Diamond Clarity Chart: All 11 Grades From FL to I3

Clarity measures the inclusions inside a diamond and the blemishes on its surface, judged by a trained grader at 10x magnification. GIA's scale has 6 categories and 11 grades. This is the chart in plain English.

Read the chart from the middle out. The top four grades are about rarity, not looks. The bottom three are about visible flaws. The real buying decision for most people happens in the six grades from VVS2 to SI2.

A clarity grade is not a count of inclusions. GIA graders weigh five factors together, and a single factor can move a stone up or down a full grade.

This is why two stones with the same letter can look slightly different under a loupe. A VS1 with one pinpoint near the edge and a VS1 with a faint feather near the center share a grade, and both look clean to the eye, but the first one is the stronger stone. When a report includes a plot, read it.

A Flawless diamond shows nothing at 10x, inside or out. Internally Flawless allows only surface details such as a faint polish line that a light repolish could remove. Both are rare in mined diamonds and command a premium that has nothing to do with how the stone looks across a dinner table. If you want the bragging rights, buy FL or IF with a report. If you want a beautiful ring, the money usually does more in cut or carat.

One footnote: Flawless is more achievable in lab-grown diamonds than in mined ones, because growers control the conditions. A lab-grown FL stone is still an impressive crystal, but its premium over VS1 is far smaller than the premium a natural FL commands. If the grade matters to you, the lab-grown route makes it affordable.

VVS stones have inclusions so small that a trained grader struggles to find them at 10x. In VVS1 they are typically visible only from the pavilion (the underside); in VVS2 they are a touch easier to locate. To the naked eye, a VVS stone and a VS1 stone look the same. The letters matter more in a grading room than on a hand. Our separate page on what VVS really means covers how the term gets stretched in hip-hop jewelry ads.

Very Slightly Included stones have minor inclusions that a grader finds with effort at 10x. In a round, oval or pear, VS1 and VS2 are eye-clean almost every time. VS1 is the safer pick for step cuts such as emerald and asscher, where long open facets act like windows into the stone. Every ring in our house inventory is graded VS1 with E color; see why that pairing is popular in VS1 clarity explained.

Slightly Included stones have inclusions a grader notices easily at 10x. Some SI1 stones are eye-clean; others show a dark crystal near the center. The grade alone does not tell you which. SI is where photos, a video or an in-person look become mandatory. The bigger the stone, the more an SI inclusion shows, because larger facets magnify what is inside.

SI stones also vary by shape. A round brilliant hides an SI1 crystal well; an emerald cut usually does not. If you are shopping SI to save money, stick to brilliant shapes, keep the stone under about 2 carats, and insist on seeing the actual stone, not a stock photo. A well-chosen SI1 can look identical to a VS2 on the hand. A badly chosen one shows a black dot every time the light hits it.

Included grades carry inclusions you can often see without magnification. At I2 and I3 they can dull brilliance, and large feathers can make a stone more likely to chip if it takes a hard knock. Included stones show up in low-price jewelry and in some small stones on mass-produced pieces. Fine for a fashion piece, risky for a center stone.

Included stones are also more common in very cheap "diamond" jewelry where the stones are small and dark. If a price looks too low for the carat weight quoted, low clarity is often part of the reason, alongside low color.

"Eye-clean" is not a GIA grade. It is a trade term for a stone with no inclusions visible to the naked eye at a normal viewing distance, roughly 6 to 12 inches, face up. Most VS stones are eye-clean; many SI1 stones are too. The way to check is simple: look at the stone face up, without a loupe, under ordinary light, and tilt it. If you cannot find anything, neither can anyone admiring the ring. More on how to judge it in what is an eye-clean diamond.

Grading reports name the inclusions that set the grade. These are the ones you will meet most often.

Feathers deserve the most attention. A small feather deep inside a round is harmless; the same feather running to the tip of a pear can make that tip more vulnerable to a knock. Prongs and V-tips exist partly to protect those weak spots.

Shape changes how much clarity you need. Brilliant cuts break light into many small flashes that hide small inclusions; step cuts show a clear view straight into the stone.

These are trade rules of thumb, not GIA rules, and a single stone can break them. The emerald cut is where a VS1 grade earns its keep: a 4-carat step-cut center gives the eye a clear view all the way through.

Clarity is priced in steps, and the jumps are uneven. In mined diamonds the premium climbs steeply from VS1 to VVS and again to IF and FL, because those stones are rare in nature. In lab-grown diamonds, where growers can produce clean crystals more consistently, the spread between grades is narrower, but the top grades still cost more.

For a buyer the logic is simple. Every dollar spent above eye-clean buys rarity you cannot see. Every dollar saved can go into a better cut, a whiter color or a larger stone, all of which you can see. That is why the house inventory standardizes on VS1: one grade below VVS, comfortably eye-clean, and priced so the budget goes into size. A Round Lab Diamond Ring 1.78 ct, 14K White Gold at $1,500 and a Marquise Lab Diamond Ring 7.04 ct, 14K White Gold at $8,500 carry the same VS1 grade; the difference in price is all size and shape.

On a chain, bracelet or pendant covered in small stones, clarity matters less per stone and more as a group. Melee (small diamonds) rarely come with individual reports, and at 1.5 mm across nobody can see a VS inclusion. What you can see is a mismatch: a few cloudy or grey stones among bright ones. For pavé and iced pieces, ask for the overall clarity range and the stone origin in writing, then check that the stones look even. Browse graded pieces in diamond jewelry, start from the basics in the 4Cs guide, or learn how a report records clarity in GIA and IGI certificates.