Silver Price Rose 144% in 2025; Will 2026 See a Repeat?

• After a gain of 144% last year, the silver price has risen over 40% this year so far, with Bank of America analysts projecting it could reach as high as $309 an ounce.
• Silver is in a 5-year structural supply deficit, and shortages of physical metal could cause prices to rise even further.
• Safe haven buying of silver is increasing, with geopolitical uncertainty helping push more people into safe haven assets.

With a price gain of 144% last year, silver was one of the best-performing assets of 2025. But will the white metal be able to keep up that kind of momentum in 2026?

So far this year the answer seems to be yes, as silver has risen another 42%, continuing to set all-time highs. Silver seemed to hit $100 an ounce easily, while some think silver could continue to climb to $150, or even over $300 an ounce.

For silver owners, these prices have been a vindication of their trust in silver, which has been undervalued versus gold for years. For those looking to buy silver, the recent price increases are probably causing many to wish they had bought silver sooner.

Now the question most people ask is, will silver continue its strong momentum of upward price movement? And where will the silver price end up in 2026?

Factors Behind Silver Price Surge

Like all goods, the silver price is determined by the interplay between supply and demand. Unlike gold, which according to the World Gold Council sees approximately 7% of its demand each year coming from industry and technology, silver normally sees about 50-60% of its demand coming from industrial demand.

According to the Silver Institute, net physical investment demand for silver has averaged about 21% of overall silver demand over the past five years, while industrial demand has averaged about 54% of silver demand.

But there are some elements unique to silver that are helping push the silver price higher today. Let’s look at five of the reasons the silver price is surging today.

1. Shortage of Physical Silver

For the past five years silver demand has exceeded silver supply. That is to say, the amount of physical silver used has exceeded the amount of physical silver produced.

From 2021 to 2025, the total shortfall between silver demand and silver supply was almost 800 million ounces. Put into perspective against annual silver supply, that means that the amount of silver used that couldn’t be met by supply was equivalent to over 75% of last year’s entire silver supply.

That is a huge shortfall, and many silver market observers have warned over the years that such a shortfall could not be sustainable, and that it would eventually result in higher silver prices.

It looks like what they had been predicting is finally coming true. Now that the physical silver shortage has been going on long enough, that shortage is finally beginning to be felt in silver markets, or at least the fear that physical silver is in short supply.

2. Paper Silver vs. Physical Silver

One of the reasons there is fear of a silver shortage is because of the difference between paper and physical silver. Physical silver is the 1000-ounce bars that trade on international markets and that are the backbone of physical silver markets.

Paper silver refers to things like silver futures or shares in silver exchange-traded funds (ETFs), assets which derive their value from an underlying physical asset, in this case silver, but which are in and of themselves not an actual physical asset.

The reason this is important is because many traders of paper silver don’t care if they own physical silver or not. They’re trying to make a few bucks by buying and selling futures or options, or by trading ETF shares.

Put yourself in their shoes. If you buy 100 shares of a silver ETF, and the price goes up 50%, and you sell for a big profit, does it matter to you that you didn’t actually own physical silver or couldn’t convert your shares into silver? Probably not.

For many traders, they’re happy to see these contracts settling for cash rather than physical silver delivery. But with a shortage of almost 800 million ounces of silver over the past five years, an increasing number of silver users are going to futures markets to buy silver, and they want physical silver delivered.

If you need 100,000 ounces of silver to make solar panels, or electronics, or jewelry, a contract that settles in cash and gives you a cash profit doesn’t help you when you need that physical silver to produce your goods.

Let’s say you make a $3 million profit on that contract, but you still have an entire factory full of workers and machinery sitting idle because you’re waiting on that silver to make your solar panels. You need that silver to keep doing business, and paper silver isn’t going to cut it.

Some people have speculated that the final impetus for a real spike in the silver price could be in the case when someone who needs and expects physical delivery is faced with a force majeure situation, meaning that a contract in which they expect physical delivery is forced into cash settlement because the exchange doesn’t actually have enough silver to deliver to fulfill the contract.

If such a scenario were to happen, it could spook other silver users, causing them to panic and try to buy up as much physical silver as possible in order to keep something similar from happening to them. And that could send silver prices soaring.

Could 2026 be the year that something like that happens?

3. Safe Haven Demand for Silver

Another factor helping drive prices higher is safe haven demand. Silver serves as a safe haven asset just as gold does, and safe haven demand for silver is finally catching up.

With the US economy facing a shaky job market, sticky inflation, and fear of a potential stock market downturn, many Americans are looking for assets to help keep them safe in the event that the economy sours.

Silver could help play that role, and with silver having seen such phenomenal growth last year, many people buying silver today are undoubtedly hoping that silver could continue to see even more growth in the future.

4. Geopolitical Uncertainty Helping Drive Silver Demand

Uncertainty about the US economy isn’t the only factor helping drive silver demand. Geopolitical uncertainty is becoming an increasingly important factor this year too.

Tariffs may have been the threat in 2025, but trade war or even all-out war are fears in 2026. With a raid on Venezuela, the threat of intervention in Iran, and saber rattling surrounding Greenland, the world suddenly seems to be a very unstable place.

This heightened geopolitical uncertainty could help boost gold and silver prices.

5. Heightened Retail Interest in Silver

Any time you have an asset that surges 144% in a single year, then goes on to make double digit gains and set new record highs in the first month of the next year, you’re going to have interest from people who wouldn’t normally give that asset a second look.

That’s the case with silver today, which most of the time plays second fiddle to gold. But with the silver price having risen so much over the past year, people have begun to sit up and take notice.

According to the Silver Institute, net physical investment in gold increased 7% from 2024 to 2025. But that’s still 40% below its peak in 2023.

Will 2026 see an increase in demand for silver coins and bars as more interested buyers dive into silver to take advantage of price increases? Or will high prices discourage buyers and keep them on the sidelines hoping for price dips?

Even at these all-time high silver prices, someone is buying. We’ll just have to see whether 2026 continues the trend of greater retail demand for silver, whether in the form of silver coins and silver bars, or silver purchases by ETFs.

Are You Taking Advantage of Silver?

Silver’s performance over the past year isn’t a surprise to anyone who has studied the white metal and its historical price performance.

During the 1970s, the silver price rose at an annualized rate of over 30% per year over the course of the entire decade. And in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the silver price rose over 500% from its 2008 low to its 2011 high, more than double the gain that gold made.

Some analysts expect silver to hit over $150 an ounce this year, and some have even speculated that silver could hit as high as $300 an ounce. While you may think silver is high now, it could still have a lot of room to run.

If you want to add silver to your portfolio, Goldco has silver coin options available for you, whether you choose to make a direct cash purchase of silver or prefer to hold your silver coins in a silver IRA.

With prices rising every day, now is the time to decide whether you want to start putting silver to work for you. Call Goldco today to talk to one of our specialists and learn more about your silver buying options.