Palladium scrap is worth its weight in fine palladium, times its purity, less the refiner's payable percentage and refining charge. Scrap platinum, palladium and rhodium all price this way, off the live spot rate shown on palladium price today, which a scrap value calculator applies once weight, purity and an assumed payable percentage are entered.
How Much Is Palladium Scrap Worth?#
Palladium scrap is worth its metal content at the current spot price, minus a refining deduction, whether it arrives as jewelry, capacitors or spent catalyst. The deduction exists because a refiner pays for fine palladium after decanning, milling and sampling, not for gross weight. Refined palladium sponge, the standard commercial output of that process, carries a minimum purity of 99.95% (Umicore), the same 99.95% minimum LPPM Good Delivery rules set for palladium plate and ingot traded wholesale in London.
Palladium Scrap Value by Weight and Purity#
Palladium scrap value scales directly with weight in grams or troy ounces multiplied by fine palladium content, before any refiner deduction. A 1 troy ounce lot at 950 fine contains less recoverable metal than the same lot at 999 fine, and the gap widens with weight. The table below converts four common purities into fine palladium content at four weights, for use in a scrap calculator rather than as a dollar quote.
| Weight | 999 fine (99.9%) | Pd950 (95.0%) | Pd990 (99.0%) | Sponge, 99.95% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 g | 0.999 g | 0.950 g | 0.990 g | 0.9995 g |
| 10 g | 9.99 g | 9.50 g | 9.90 g | 9.995 g |
| 1 troy oz (31.1035 g) | 31.07 g | 29.55 g | 30.79 g | 31.09 g |
| 1 kg | 999 g | 950 g | 990 g | 999.5 g |
None of these rows carries a dollar figure; the calculator multiplies the relevant fine-content column by the live palladium price.
Palladium Purity Marks: Pd950, Pd990 and Sponge Grade#
Legacy Chinese palladium jewelry is marked Pd950 or Pd990, while refined palladium sponge is a minimum of 99.95% (Umicore). The Pd950 and Pd990 marks trace to China's jewelry fineness standard, GB 11887-2012, which historically recognized both grades alongside its more prominent Pt950/Pt900/Pt850 platinum series. A lot stamped Pd950 assays close to 95% fine palladium before alloying metal is accounted for; a Pd990 piece assays close to 99%. Neither reaches the 99.95% purity a refiner produces from palladium (Pd), element 46.
What Determines the Payout on Palladium Scrap#
A refiner pays less than 100% of a scrap lot's palladium content, deducting a payable percentage and a refining charge before settlement, the same mechanics used across platinum, palladium and rhodium. The payable percentage compensates the refiner for metal it cannot fully recover; the refining charge covers running the lot through assay, smelting and separation. Both are set per metal and per lot; see precious metal refining.
Payable Percentage and Refining Charges#
Ecotrade quotes a typical palladium payable percentage of 96% to 98% (Recohub: 98%), plus a treatment charge of US$200 to US$500 per lot and a refining charge of US$5 to US$25 per troy ounce, equal to roughly US$161 to US$805 per kilogram at 31.1035 g per troy ounce. Rhodium's payable percentage runs lower, 88% to 93% on Ecotrade's terms or 94% to 95% on Recohub's, a gap the trade attributes to how much harder rhodium is to take fully into solution during separation; see rhodium scrap for its own payout mechanics. The table below sets platinum and palladium against rhodium on both sources.
| Source | Platinum and palladium payable | Rhodium payable |
|---|---|---|
| Ecotrade | 96% to 98% | 88% to 93% |
| Recohub | 98% | 94% to 95% |
A seller who does not pre-fix is settled at the market rate on the day the assay is approved, so the payable percentage and refining charge, not the spot price, are what to negotiate before material ships.
Where Palladium Scrap Comes From#
Palladium scrap reaches refiners from four main sources: catalytic converters, electronics and capacitors, jewelry, and dental alloys. Each source assays and settles differently, and only one of the four, jewelry, is a shrinking rather than a growing stream.
- Catalytic converters, the dominant source by volume, decanned and milled before assay.
- Electronics and capacitors, recovered mainly through board-level smelting rather than device-level sorting.
- Jewelry, an aging stock of legacy Chinese pieces rather than current fabrication.
- Dental alloys, a distinct recovery stream from dental laboratories and refiners.
Catalytic Converters#
Catalytic converters are palladium's largest scrap source, ahead of electronics, jewelry and dental alloys combined. Palladium is the dominant metal by mass in a gasoline three-way catalyst, which is why converter scrap sets the pace of palladium's secondary supply; converter-specific valuation and buyers are covered on how much is a catalytic converter worth.
Electronics and Capacitors#
Electronics and capacitors contribute a smaller, harder-to-assay palladium stream than converters or jewelry. Palladium was historically used as the internal electrode in multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs), though base-metal nickel has displaced it in most volume grades; see electronic scrap. No published figure gives the palladium mass per capacitor or per board, so a lot of mixed electronic boards is milled and assayed the same way converter material is, with the grade set by how many legacy palladium-electrode parts happen to be present.
Palladium Jewelry: A Shrinking, Aging Scrap Stream#
Chinese palladium jewelry consumption peaked at 37 tonnes in 2005 and has since fallen to 0.8% of total palladium demand in 2025 (83 of 10,140 koz), according to Johnson Matthey. That collapse followed a relative price shift favoring platinum, leaving millions of Pd950 and Pd990 pieces in Chinese households bought as a fashion and gifting metal, not a store of value. Those pieces are now the scrap stream itself, a category defined more by what is coming back than by what is being made.
Dental Alloys#
Dental alloys form a separate, smaller palladium scrap stream from converters, electronics and jewelry. Palladium-based dental alloys have their own recovery route through dental laboratories and refiners; see dental scrap.
How Much Palladium Recycling Supplies the Market#
Recycling from aging jewelry is now 14.6% the size of annual palladium jewelry demand (12 of 82 koz forecast for 2026), Johnson Matthey's clearest example of a legacy stream outliving the market it served. The share has climbed every year on record, from 10.2% in 2021 to the 14.6% forecast for 2026, even as demand keeps falling, because returning legacy jewelry is rising while new fabrication shrinks.
| Year | Jewelry demand (koz) | Jewelry-scrap recycling (koz) | Recycling as % of demand |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 88 | 9 | 10.2% |
| 2022 | 87 | 10 | 11.5% |
| 2023 | 87 | 10 | 11.5% |
| 2024 | 85 | 10 | 11.8% |
| 2025 | 83 | 11 | 13.3% |
| 2026f | 82 | 12 | 14.6% |
Whether there is a shortage of palladium, and whether its price is trending up, are covered with their own supply-demand and outlook figures on the palladium market and palladium price forecast.
Selling Palladium Scrap#
Selling palladium scrap means choosing a refiner, agreeing an assay method and a price-fixing basis, and receiving payment on the payable weight. The sequence matches platinum and rhodium scrap: weighing, decanning where applicable, milling, sampling, moisture correction, a preliminary screening assay and a final settlement assay.
Get a Palladium Scrap Quote#
A palladium scrap quote should state the payable percentage, the refining charge and the price-fixing window before any material is shipped. A quote missing any of the three cannot be compared against another dealer's terms.
Palladium Price per Gram, Kilogram and Chart#
Palladium scrap value tracks the live price per gram and kilogram, and the price chart, each on a dedicated page.
Other Platinum Group Metal Scrap#
The other platinum group metals sold as scrap, platinum and rhodium, each have their own scrap value page.
| Metal | Scrap page | Main valuation basis |
|---|---|---|
| Platinum | Scrap platinum price | Weight times fine content at spot, minus payable percentage and refining charge |
| Rhodium | Rhodium scrap | Weight times fine content at spot, minus a lower payable percentage and refining charge |
Palladium Scrap FAQ#
How much is 1 oz of palladium scrap worth?#
Palladium scrap sells for its fine palladium content at the live spot price, before the refiner's payable percentage and refining charge. That price is the one shown on palladium price today; a 1 troy ounce lot at 950 fine carries roughly 29.55 g of fine palladium against the 31.10 g a 999-fine ounce would carry, and spot applies only to that fine content.
Why is palladium scrap paid below the spot price?#
Palladium scrap is paid below the spot price because the payable percentage (96% to 98%) and the refining charge (US$5 to US$25 per troy ounce) are deducted before settlement, per Ecotrade's published terms. Those two deductions apply after the assay sets the lot's fine content, so the final cheque reflects fine palladium at spot, less both charges, not gross weight at spot.
Why is palladium jewelry scrap now a bigger share of the market than palladium jewelry demand?#
Palladium jewelry scrap now runs at 14.6% of current demand (12 of 82 koz, 2026f) because 2000s-era Chinese jewelry, made when palladium was cheap relative to platinum, is still being sold back long after that fabrication market collapsed. New demand has fallen every year since 2021, while the pool of legacy pieces still being liquidated has not, so the recycling share keeps rising.