- GoldBod Sets September 1 Deadline for XRF-Based Gold Purity Testing
The Ghana Gold Board has ordered licensed gold buyers and aggregators to adopt X-Ray Fluorescence testing as the standard method for determining gold purity from September 1, 2026, marking a significant tightening of quality-control rules in Ghana’s domestic gold trading market.
Under a compliance notice dated August 17, GoldBod said XRF assay will become the standard basis for determining the purity of all gold doré purchased by the Board and its licensed buyers. The regulator said the widely used water-density method will no longer constitute the definitive basis for determining purity once the new regime takes effect.
The shift is intended to reduce discrepancies in gold valuation and introduce greater consistency at the point of purchase, where differences in purity assessments can directly affect the amount paid to miners and sellers.
GoldBod is strongly advising all licensed buyers to acquire suitable XRF devices and ensure staff are properly trained to operate the equipment, while maintaining appropriate records of measurements for every purchase.
The directive goes further for aggregators. GoldBod has instructed all licensed aggregators to acquire appropriate XRF machines and deploy them to their respective Tier 1 and Tier 2 buyers, or sub-aggregators, so that purity can be determined more accurately and consistently closer to the source of the gold.
That requirement could have important implications for the operating costs of licensed participants, particularly smaller buyers that may previously have relied heavily on simpler testing methods.
The regulator’s position, however, is that investment in XRF equipment should become a priority because indicative purity assessments can create pricing disputes and inconsistencies further along the trading chain.
GoldBod has nevertheless provided a transitional mechanism for situations where XRF equipment is genuinely unavailable because of operational or logistical constraints. In such cases, a licensed buyer may still use the water-density method, but the resulting purity measurement must be treated as indicative rather than final.
Where that exception is used, GoldBod recommends that the gold doré be purchased at a purity discount of at least 0.50% from the result produced by the water-density method. The gold must subsequently be reassessed by GoldBod using XRF, with that later test becoming the basis for the final purity determination and applicable payment.
The framework is designed partly to reduce the financial risk arising when gold is bought on the basis of an initial purity estimate that later proves inaccurate. In a high-value commodity market, even relatively small differences in purity can translate into significant monetary discrepancies once applied across large volumes of gold.
GoldBod is also introducing a formal tolerance for differences between successive XRF tests. Licensed buyers are directed to apply an appropriate purity-deviation or “splitting” limit when comparing XRF reports for the same gold or transaction.
The permissible difference between one XRF report and another has been fixed at ±0.05%. Any purity differential exceeding that limit must undergo further verification and reconciliation before the transaction is concluded or reported to GoldBod.
That provision is particularly important because XRF testing itself does not eliminate the possibility of disagreement. Differences can still arise from equipment calibration, sampling, surface conditions or operating procedures, meaning the tolerance provides a common regulatory threshold beyond which further scrutiny becomes compulsory.
The new rules therefore seek to standardise not only the technology used for testing but also the way conflicting results are handled. A common testing framework could reduce disputes between miners, aggregators, licensed buyers and GoldBod by narrowing the scope for different participants to rely on materially different purity assessments.
The notice also makes compliance part of the licensing framework. GoldBod said the requirements will be deemed to form part of the terms and conditions governing licences issued to aggregators and licensed gold buyers, effectively converting the technical standard into an enforceable regulatory obligation.
Failure to comply will constitute a breach of licence conditions and may attract regulatory and enforcement action under the Ghana Gold Board Act, 2025 (Act 1140). Licensed buyers have consequently been instructed to take the necessary steps to ensure full operational readiness before September 1.
The new purity regime forms part of GoldBod’s wider effort to introduce greater control, transparency and standardisation into Ghana’s gold trading architecture. Accurate purity determination is central to that objective because the value of gold transactions depends not simply on weight and prevailing international prices, but on how much actual gold is contained in the doré being purchased.
For market participants, the immediate task will be acquiring equipment, training personnel and putting record-keeping and reconciliation systems in place before the deadline.
For GoldBod, the bigger test will be whether uniform application of XRF testing can reduce pricing disputes, strengthen confidence in domestic gold transactions and create a more transparent chain from the point of purchase to final aggregation and export.
From September 1, that chain will operate under a much tighter technical standard. The message from GoldBod is clear: gold purity in Ghana’s licensed market will increasingly be determined by verifiable assay rather than indicative measurement.
