The information below is a record of silver’s price over the past 20 years. The data reveals that the white metal has experienced many zeniths and nadirs along the way.

Even if we ignore the movements of silver in 2025, we see that silver investors have watched their stacks increase in value by more than $20/oz over the past 30 years. Considering that silver has sold for less than $20/oz total for much of this time, its performance has been quite remarkable.

Within that period, however, there have been years of decline in the price. Notably, prices fell by more than 14% in 2021, and the price fell by as much as $35/oz between 2011 and 2015. For that matter, the year of the all-time record high (2011) ended up as a down year.

So, it’s a good idea to understand the swings associated with silver trading. Use this chart as a tool to help guide your decision making and future investment strategy.

We have elected not to cover the performance of silver during the current year (2025). At this point, the data on 2025 is incomplete, so we didn’t include it.

However, 2025 has been a significant year for the price of silver. Silver reached $44.31/oz in September – the highest price since the peak of the Great Recession – and may challenge the all-time record before the end of the year.

A quick check of the table reveals quite a journey for the price of silver, though. Here are the different metrics we examined for the record:

• Year Open: The closing price on the first day of trading each year. In some years, that first price occurred on January 1, but on others, it happened as late as January 3.
• Year High: The highest closing price that silver reached during the 365 days of the year. While it is possible that intraday pricing moved higher than this mark, there’s no firm evidence that the price ever exceeded this figure.
• Year Low – The lowest closing price during the year. As with the Year High, there may have been intraday movements beneath this amount, but none were recorded. These two prices (High and Low) can serve to provide context for the volatility of silver during the 365-day period.
• Year End – The closing price on the last day of trading each year. As with the Year Open, we tried to get as close to the last day of the year – December 31 – as we could, but weekends or other stoppages sometimes pushed the day back to the 30th or the 29th.
• Annual percentage change – The amount of change that occurred between the first day of trading and the last day of trading. This figure is the best way to summarize silver’s performance during the calendar year.

More: Today’s Silver Price – 1 Year Silver Price Chart – 5 Year Silver Chart – 10 Year Silver Chart – 30 Year Silver Chart

Key Dates

A lot can change in 20 years, and the price of silver is no different. So, let’s look at some of the key dates in the past two decades that have reflected major changes in daily life, the economy, and the world at large.

• March 14, 2008 – $20.64: Silver set a new record high as it breached through the $20/oz mark for the first time in its history. Investor demand drove the spike, as investors sought safe havens during the early stages of the Great Recession and financial crisis.
• October 28, 2008 – $8.94: Only seven months after reaching a new high, the price of silver dropped beneath $9/oz. There is a paradoxical phenomenon that occurs during economic crises, in which the supply of silver increases dramatically as panicked investors sell their assets to cover their growing losses. It’s a sad commentary on the state of things, but is one of the last gasps that investors make to try and float through the rough patches.
• April 28, 2011 – $48.46: Unfortunately, the investors’ last resort selloff did not stop the downturn, and the next three years became a very tense period for those looking to stay afloat. Fears over the economy were exacerbated by inflation concerns and the massive accumulation of debt by world governments as they attempted to ease the downward spiral. All of these factors, along with a favorable gold-to-silver ratio for buying silver, contributed to silver reaching its all-time high price. More than a decade later, this record remains the apex of silver’s performance.
• March 19 – August 6, 2020 – $12.12 – $29.78: We’re including a range here to demonstrate the price volatility in silver that the COVID-19 pandemic provoked. The figure in March mirrored the dip prior to the Great Recession – and for the same reason – but added the dimension of the economic shutdown and its effect on industrial demand. Five months later, the price had soared almost to $30/oz as investors sought safe havens to ride out the shutdowns and limited operations.
• September 22, 2025 – $44.31: We thought that the high price in June might be the crest of silver’s rally in 2025. We were mistaken, as geopolitical concerns and domestic turmoil have only intensified in the past three months. This day’s closing price might signal that a new record is in play before 2025 is over.

Historical Context of 20-year Silver Charts

• Long-term perspective: Taking a 20-year view of the price of silver allows for a much greater perspective in terms of considering its changes. At the beginning of the period, an ounce of silver was available for $6.46/oz. Even if we account for inflation, that price only rises to $10.63/oz – meaning that long-term investors in silver have enjoyed their investment increasing in value by roughly 6 times over.
• Performance evaluation – The long view of silver also puts its volatility in perspective. At two separate times – the Great Recession and COVID – we observed the price of silver declining sharply before rising abruptly to a sharp peak. The lower trading volume associated with silver vis-a-vis gold means that owning and trading silver is a much wilder ride than it is for gold.
• Correlation with economic factors – Like gold, silver generally moves inversely with the economy and usually reaches heights during downturns or crises. The recent concerns over tariffs and trade policy between the United States and many different countries – in particular, China – have significantly contributed to silver’s return to more than $36/oz.
• Monetary policy impacts – Silver’s price is affected by monetary policy, though usually less dramatically than gold’s price due to its industrial demand. The dip in silver prices in 2022, for instance, signaled an investor response to rising federal interest rates and the strengthening of the American dollar. Since foreign investors were less able and willing to purchase silver with their weaker currencies, fewer of them could put in the volume as they had before, and the decrease in demand reflected in the price.

• Global economic health – This one is self-evident, and we’ve already discussed the effects of the Great Recession and the COVID-19 shutdowns on silver’s price at length. If anything, global economic crises are one of the strongest suggestions that a silver rally may be imminent – although you should do other research before you make a purchase decision.