Copper Scrap Price Today: Live Prices by Grade

What sets the copper scrap price today

Every figure on this page is derived the same way: the exchange settlement for refined copper, multiplied by the share a yard pays for a given grade. Refined copper trades on COMEX and the LME every business day, so the benchmark moves daily and the grades move with it.

Three things decide what you are actually offered.

The benchmark. When exchange copper rises, every scrap grade rises in proportion. That is why the chart above tracks grades against the same timeline as the metal itself.

The grade. Bare bright earns roughly 95 to 98 percent of exchange at the refinery, number 1 sits two to five points under that, number 2 a further five to ten under, and light copper another step down. Across a typical yard board the spread from bare bright to light copper runs 25 to 35 percent. The grades guide sets out the definitions and the ReMA code names used on export contracts.

Buyer depth. The metal is worth the same in every market, but a yard in a dense processing region can pay closer to metal value than one that ships its material a long way. The country cards above carry that difference, and it is often larger than the grade difference.

Which grade you are holding

Most disappointment at the scale comes from expecting one grade and being paid another. The distinctions are physical and checkable.

Bare bright is clean, uncoated, unalloyed wire of 16 gauge or heavier, bright in colour with no tarnish. Stripped cable and bus bar qualify. Anything thinner, coated or oxidised does not.

Number 1 copper covers clean pipe, bus bar and heavy wire free of solder, paint and fittings. Plumbing pipe with the fittings cut off is the common source.

Number 2 copper is still 94 to 96 percent metal. The discount reflects refining cost rather than content: solder joints, paint, oxidation, and wire thinner than 16 gauge all land here. Burnt wire lands here too, which is one reason burning insulation is both illegal and unprofitable.

Light copper is sheet, roofing, gutters and flashing. Thin material with a high surface area that has often been outdoors for decades.

Insulated wire is priced on copper recovery, meaning the share of total weight that is actually metal. Heavy cable recovers around 90 percent, THHN about 75, Romex about 65, and communication cable under 50. The recovery rate guide explains how yards measure it and how to measure your own before you go.

Two lookalikes catch people out. Tinned copper shows silver on the outside and cannot reach bare bright however clean it is. Copper-clad aluminium, common in cheap jumper cables and budget audio wire, shows copper outside and silver inside when a strand is cut, and it is paid as aluminium. The battery cable page covers the strand test that separates the three.

Where copper scrap comes from

Copper arrives at yards from a handful of sources, and each has its own grading habits.

Buildings supply the largest volume: plumbing pipe, building wire and roofing. A house rewire yields far more than most people expect, and the house copper page works through where 439 pounds of it sits in an average home.

Vehicles carry roughly 50 pounds in a conventional car and several times that in an electric one, spread across the harness, radiator, motors and cables. The car copper page breaks it down part by part, and the copper-brass radiator page covers the single highest-density source on an older vehicle.

Electrical equipment including motors, transformers and compressors is priced on the whole item because copper is only part of the weight. The transformer page explains why the winding metal, copper or aluminium, decides everything.

Electronics contribute copper through boards, cables and heat sinks, usually at low recovery and low grade.

Copper prices by city and region

Copper settles in US dollars, so the metal is worth the same everywhere. What changes between one city and the next is how many buyers can economically reach you, how far the material has to travel to a consumer, and whether an export outlet sits nearby. Those three things, not the metal, explain why two quotes on the same morning can differ by several percent.

Three patterns show up repeatedly across the sixty city markets covered on this site.

Cities with a refinery or a processor nearby pay closest to the reference. Hamburg has one of Europe's largest copper refineries on its doorstep, so clean grades there have a domestic consumer rather than a long haul. Milan sits inside the densest copper-consuming region in Italy. Antwerp combines processing capacity with a port. In each case the merchant's own freight cost is short, and short freight leaves more room in the quote.

Port cities support the lower grades. Rotterdam, Marseille, Naples, Busan, Valencia and Karachi all give mixed, irony and insulated material an export route that inland yards cannot offer. That outlet tends to firm up prices for exactly the material that struggles to find a domestic buyer, which is why a low-grade load can do better at the coast than in a manufacturing city.

Cities that generate but do not consume pay the freight. London, Paris, Rome, Madrid and Delhi all produce renovation and demolition copper on a large scale and process very little of it. The metal leaves the region, and the cost of moving it sits inside every quote.

What the city does for a living also decides which grades turn up. Turin and Nagoya are automotive cities, so harness copper, radiators and motor windings dominate. Guangzhou and Munich run on electronics and precision engineering, so fine wire and windings arrive rather than pipe. Houston has the oilfield, Busan has shipyards, and Rome has centuries of copper roofing.

The country pages below carry the full grade ladder for each market in local currency, along with the cities in that market and what moves through them.

Copper scrap buying and selling guide

Whether you are selling a bucket of pipe or checking a quote a buyer has given you, the same sequence applies.

Sort before you weigh. Bare bright, number 1, number 2, light copper, insulated wire and brass are six separate tickets. Mixed together, the whole load is paid at the lowest grade present. Five minutes of sorting is the highest-value work in the trade.

Remove what downgrades. Cut fittings off pipe, pull steel screws and brackets, strip solder joints where practical, and separate any steel-cored or tinned material. The cleaning guide lists what changes the grade and what wastes your evening.

Decide whether to strip insulated wire. The break-even sits around 48 percent recovery: above it, stripping usually pays; below it, sell as insulated. The stripping analysis works the arithmetic with real figures. Never burn insulation off.

Check the benchmark before you call. The board above tells you where exchange copper sits today. A quote well below the grade share for your material is a quote worth questioning.

Call at least three buyers. The spread between yards in the same town is often larger than a day's movement in the metal. Ask for the price by grade, not for a single number.

Bring identification and expect it. Copper is the most stolen scrap metal, and most jurisdictions require yards to record seller ID, sometimes photographs, and sometimes a holding period before payment. A yard that asks is following the law, and one that does not ask is a warning sign.

Weigh on their scale, watch the ticket. Confirm the grade written against each pile matches what you sorted, and query any deduction before you sign.

If you are unsure what you are holding, the grade finder walks the four physical checks and names the grade with its price today.

The country comparison tool prices any grade across all twenty markets at once, each in its own currency and unit.

Questions people actually ask

What is the copper scrap price per pound today?

It depends on grade. The board at the top of this page shows today's figure for each grade, derived from the exchange settlement. Bare bright sits highest, light copper lowest, and insulated wire is priced on its copper recovery percentage.

Why is my copper paid less than the price I see online?

Because published prices are usually the exchange benchmark for refined metal or the bare bright rate, while most household copper is number 2 or insulated wire. Check which grade you are holding before comparing quotes.

What is the difference between number 1 and number 2 copper?

Number 1 is clean, unalloyed and free of solder, paint and fittings. Number 2 has any of those, or is thinner than 16 gauge. Number 2 is still 94 to 96 percent copper; the discount reflects refining cost.

Is it worth stripping insulated wire?

Usually above about 48 percent copper recovery, and usually not below it. Thick building cable strips quickly and pays; thin communication wire does not. Never burn insulation, which is illegal and downgrades the metal.

How do I tell copper from copper-clad aluminium?

Cut a strand and look at the end. Copper throughout is copper. Copper outside with silver inside is aluminium with a copper skin, and it is paid as aluminium. Silver outside with copper inside is tinned copper.

Does copper roofing pay the same as pipe?

No. Roofing, flashing and gutters grade as light copper, which sits a step below number 2. Clean pipe with the fittings removed grades as number 1.

Do scrap yards require ID for copper?

In most jurisdictions yes, and often a photograph and a record of the transaction. Some require a holding period before payment. These rules exist because copper is the most stolen scrap metal, and a compliant yard is the safer place to sell.

How often do these prices change?

Daily, because they are derived from exchange settlements that move every business day. The chart above shows the history for each grade so you can see whether today is a good day to sell.