Silica extraction from rice husk (RH) and rice husk ash (RHA) was compared in terms of preparation procedure and yields. Although both are good alternative sources of silica, RH is the better source than RHA for zeolite NaY synthesis taking into account the efficiency in product recovery and simplicity of extraction. Silica from RH was amorphous whereas that from RHA contained crystalline tridymite and cristobalite. Silica extracted from RH was found to contain exclusively SiO2 while silica from RHA has 97.56% SiO2 with traces of K2O (2.14%) and Al2O3 (0.31%). Zeolite NaY showed relatively large BET surface area of 882 m2/g and micropore volume of 0.38 cm3/g, both are characteristic values for a Y-type zeolite framework. However, HY did not carry over the textural properties of the parent zeolite NaY and NH4Y because of the structure collapse resulting from the change of aluminum coordination in the structure after the calcination.