Is there a silver shortage?

Short answer: the market has run a structural deficit for six consecutive years — demand exceeds new supply, and the gap is being filled by drawing down above-ground stockpiles, including exchange vaults. Here is the arithmetic, using the same figures shown across VaultDrain.

The 2026 ledger

Supply comes from two places: mines and recycling. Demand comes from industry, investors, jewellers and more.

Mine supply

866 M oz

Grows only slowly year to year

Recycling

200 M oz

Scrap and recovered metal

Total demand

1113 M oz

Holding above 1.11 billion oz

Structural deficit 2026

47 M oz

1,066 M oz of total supply against 1,113 M oz of demand leaves the market roughly 47 M oz short — the sixth consecutive deficit year.

Where demand goes

Industrial & solar646 M oz

Coins & bars227 M oz

Jewellery178 M oz

Silverware40 M oz

Photography22 M oz

Industrial and solar uses account for the majority of demand — silver is consumed, not just stored. Most of that metal is never recovered.

The vaults tell the story

When new supply falls short, the difference is made up from above-ground stocks. The visible part of that is registered metal sitting in exchange vaults in New York (COMEX), London (LBMA) and Shanghai (SHFE).

Registered, eligible and segregated

Registered — silver that meets COMEX standards and has a warrant (warehouse receipt) issued against it. It is available to be delivered to buyers who hold futures contracts through expiration. This is the pool people watch for signs of a delivery squeeze, and the pool VaultDrain counts as freely available supply.
Eligible — silver that also meets COMEX standards (roughly 1,000 oz bars, .999 fine, from approved refiners) but has no warrant. It belongs to someone who is simply storing it there, such as a bank, fund or investor. It cannot be delivered against contracts unless the owner chooses to convert it to registered.
Segregated — a storage arrangement where a client's specific bars are kept separate and labelled as theirs, not pooled with other people's metal. Silver held this way in a COMEX vault would normally show up in the eligible numbers.
Moving silver between registered and eligible is mostly paperwork. The bars usually stay on the same shelf, and only the warrant status changes. That is why eligible silver can become deliverable quickly if owners want to sell, and registered silver can drop when warrants are cancelled.

Free float, three vault hubs

1076 M oz

Live registered inventories

Days of supply left

604

At 1.78 M oz of industrial offtake per day

Track this live on the vaults panel and the supply forecast.

So — shortage or not?

There is no empty-shelf shortage today: metal is still available at a price. But the market has consumed more silver than it produces for six years running, and the buffer filling that gap — vault inventories and other above-ground stocks — is finite and shrinking.

A persistent deficit does not guarantee higher prices, and prices can fall sharply even in a deficit year. What it does mean is that the market has no supply cushion if demand keeps growing.

Figures are annual estimates compiled from the Silver Institute / Metals Focus World Silver Survey and public exchange reports; vault figures come from live feeds but may be delayed, revised, or partially estimated. VaultDrain publishes market information only. Nothing on this page is financial, investment, legal or tax advice, and no outcome is guaranteed. See our Terms and Privacy Notice.