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The Dutch and French central banks have pulled a combined 215 tonnes of gold out of U.S. custody since mid-2025 — the Netherlands to London, France back to Paris — while Germany's much larger 1,236-tonne stake in the New York Fed hasn't moved.
- Gold now makes up 27% of global central-bank reserves versus 22% for U.S. Treasuries, according to the European Central Bank — even though no major European holder is shrinking its total reserves, only relocating them.
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The trigger traces back to 2022: freezing Russia's foreign reserves taught governments that assets parked abroad can be cut off overnight, and pressure is now building on Germany and Italy to follow the Dutch and French lead.
Gold reserves that sat quietly in American and Canadian vaults for the better part of a century are on the move. The Netherlands just wrapped up a five-month transfer to London. France emptied its share of the New York Federal Reserve's underground vault months before that. Germany, which holds more gold than any country besides the United States, faces mounting domestic pressure to do the same — even though it hasn't budged. The backdrop matters: this is unfolding under a second Trump administration marked by tariff disputes with allies, alongside a broader shift in which gold has overtaken U.S. Treasuries as central banks' preferred reserve asset for the first time in decades.
Amsterdam Moves First
Before this year, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) held roughly 313 tonnes split between New York and Ottawa. Between March and August, it shifted about 86 tonnes — worth close to $12 billion — toward London. Most of that, some 59 tonnes, moved on paper: DNB sold gold in the New York market and bought an equivalent amount already sitting in Britain. The remaining 27 tonnes physically traveled, routed through the bank's own vault in Zeist so the bars wouldn't need melting down, according to Euronews' account of the transfer.
The reshuffling wasn't symmetrical. New York's slice of the Dutch stockpile fell sharply, from 31.3% to 18.5%, while Ottawa's edged down only slightly, from 19.7% to 18.5% — since nearly all the relocated bullion came out of the American vault rather than the Canadian one. London's share, meanwhile, jumped from 18.1% to 32.1%, making it the single largest location for Dutch gold. DNB itself pointed to both a practical and a political rationale: it said gold held in London is easier to trade quickly in a crisis, per Kitco News, and its public statement explicitly cited "increasing geopolitical unrest" as a driver — not merely liquidity mechanics. DNB President Olaf Sleijpen said the move was needed to "strengthen our resilience and preparedness," while stressing the bank doesn't expect to ever actually need the reserves. The Dutch bank's total holdings stand at 612.4 tonnes, valued near €72.2 billion.
Paris Already Finished
France got there earlier. Across 26 separate transactions between July 2025 and January 2026, the Banque de France sold off its remaining 129 tonnes of older, non-standard bullion held in Manhattan and used the proceeds to buy modern, exchange-compliant bars now stored entirely in its Paris vault — bringing France's full 2,437-tonne reserve home for the first time since the 1920s, according to reporting on the Bank's fiscal year disclosure.
Because the sale landed during a record run in gold prices, it generated an extraordinary one-time gain of roughly €12.8 billion — close to $14.8 billion — which helped flip the bank from a loss in 2024 into an €8.1 billion profit for 2025. Governor François Villeroy de Galhau called the move "not politically motivated," attributing it instead to a 2024 internal audit that recommended upgrading to bars meeting current international weight and purity standards.
Germany's Bigger Pile, Louder Debate
Germany holds the world's second-largest gold reserve at 3,352 tonnes, and it has done this before: between 2013 and 2020, the Bundesbank moved 674 tonnes home — 300 tonnes from New York and 374 tonnes from Paris — proving repatriation is logistically doable, even if politically slow. Today, 1,236 tonnes, or 37% of Germany's reserve, still sits inside the Federal Reserve, and calls to bring more of it home have grown louder since Donald Trump returned to the White House, per Kitco's coverage of the renewed debate. Bundesbank and German government officials maintain there's no formal withdrawal plan on the table.
Italy is facing a similar reckoning. Economist Enrico Grazzini warned in the newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano that it's "very dangerous for the national interest" to leave 43% of Italy's gold reserves in American custody. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's party pushed for repatriation while in opposition back in 2019, but no action has followed since she took office in 2022. Together, Germany's and Italy's exposure in New York runs to roughly $245 billion.
Why Now: Sanctions, Debt and Distrust
Analysts point to 2022 as the turning point: the freezing of Russia's foreign-exchange reserves showed every government with assets parked abroad that those holdings could be locked away overnight. Rising U.S. debt and lingering questions about the dollar's long-term credibility have reinforced that calculus since. The Federal Reserve's vault beneath 33 Liberty Street alone still holds roughly 6,300 tonnes of foreign-owned gold, per one industry estimate — worth well over $800 billion at today's prices. Repatriation itself isn't new: central banks have brought a combined 6,900 tonnes home from American and British vaults since 1972, but the current wave is moving faster and more visibly than earlier rounds.
The data backs that acceleration. The share of central banks that still keep any gold at the New York Fed has slipped to 14% from 17% over the past year, according to a World Gold Council survey cited by PrimeXBT.
The Market Backdrop
Gold was trading above $4,400 an ounce in early September, according to CoinWeek's market coverage — down from the metal's intraday record of $5,589.38, set on January 28, 2026, per CBS News. Central banks bought roughly 1,000 tonnes a year on average between 2022 and 2024 — more than double the prior decade's pace, according to World Gold Council survey data — before purchases eased slightly to 850 tonnes in 2025, still a historically strong pace. That buying, combined with the price rally, is what pushed gold to 27% of global reserves against 22% for U.S. Treasuries by the end of 2025, per the European Central Bank — a reordering some commentators tie to a related milestone last recorded in 1996, when foreign-held gold value last exceeded foreign Treasury holdings. No major European holder has said it plans to shrink its overall gold reserves. So far, they're only choosing where to keep them.
