to show you where they are and to lend you a loupe. Asking is completely normal — do not feel awkward about it.
If you have read our guide to what 916 and BIS hallmarking mean on gold, that structure will look familiar. The components are near-identical. What is not identical is whether the marks have to be there at all.
The assaying centre mark — and where it went
If you are hunting for the assaying centre's symbol on a recently hallmarked silver piece, you will not find one — and that is deliberate.
The older silver hallmark carried four symbols: the BIS mark with the word SILVER, the purity grade, an identification mark for the assaying and hallmarking centre that tested the article, and an identification mark for the jeweller or manufacturer. Four tiny symbols on an anklet clasp, two of which only a specialist could decode.
The revised standard folds the last two into the HUID. The centre's identity and the jeweller's registration are still recorded — they have moved off the metal and into the database, where the code retrieves them. So on a piece hallmarked under the current system, the assaying centre mark is no longer something you read. It is something you look up:
- Download the BIS Care app, published by the Bureau of Indian Standards, from the Play Store or App Store.
- Open the HUID verification option.
- Enter the six-digit code engraved on the article.
- The app returns the article type, the purity grade it was assayed at, the date it was hallmarked, the assaying and hallmarking centre's recognition number, name and address, and the jeweller's registration number.
That is more than the old four-symbol stamp ever told you, and it takes no skill to read. The trade-off is that the code is now the whole of your evidence: a worn or unreadable HUID on a recently bought piece is worth raising at the counter rather than shrugging at.
What the app will not do is invent a record. If nothing comes back, or what comes back does not describe the piece in your hand, that is a genuine red flag worth raising with the seller immediately — and with BIS through the same app if it is not resolved.
Do this once, at the counter
If a silver piece is offered to you as hallmarked, verify the HUID in the BIS Care app before you pay, while you are still standing in the shop. It takes under a minute and costs nothing.
Is silver hallmarking compulsory in India?
No. Hallmarking of gold jewellery is mandatory across the notified districts of India. Silver hallmarking is voluntary, and it has been voluntary since the silver scheme began.
What changed recently is the quality of the voluntary scheme, not its status. HUID-based hallmarking became available for silver from 1 September 2025 under the revised standard, bringing silver into the same traceable system gold has used for years. A jeweller who chooses to have silver hallmarked now gets the HUID as part of it. Nothing obliges them to have it done at all.
Silver has been discussed as a candidate for mandatory hallmarking, and the Bureau has said it is working through what that would require. No date has been announced, and it would be wrong to write as though one had.
The reason silver is harder to bring under a mandate is not chemical — it is structural. Gold in India is overwhelmingly jewellery, sold through registered shops, in a handful of purities. Silver is anklets and toe rings, but it is also lamps, kalash and pooja vessels, idols, tumbler and davara sets, gift articles and industrial stock — moving through a far wider mix of sellers, across a far wider range of finenesses, at a fraction of the value per gram. The assaying network for silver is correspondingly smaller than the one for gold, and still growing. That is an explanation rather than an excuse, and what it means for you is simple: on silver, you carry more of the checking than you do on gold.
What a plain 925 stamp actually proves
A stamp is a claim by the maker. A hallmark is a third party's assay. They sit in the same place, they are the same size, and they are not the same kind of evidence.
Almost all silver jewellery sold in India carries 925 punched into it somewhere, and most of that silver is not hallmarked. The two facts sit together because the stamp records what the maker says and the hallmark records what a recognised centre measured — and only one of those is testimony from someone with nothing to gain. That is not an accusation: a great deal of unhallmarked 925 is honest 925, alloyed correctly by workshops with no reason to do otherwise. It is simply not evidence.
So read a plain 925 as a starting point, and then look at what is around it:
- Is there a BIS mark with the word SILVER beside it? If yes, the number is an assay result and you can verify it in the app. If no, it is a description.
- Is it an ornament or an artefact? A heavy lamp or vessel marked 925 is unusual, because that work is commonly alloyed lower for strength. It is a fair question to ask, and there may well be a good answer.
- Does the bill state the purity, and was the piece weighed in front of you? A fineness written on the bill is the seller standing behind the figure in a document you keep. On silver that is worth more than the stamp.
You will find home tests suggested for silver — a magnet, an ice cube, a drop of bleach. They share the limitation the gold ones have: they can sometimes flag a crude fake, and not one of them can tell 925 from 800. That gap is exactly where the money sits. Our guide to knowing whether silver is real at home goes through each test and what it actually settles.
For context on our own counter: with silver we state the purity of the specific piece on the bill and weigh it in front of you — the figure that matters is the one for the article you are holding, not a general number for the shop. You can see the range we keep on the silver jewellery and pooja articles page. Final price is confirmed at billing.
Questions we are asked
Is 925 silver real silver?
Yes. 925 is sterling silver — 92.5% silver by weight, with the remaining 7.5% usually copper. It is the standard alloy for silver jewellery and it is a genuine silver alloy, not a plating and not a substitute.
Does a 925 stamp mean the piece is BIS hallmarked?
No. A 925 stamp on its own is a purity claim made by whoever made the piece. A BIS hallmark is a separate thing: the BIS Standard Mark carrying the word SILVER, the purity grade, and a six-digit HUID, applied after the article was assayed at a recognised centre. Many honest pieces carry the stamp without the hallmark, because silver hallmarking in India is voluntary.
Is silver hallmarking compulsory in India like gold hallmarking?
No. Hallmarking of gold jewellery is mandatory across the notified districts of India. Silver hallmarking is voluntary. HUID-based hallmarking became available for silver from 1 September 2025 under the revised standard, but no jeweller is obliged to have silver hallmarked at all.
My old silver has no hallmark. Is it worth less?
Not necessarily. An absent hallmark means the purity has never been independently tested, not that the purity is poor. A great deal of old family silver is perfectly good metal. What it does mean is that when you sell or exchange it, the buyer will test it — so ask to see the reading before any figure is discussed.
Send us the marks and we will read them
Not sure whether the number on a silver piece is a stamp or a hallmark? Send a clear, close photograph on WhatsApp and we will tell you what is actually on it.