Vacancy-ordered double perovskites are attracting significant attention due to their chemical diversity and interesting optoelectronic properties. With a view to understanding both the optical and magnetic properties of these compounds, two series of Ru IV halides are presented; A 2 RuCl 6 and A 2 RuBr 6 , where A is K, NH 4 , Rb or Cs. We show that the optical properties and spin-orbit coupling (SOC) behavior can be tuned through changing the A cation and the halide. Within a series, the energy of the ligand-to-metal charge transfer increases as the unit cell expands with the larger A cation, and the band gaps are higher for the respective chlorides than for the bromides. The magnetic moments of the systems are temperature dependent due to a non-magnetic ground state with J eff = 0 caused by SOC. Ru-X covalency, and consequently, the delocalization of metal d-electrons, result in systematic trends of the SOC constants due to variations in the A cation and the halide anion. Remarkable developments in perovskite-based photovoltaics over the last decade have driven the discovery of a wide range of new halide perovskites and related solids. [1-4] These include 3D perovskites with different divalent metals (i.e., Pb II and Sn II), [5, 6] 3D double perovskites with a combination of univalent and trivalent metals (i.e., K I /Bi III and Ag I / Bi III), [7, 8] as well as low dimensional 2D, [9] and 1D perovskites. [10] Progress in this area has also rekindled interest in K 2 Pt IV Cl 6-type vacancy-ordered double perovskites, comprising isolated metal halide octahedra interspersed with mono-valent cation. For example, the vacancy-ordered halides of Sn IV , [11] Se IV , [12] Te IV , [13, 14] and Ti IV , [15] have shown to be promising photovoltaic materials. The analogous variants of