Central banks are pulling gold out of New York

The Central Bank of the Netherlands transferred 86 tonnes of gold to London³. Canadian coverage reports the Dutch National Bank moved a portion of its reserves out of both the United States and Canada, shifting billions in gold to the United Kingdom¹. Ripple’s chief executive described the Dutch central bank’s 11 billion dollar gold shuffle as a sign that finance is too slow⁴.

France has brought all of its official gold reserves back home, according to expert commentary on the move⁶. The French transfer was announced earlier this year³.

The scale of it

The Netherlands has closer to 1,300 tons of gold, or about 55 per cent of its total reserves⁸. MarketWatch’s tally of central bank gold reserves in tons ranks countries by holding, and notes that the transfers follow a sharp jump in gold prices⁵.

The flow is not only about where bullion sits but how much of it there is. According to the World Gold Council’s 2026 Central Bank Gold Reserve Survey, central banks have purchased an average of about 1,000 tons of gold⁹. The same survey tracks the number of central banks that deposit their gold reserves in foreign vaults².

Why it is happening

The trigger reserve managers cite is precedent rather than price. The 2022 freezing of Russian central bank assets following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine sent a shockwave through sovereign reserve management⁷.

Nor is this a one-country decision. The Dutch move followed the French repatriation, and both were made by European central banks that had left metal in North American vaults for decades^1,3,6. What has changed is not the metal but the assessment of where it is safe to leave it.

Romanian coverage of the European moves puts the reasoning plainly: central banks want quicker access to their reserves in a world with wars, trade tensions, inflation and greater geopolitical risks¹⁰. Physical custody in a friendly jurisdiction is the hedge against a scenario in which the vault, rather than the metal, is the problem.

MarketWatch and Morningstar both frame the trend as a question about the United States itself: whether it is losing its safe-haven status as global central banks pull gold out of New York^5,8. For investors that question runs beyond bullion. The same reserve managers deciding where to store gold are the marginal holders of Treasury securities, and both decisions rest on the same judgment about custody risk⁷.