European central banks are moving their gold home from US vaults

The Netherlands and France have moved their gold out of US vaults, Deutsche Welle reported¹. The Dutch central bank moved 86 tons of its gold reserves out of New York and Ottawa and into London, in an operation that ran from March onwards². Latin Times described the pattern as a European gold exodus, with central banks pulling billions out of US vaults³.

Spain has not moved, but it is deliberating. The Spanish central bank refused to disclose how much gold it holds in New York, citing the current geopolitical situation⁴. The New York Federal Reserve houses the largest known monetary-gold reserve in the world³.

Why it matters to investors

Deutsche Welle gives two reasons, and they are not the same reason. Part of the motivation is fears about the reliability of the United States; equally important, it reports, is the need to keep gold closer to home in the event of a crisis¹. The first is a statement about counterparty trust. The second is a statement about logistics under stress, and only one of the two is reversible by better relations.

The repatriations sit inside a longer accumulation. Central bank purchases of gold have surged since 2022, hitting a record 1,092 tonnes in 2024, even as the pace slowed in 2025 and the first half of 2026⁵. Central-bank buying has been a major feature of the gold market since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with BofA saying those purchases have supported the market⁶. Gold now makes up 27% of global central-bank reserves³.

What to watch

The buying is broadening beyond bullion itself. Central banks and the ultra-wealthy accelerated gold purchases in the second quarter as faith in US Treasuries wavered, and are also extending into gold-linked investment products⁷. That report also noted the first purchase since 2013 by South Korea’s central bank⁷.

Three questions follow. Whether Spain decides to move its New York holdings, having declined to say how large they are⁴. Whether other European holders join the Netherlands and France^1,3. And whether official buying reaccelerates from the slower pace recorded through the first half of 2026, after the record set in 2024^5,6. Custody is the quiet variable here: where reserves sit is a measurable expression of how much official money still trusts the jurisdiction holding them.