Nippon India Silver ETF (NSE: SILVERBEES), often called Silver BeES, is India's largest silver ETF by assets. This review sets out what it holds, how closely it follows silver, what it costs against other silver ETFs, and when its fund-of-funds version is the better route. It explains the fund; it does not tell you whether to buy it.
Quick Facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| NSE symbol | SILVERBEES |
| Launched | 2 February 2022 |
| Assets (AUM) | ₹32,223 crore (31 August 2026), the largest silver ETF in India |
| Expense ratio | 0.58% a year (checked 28 September 2026) |
| What one unit is worth | About 1 gram of silver; NAV ₹211.37 on 28 September 2026 |
| Holdings | 98.58% silver of 99.9% purity, 1.42% cash (31 August 2026) |
| Benchmark | Domestic price of silver, based on the LBMA daily silver fixing |
| Fund manager | Vikram Dhawan (since February 2022) |
| Exit load | None |
| Minimum investment | 1 unit on the exchange; 31,000 units directly with the AMC |
What You Actually Own
Each unit is a claim on roughly one gram of physical silver held by a custodian in the fund's allocated account. You buy and sell units on the NSE through any broker, and they land in your demat account the next working day. There is no making charge, GST or storage to worry about.
Large investors can also create or redeem units directly with Nippon, but only in blocks of 31,000 units (about ₹69.6 lakh at the 31 August 2026 NAV), so for almost everyone the exchange is the way in and out.
Performance
Nippon's factsheet reports these returns to 31 August 2026:
| Period | Nippon India Silver ETF | Domestic silver price (benchmark) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | 97.26% | 100.87% | −3.6 points |
| 3 years (a year) | 45.01% | 47.02% | −2.0 points a year |
| Since launch (a year) | 32.78% | 34.28% | −1.5 points a year |
One-year returns swing wildly with the start date. Measured to 28 September 2026 instead, the one-year return drops to 59.25%, because the starting point moved past a sharp September 2025 rally.
The 2026 crash
The ETF's NAV rose from ₹218.32 on 31 December 2025 to a record ₹359.32 on 29 January 2026, then fell 44% to ₹199.75 by 23 March 2026. On 28 September it stood at ₹211.37, about 41% below the peak and 3% down for the year. The fund did what it is built to do and followed silver down. For what drove the fall, read Silver ETFs in 2026: the January peak and the 44% crash.
How Well Does It Track Silver?
An ETF can never beat its benchmark, because fees and cash come out first. The question is how big the gap is. Silver BeES trailed the silver price by about 2 percentage points a year over three years, more than its 0.58% fee alone would explain. The rest comes from things like the cash it holds (1.42% at the end of August), which earns nothing while silver rises, and dealing costs.
Tracking error, a measure of how much its day-to-day moves differ from silver's, was 0.79% on a one-year basis as calculated by sharpely on 27 September 2026. That is mid-range for Indian silver ETFs: ICICI Prudential Silver ETF was the tightest at 0.55%. Nippon publishes its own tracking figures in its monthly disclosures.
Cost Compared With Other Silver ETFs
| Fund | Expense ratio | AUM (₹ Cr) | Tracking error |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nippon India Silver ETF | 0.58% | 32,223 | 0.79% |
| ICICI Prudential Silver ETF | 0.40% | 15,108 | 0.55% |
| HDFC Silver ETF | 0.50% | 8,313 | 0.94% |
| Kotak Silver ETF | 0.35% | 3,955 | 0.60% |
| Aditya Birla Sun Life Silver ETF | 0.35% | 2,994 | 0.72% |
AUM as of 31 August 2026; expense ratios checked 28–29 September 2026; tracking error calculated by sharpely as of 27 September 2026. All 13 silver ETFs are in our silver ETF comparison.
Silver BeES is one of the more expensive silver ETFs: 0.23 percentage points a year more than the cheapest. What you get for that is size. With more than twice the assets of the next-largest fund, it is usually the most heavily traded, which tends to mean a tighter gap between buy and sell prices. That matters for large lump sums; for small monthly purchases the lower fee of a cheaper ETF can matter more.
Silver BeES or the Nippon India Silver ETF FoF?
Nippon also runs a fund of funds that simply invests in this ETF. You buy it like any mutual fund, with no demat account, and it takes monthly SIPs directly from the AMC.
| Silver ETF (SILVERBEES) | Silver ETF FoF, Direct | Silver ETF FoF, Regular | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Demat account needed | Yes | No | No |
| How you buy | On the NSE through a broker | From the AMC or a direct-plan platform | Through a distributor |
| Fees | 0.58% | 0.22% on top of the ETF's own costs | Higher than Direct (includes distributor commission) |
| 1-year return to 28 Sep 2026 | 59.25% | 56.79% | 56.33% |
| 3-year return a year | 44.86% | 43.60% | 43.15% |
| Long-term for tax after | 12 months | 24 months | 24 months |
Returns calculated from AMFI NAVs. FoF Direct expense ratio from sharpely (September 2026); FoF AUM was ₹4,561 crore on 31 August 2026.
The FoF trailed the ETF by about 2.5 percentage points over the past year and 1.3 points a year over three years: the price of convenience. Within the FoF, the Regular plan lagged the Direct plan by roughly 0.45 points a year. If you use the FoF, choose the Direct plan.
Rule of thumb: if you already have a demat account, the ETF is cheaper and qualifies for long-term tax sooner. If you want automatic SIPs without a demat account and will hold for more than two years, the Direct FoF is simpler.
How It Is Taxed
- Silver BeES (ETF): for units sold on or after 1 April 2025, gains after more than 12 months are taxed at 12.5% without indexation; gains within 12 months are taxed at your slab rate.
- Silver ETF FoF: the same 12.5%, but only after more than 24 months.
- Silver is not equity, so the ₹1.25 lakh yearly exemption does not apply.
Who It Suits
- Fits: investors who want a small silver slice, typically 1–3% of the portfolio, held for years, and who value liquidity for larger trades.
- Look elsewhere: if cost is your priority, cheaper silver ETFs charge 0.35–0.40%. If you want gold's lower volatility, see Best Gold ETFs 2026.
- Be careful: silver fell 44% in under two months in 2026. Only hold an amount whose fall you could sit through.
For NRIs
NRIs can buy Silver BeES through a demat and trading account linked to an NRE or NRO account; your broker will tell you whether a PIS permission is needed. US residents should be aware that Indian ETFs and mutual funds are generally treated as PFICs by the IRS, which makes them expensive to hold from a US tax point of view. See our PFIC guide and the NRI planning hub.
The Bottom Line
Nippon India Silver ETF is the biggest and most traded way to own silver in India. It follows the metal faithfully, but it is not the cheapest: its fee is about 0.2 percentage points higher than the lowest-cost rivals. Choose it for liquidity; choose a cheaper ETF for small, regular buys; choose the Direct FoF if you have no demat account and a holding period of more than two years.
This review explains how the fund works and what it costs. It is not a recommendation to buy or sell.