Gold buyers in India have been reading HUID codes since 2021. Since 1 September 2025, silver has had them too. A piece of silver jewellery or an artefact hallmarked under the current Indian standard carries a six-character code that can be looked up, and the code ties that one piece to the record made when it was tested. This page sets out what the government has published about the silver scheme, from two releases by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, and what the code does and does not tell you. It puts no value on any piece.
What changed in September 2025
The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has run silver hallmarking on a voluntary basis since October 2005. In 2025 it revised the standard behind it, publishing IS 2112:2025 to replace IS 2112:2014. A Press Information Bureau release of 4 September 2025 says the revision introduces HUID-based hallmarking for silver jewellery and articles, on a voluntary basis, from 1 September 2025, bringing silver in line with the gold system.
The word “voluntary” needs care, because a second release, on 4 December 2025, uses the word “mandatory” too. Both are true at once. The release puts it this way: while the silver hallmarking scheme remains voluntary, HUID marking has been made mandatory for any silver article that is hallmarked. A jeweller does not have to hallmark silver at all. But a piece that is hallmarked under the scheme now has to carry an HUID. Gold, by contrast, has its own mandatory hallmarking scheme; the guide to HUID numbers covers the gold scheme.
The three-part silver hallmark
Under IS 2112:2025 the silver hallmark has three components, according to the September release:
- the BIS Standard Mark with the word SILVER, which says the piece was hallmarked under the BIS scheme and that it is silver;
- the purity grade, a number in parts per thousand, such as 925;
- the HUID code, described in the December release as a six-digit alphanumeric code laser-marked on each hallmarked silver article.
The older 2014 hallmark looked different. It had four components: the BIS mark with the word SILVER, the purity grade or fineness, the assay (testing) centre’s identification mark, and the jeweller’s or manufacturer’s identification mark. Silver hallmarked before September 2025 may therefore carry centre and jeweller marks and no HUID, and that is not by itself a sign that anything is wrong. It is the earlier format.
The grades a silver hallmark can show
The 2025 standard has seven purity grades: 800, 835, 925, 958, 970, 990 and 999. The release says 958 and 999 were newly added. The 2014 standard had six: 800, 835, 900, 925, 970 and 990. So 900 appears only on the older format. Each grade is parts of pure silver per thousand, so 925 means 92.5% pure silver. The India silver hallmark grades tool sets the two lists side by side and notes that the BIS FAQ page still showed the 2014 list when this site checked it.
The December release gives a sense of which grades are actually used. It says purity grades 925 and 800 make up nearly 90% of all items hallmarked under the new system, and that payal or anklets are the largest single category, mostly hallmarked at 800. A grade of 800 is therefore an ordinary mark for an Indian silver anklet, not a sign of a lesser piece made to look like a better one: it is the grade the piece was made and tested to.
Checking an HUID in BIS Care
The code is meant to be checked. The December release says a buyer can enter the HUID in the BIS CARE mobile app, on Android and iOS, and see the purity of the article, the type of jewellery, details of the jeweller who submitted it for hallmarking and details of the Assaying and Hallmarking Centre. The September release lists the date of hallmarking and the jeweller’s registration number among the details shown for silver hallmarked after 1 September 2025.
Reading the result is a matter of comparison. The app shows what was recorded when the piece was tested. If the record says “anklet, 925” and the piece in your hand is a ring stamped 800, the code does not belong to that piece. If the record matches, it tells you the piece was submitted and tested under the scheme.
What a silver HUID does not tell you
- Anything about silver hallmarked before September 2025. Those pieces were marked under the 2014 format and have no HUID to look up.
- That an unhallmarked piece is not silver. Silver hallmarking remains voluntary, so genuine silver is also sold without any BIS mark.
- The weight of silver. The grade is a proportion. The amount of pure silver depends on the weight: grade × weight ÷ 1,000.
- A price. The hallmark records fineness. What the metal is worth at today’s rate is a melt-value question, and the silver value calculator answers that one. What a shop pays or charges for the piece is a separate number again.
Silver hallmarks elsewhere
India’s system is one of several. In the UK, silver of 7.78 g or more must be hallmarked by an assay office before it can be described as silver in trade; in the US, no independent test is required and the stamp is the seller’s claim. The silver purity by country table compares them, and what 925 means follows the most common grade through all three.
Sources
- Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, “Voluntary Based Silver Hallmarking Begins from September, 1st 2025” (4 September 2025, release ID 2163768), read 20 October 2026.
- Press Information Bureau, “Update on Mandatory HUID for Silver Jewellery” (4 December 2025, release ID 2198764), read 20 October 2026.