Why Is Gold Futures Price Higher Than Spot? GC vs XAUUSD

Gold futures trade above spot mainly because of carry (the interest a buyer saves by taking gold later, minus the lease income given up by not owning it now), and on November 12, 2026 that left the December COMEX contract $7.00 over spot, about what dollar carry to its first delivery day predicts. The gap is not one number: it grows with each later delivery month, and in 2025 a location premium for gold held in New York pushed it past $100 an ounce.

Why is the gold futures price higher than spot?

A futures buyer gets the gold later and keeps the cash until then, so the futures price adds the interest on that cash and subtracts the lease income a holder of physical gold could have earned. When dollar rates sit above gold lease rates, each later month prices higher than the one before, a shape called contango (a futures curve that rises with each later delivery month).

It is the same financing logic that puts ES above the S&P 500 cash index, except that gold has a lease rate where an index has dividends. Anh Le and Haoxiang Zhu define it by example in their NBER paper on gold lease rates: an "investor lending 100 ounces of gold at a lease rate of 2% per annum will earn 102 ounces of gold after a year." Lease rates averaged about 1% a year in their 1991 to 2007 sample, and their chart shows a range from below 0% to about 4% between 1991 and 2012.

The working formula is futures = spot x (1 + (dollar rate - lease rate) x days / 360). For the dollar rate we use SOFR (Secured Overnight Financing Rate), which the New York Fed published at 3.89% for November 10, 2026. Days run from the spot value date (two business days after the trade, per the LBMA) to the first delivery day. Under the COMEX delivery rules filed with the CFTC, delivery can take place on any business day from the first to the last business day of the delivery month, and it "may be made by the seller upon such business day during the designated delivery period as the seller may select." A seller who sold the future receives the same price whichever day it delivers, while holding gold costs financing every day, so when dollar rates exceed lease rates the seller delivers as early as possible and the contract prices to that day: 15 days from Monday November 16 to Tuesday December 1, 2026.

Counting to the last trading day instead (the third last business day of the month, December 29, 2026, 43 days) gives $18.04 of carry at a zero lease rate and makes December look $11.04 cheap. That shortfall comes from the end date, not from the market.

The lease rate is the input a trader cannot look up. The LBMA announced in December 2014 that "The Gold Forward Offered Rate (GOFO) dataset will be discontinued and no longer be published after 30 January, 2015." We found no public benchmark lease rate published since, so every lease input in this article is illustrative.

How much higher than spot was gold futures in November 2026?

About what carry predicts: on three November 2026 dates the December contract sat $6.43 to $11.90 over spot, while SOFR carry to the first delivery day at a zero lease rate called for $6.29 to $9.21, a difference of $0.71 to $2.69 either way. Each row pairs spot and December prices from the same Reuters report, the closest public substitute for a simultaneous quote.

Computed by Phoenix Technologies from Reuters quotes carried by CNBC and SOFR of 3.89%; method: carry = spot x 3.89% x days / 360, lease rate 0, days from spot value date to December's first delivery day, December 1, 2026.

On November 12 the front month sat $0.71 above dollar carry. The Reuters report on CNBC for November 12 reads "Spot gold dipped 2.7% to $3,881.70 per ounce by 1:36 p.m. ET", with December futures at $3,888.70. Over 15 days that $7.00 gap implies financing of 4.33% a year, against SOFR at 3.89%; the same calculation gives 5.02% on November 6 and 3.23% on November 11.

An illustrative lease rate moves carry further below the screen: $5.48 at 0.5% and $4.67 at 1%, against $7.00. On November 12 the gap left no room for a positive lease rate at SOFR, so the market priced dollar funding a little above SOFR; no public source we found quantifies that spread. Le and Zhu note that delivery options distort lease estimates taken from futures, so treat any lease rate backed out of one contract as rough.

Picture three bars on one baseline for November 12: spot at $3,881.70, spot plus zero-lease carry to December 1 at $3,887.99, and the December contract at $3,888.70, $0.71 above the prediction. Ghost tops for 0.5% and 1% lease sit lower, at $3,887.18 and $3,886.37, and a dashed marker at $3,899.74 shows where counting to December 29 would put it.

Why does the gap change with the delivery month?

Carry accrues per day, so a contract 77 days from its first delivery day carries more than one 15 days out, and in November 2026 the later months also carried a little more per day than the front. The two steps we could price after December, to February and on to April, cost $31.20 and $31.60, about $5 to $7 more than SOFR carry for the same step.

These step prices are last trades from the Yahoo Finance futures chain on November 12, 2026, not settlements, so treat them as approximate. December to February, measured from December 1 to February 1, was $31.20 over 62 days, an implied 4.66% a year against SOFR carry of $26.05. February to April was $31.60 over 59 days (4.92%) against $24.99. April to June showed $42.50, but the June quote looked stale, so we leave the steps that touch June out.

One guide (onlinegold.org, October 31, 2026) teaches carry of "about $12 to $13 per month to delivery" without saying which delivery day. Counted to the first delivery day the rule fits: half a month to December 1 gives about $5.90 to $6.40 against $7.00 on the screen. Counted to the last trading day it gives about $17 to $18.40 and overstates the December gap.

The table turns the gap into money. GC is 100 troy ounces, so $1 an ounce is $100 per contract; Micro Gold (MGC) is 10 ounces with a $0.10 tick worth $1.00, according to a COMEX filing on Micro Gold. 1-Ounce Gold moves $1 per $1 and ticks in $0.25. Other contracts are in our futures tick value chart.

Computed by Phoenix Technologies; method: carry = $3,881.70 x 3.89% x days / 360, days from November 16, 2026 to the first business day of each delivery month; observed gap = the $7.00 December gap plus Yahoo calendar spreads, stitched across two snapshot times.

A February contract therefore sat about five and a half times further from XAUUSD than December did. Picture three carry lines in dollars over spot, starting at $0 on day 0 and reaching $75.50, $65.79 and $56.09 at day 180, for lease rates of 0%, 0.5% and 1%. December (15 days, $7.00 over spot) sits just above the 0% line ($6.29), and February (77 days, $38.20) and April (136 days, $69.80) sit further above it, so the curve implied financing of 4.33% to 4.76%, a little above SOFR.

What is the gold EFP, and why does New York gold carry a premium?

The EFP (exchange for physical, a trade that swaps a futures position for physical metal) is quoted in gold as COMEX futures over London spot, and the part beyond financing is a premium for metal in New York in a COMEX-deliverable bar. In quiet times it is near zero: Prehn Institute's analysis puts the financing-adjusted premium at an average of 0.02% of spot through October 2024.

The premium can open because London gold cannot simply be delivered on COMEX. The COMEX rulebook, in a CME filing to the CFTC, lists the GC deliverable as "Either one (1) 100 troy ounce bar, or three (3) one (1) kilo bars." London's standard bar is about 400 ounces: LBMA's January 2025 vault data, 8,535 tonnes in 682,772 bars, works out at about 402 ounces per bar.

Of the contracts in this article, only a separate one, Gold (Enhanced Delivery) futures, accepts the 400-ounce bar, through certificates of exchange. For GC, a London 400-ounce bar must be melted, recast into 100-ounce or kilo bars and shipped, which takes time and refinery capacity, and that bottleneck is one reason the premium can widen when demand for New York metal jumps.

Picture two vaults side by side: in London, one 400-ounce bar; on COMEX, one 100-ounce bar or three 1-kilo bars totalling 96.452 ounces, inside the contract's 5% weight tolerance. Between them sits a melt-and-recast step that cannot move at the speed of a screen.

What happened to the COMEX gold premium in 2025?

It blew out twice during the 2025 US tariff episode, to about $56 an ounce financing-adjusted in April 2025 and past $100 raw in August 2025, until an executive order exempted bullion in September 2025.

• January 2025. London vault holdings fell 151 tonnes. The LBMA's vault release said: "Given the flow of metal from London to New York, a 151 tonne decline in stocks in January is unsurprising." It does not say all of it went to New York.
• April 2 to 3, 2025. According to Reuters, the Comex premium over London fell to about $20 from $43 after the April 2 reciprocal tariffs excluded gold. "Usually, it is below $10," Reuters added.
• April 28, 2025. The financing-adjusted premium peaked at 1.71% of spot, $56 an ounce at a London price of $3,279, according to Prehn Institute.
• July 31 to August 8, 2025. A July 31 Customs and Border Protection letter, reported by the FT, put 1-kilo and 100-ounce bars under a tariffed customs code. Saxo reported December 2025 gold at a record $3,534, its premium over London "more than USD 100 from around USD 40 this time last week." Bloomberg reported a peak above $125 before it eased to about $101, which is $10,100 per GC contract.
• August 11, 2025. President Trump posted that gold would not be tariffed, and gold futures closed 2.48% lower at $3,404.70, CNBC reported.
• September 2 to 8, 2025. Prehn Institute records the adjusted premium at 2.27% on September 2. An executive order signed September 5, effective September 8, exempted bullion-related articles from the reciprocal tariffs, according to EY.

Saxo's figure of about $40 a week earlier was a raw gap for a contract about four months from its first delivery day, so most of it was likely ordinary carry. And Prehn concludes: "The popular explanation is not refuted for bullion-specific news, but it is not supported for the general tariff announcements that dominated the period."

On the timeline the episode reads as a flat baseline at 0.02% of spot, a first spike in April ($43 raw, $56 adjusted), a drop to about $20, a larger spike on August 8 (above $100, intraday above $125), then the August 11 post and the September 5 order. Saxo's explanation is that "the US futures market is often used by bullion banks globally as a highly liquid, around-the-clock hedging tool", so a tariff on the bars behind those hedges hit the spread directly.

We found no free, official daily EFP series from CME or the LBMA. Published figures come from bank and independent research and the trade press.

Why is XAUUSD different from GC and MGC?

XAUUSD on a CFD platform is a broker's spot-style quote with no expiry, so it sits near spot, while GC, MGC and 1-Ounce Gold are all priced off a COMEX delivery month and carry that month's gap. Both prices are correct; they are different instruments.

The small contracts are not small spot gold. COMEX's 2010 listing filing says MGC is "physically settled against the COMEX Division Gold Futures contract (100 troy ounces)", and the 1-Ounce Gold listing filing sets its final price equal to the GC settlement for the same month. COMEX filed a weekend market maker programme for 1-Ounce Gold from July 24, 2026 to October 30, 2026 unless extended, to support 24/7 trading; we found no notice of an extension (see which CME futures trade on weekends). Either way, a weekend print is still a delivery-month price, gap included.

On the CFD side the broker sets the quote, charges or pays an overnight swap instead of building carry into the price, and picks the lot size, often 10 or 100 ounces. Which liquidity source and markup a broker uses is generally not published. See futures and CFD prop accounts compared for the structural differences and symbol mapping across brokers for ounces per lot.

Picture two paths ending on your two screens. The left runs from an OTC spot-style quote through the broker (no expiry, swap, broker lot size) to XAUUSD. The right runs from the COMEX order book to GC at 100 ounces, then splits to MGC at 10 ounces and 1-Ounce Gold at 1 ounce, all carrying the delivery month's gap: $7.00 for December on November 12, 2026, about $38 for February.

If a TradingView GC chart and an MT5 XAUUSD chart differ by about that carry, both are working. Other gaps, such as bid versus last prices or a delayed feed, belong to the checklist for a chart that disagrees with your broker.

What do most gold futures vs spot explanations get wrong?

They give one fixed number for a gap that depends on the contract month, and they skip the lease rate and the location premium.

• Myth: GC always trades $10 to $30 above spot. False. We could not trace this rule to a dated source, and December sat $6.43 to $11.90 over spot on three November 2026 dates while February sat about $38.20.
• Myth: futures above spot means the market expects gold to rise. False. Arbitrage sets the gap at financing minus lease, so contango appears whenever dollar rates exceed lease rates, whatever traders expect.
• Myth: the premium is mostly storage and insurance. Unsupported. No public source in our research sizes those costs, and SOFR carry alone ($6.29 to December 1) accounts for about 90% of the $7.00 December gap.
• Myth: lease rates are published daily, so carry is exact. False. GOFO ended in 2015 and we found no public replacement.
• Myth: MGC and 1-Ounce Gold are spot gold in a small size. False. Both settle against GC.
• Myth: gold went to New York because GC takes London bars. False. GC takes 100-ounce or 1-kilo bars, not 400-ounce bars.
• Myth: LBMA PM minus COMEX settlement gives the basis. False. The LBMA auctions start at 10:30 and 15:00 London time, and the COMEX settlement comes later in the New York day.

On November 11, 2026 the LBMA PM price was $4,014.00 (as republished by GoldSilver.com) and COMEX gold settled at $3,992.00 (Dow Jones headline via GoldSeek), suggesting futures $22.00 below spot. The same-day Reuters pair showed December $6.43 above spot; gold had fallen between timestamps, from an AM price of $4,050.25. Even the chart close, $4,000.50 on Investing.com, differs from the settle, as our CME settlement price explainer shows.

How do you convert a GC or MGC stop to XAUUSD?

Subtract the live gap from every futures level, or better, carry the stop over as a distance from entry rather than a price. Pasting an absolute futures price onto XAUUSD shifts the stop by the full gap.

Worked example with November 12, 2026 prices and an illustrative $20 stop:

1. Long December GC at $3,888.70, stop $20 below at $3,868.70.
2. XAUUSD at the same moment is $3,881.70, so the gap is $7.00.
3. The matching XAUUSD stop is $3,868.70 - $7.00 = $3,861.70, still $20 below entry.
4. Paste $3,868.70 instead and the XAUUSD stop is $13 below entry: 35% tighter than planned, an error of $7 an ounce, $70 per 10 ounces.
5. After the roll to February the gap is about $38.20, a jump of $31.20. A February long at about $3,919.90 with a stop at $3,899.90, pasted onto XAUUSD at $3,881.70, puts the stop above entry, so the broker rejects it or it triggers at once.

That jump is a carry differential, not a market move, as explained in how futures rollover works. If you trade MGC, the 10-ounce micro, also check that your XAUUSD lot holds the same ounces before comparing dollar risk.

A trade copier does not remove the gap. Thor copies futures to a CFD account, so a GC or MGC master can drive an XAUUSD follower, but the follower fills at its own XAUUSD price. If your plan needs identical price levels on both accounts, trade the same instrument on both or set the levels on each account yourself.

A gold stop pasted from futures to XAUUSD moves by the whole gap, and the gap jumps at every roll.

Before you trade gold on two screens:

• If both screens show the same COMEX month, the prices should match within a tick or two; if not, look for a data or symbol problem, not basis.
• If one is GC and the other XAUUSD, measure futures minus XAUUSD live, at the same moment, never from a remembered number or an LBMA price.
• Sanity-check the gap against carry: at $3,881.70 and 3.89%, SOFR carry is about $0.42 an ounce per day to the first delivery day.
• If the gap runs tens of dollars above carry, look for location-premium news, as in April and August 2025, before blaming the feed.
• Move stops and targets as distances from entry, and re-measure the gap on roll day.

Go deeper

• Why ES Does Not Match the S&P 500: Basis, Fair Value and the Premium You Are Trading
• Symbol Mapping Across Brokers: Why "ES" Isn't Always "ES" When You're Copying Trades
• Futures Contract Rollover Explained: Roll Dates, the Front Month and Why Your Chart Gapped
• Futures vs CFD Prop Firms: Differences, Rules and Running Both

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. CME Group (NYMEX and COMEX), filed with the CFTC (2025), CFTC Regulation 40.6(a) Certification. Amendments to Rule 1XX101. ("Contract Specifications") of the Gold Futures and Gold (Enhanced Delivery) Futures Contracts and Rule 705.A.1. ("Procedures for the Issuance of Warrants") to Clarify the Weighing Requirements of Metal Eligible for Delivery. COMEX Submission No. 25-128 (2 of 2)
2. CME Group (COMEX), filed with the CFTC (2023), CFTC Regulation 40.2(a) Certification. Notification Regarding the Initial Listing of Micro Gold Option and Micro Gold Weekly Monday, Wednesday, and Friday Option Contracts. COMEX Submission No. 23-328 (4 of 4)
3. CME Group (COMEX), filed with the CFTC (2024), CFTC Regulation 40.2(a) Certification. Initial Listing of the 1-Ounce Gold Futures Contract. COMEX Submission No. 24-474
4. Federal Reserve Bank of New York (2026), Secured Overnight Financing Rate Data
5. London Bullion Market Association (2025), London Gold and Silver Vault Data for January 2025
6. Anh Le and Haoxiang Zhu, NBER conference paper (2013), Risk Premia in Gold Lease Rates
7. CNBC (Reuters) (2026), Gold drops to over one-year low as fading Middle East peace hopes fan inflation fears
8. Reuters via Yahoo Finance UK (2025), Exclusion from Trump's tariffs reduces premium of New York precious metals over London
9. Saxo Bank (2025), Tariff shock sends gold futures soaring - yet spot market holds the real signal
10. Prehn Institute (2026), The Tariff Story That the Data Only Half Support
11. CME Group (NYMEX and COMEX), filed with the CFTC (2015), NYMEX/COMEX Rulebook Chapter 7, Delivery Facilities and Procedures (Rules 706.B to 706.E), as filed with the CFTC
12. CME Group (COMEX), filed with the CFTC (2010), Rule Certification. Commodity Exchange, Inc. Submission #10-258: Notification Regarding the Listing of E-micro Gold Futures Contract for Trading on CME Globex