What Is the London Gold Fix? How the Benchmark Works

Last updated: August 3, 2026

Every day, headlines quote a single global price for gold, and every jewellery valuation, coin premium, and bullion contract ultimately traces back to it. But where does that benchmark number actually come from? The answer is a process rooted in London that has set the world’s reference price for gold for more than a century: the London gold fix, now known as the LBMA Gold Price. Here is how it works.

What the London gold fix is

The London gold fix is a benchmark price for gold, set twice a day, that serves as the globally recognised reference rate for pricing gold transactions. It is not the only price gold trades at — gold trades continuously around the world — but the fix provides a single, transparent, published figure that the entire industry can settle contracts against. When a refiner, miner, central bank, or jeweller needs an agreed price, the fix is the standard they reach for.

A brief history

The tradition began in 1919, when a small group of London bullion dealers first met to agree a daily price. For decades this famously took place in a wood-panelled room, with representatives adjusting the price until buy and sell orders balanced. Originally set once a day, it later moved to twice daily to align with global markets. The name “fixing” simply refers to fixing a single agreed price at a moment in time — not to anything improper.

How it works today: the LBMA Gold Price

In 2015, the old telephone-and-room process was modernised and renamed the LBMA Gold Price, now administered independently and conducted electronically. The mechanism is an auction:

• The auction runs twice each London business day, at 10:30am and 3:00pm.
• An operator announces a starting price, and participating banks enter how much gold they wish to buy or sell at that price.
• If buy and sell orders do not match, the price is adjusted up or down and another round runs.
• When supply and demand balance within a set tolerance, the price is “fixed” and published.

The whole process is now electronic, auditable, and overseen by a regulated administrator, with several accredited banks participating directly.

Why the two daily prices matter

The morning and afternoon fixes exist to serve different time zones and market needs. The 10:30am fix suits European and Asian activity, while the 3:00pm fix overlaps with US markets opening, giving American participants a relevant benchmark. Because so many contracts specify settlement at one of these two prices, the fixings are moments of concentrated trading activity.

Why it matters to you

Even if you never trade at the fix directly, it shapes the prices you see. Bullion dealers base their buy and sell prices on the current benchmark, adding a premium; ETFs and funds value their holdings against it; and jewellers and refiners use it to price transactions. When you check “the price of gold,” you are usually looking at a figure anchored to the LBMA benchmark. Understanding the fix helps you see that the “spot price” is a real, structured mechanism rather than a vague market guess.

The fix vs the spot price

It is worth clarifying the difference. The spot price is the live, continuously changing market price for immediate delivery, moving second by second as gold trades globally. The fix is a single benchmark price struck at two set times, used specifically for settling contracts and valuations. The two track each other closely, but the fix’s value is its role as an agreed, published reference point that everyone can rely on.

A note on transparency

The fixing process attracted scrutiny in the past over concerns about how the price was set behind closed doors. The 2015 overhaul to an electronic, independently administered, and regulated auction was designed precisely to address this — making the benchmark more transparent, auditable, and trustworthy than the old dealer-room method.

The bottom line

The London gold fix — today the LBMA Gold Price — is the twice-daily benchmark that gives the world a single, transparent reference price for gold, set through an electronic auction at 10:30am and 3:00pm London time. It underpins everything from bullion premiums to ETF valuations. Knowing how it works turns the abstract “price of gold” into something concrete you can understand and trust.