Central Banks Massively Relocate Gold Reserves: What's Behind It?

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Central banks around the world are starting to reassess where they store their gold reserves.

This move does not always mean repatriating gold back to their home countries; it can also involve diversifying storage locations to enhance security, physical access, and liquidity of the reserves.

Krishan Gopaul, Senior Analyst for EMEA at the World Gold Council (WGC), explained that changes in gold storage locations are part of a more active reserve management strategy.

PEXELS/ZLATAKY.CZ Gold illustration, gold bars.

In a WGC report titled Why are central banks moving their gold reserves, published Friday (September 18, 2026), Gopaul highlighted the decision by the Dutch central bank, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), which relocated around 86 tons of gold from New York, United States, and Ottawa, Canada, to London, England between March and August 2026.

The operation aimed to improve the liquidity and ease of trading their gold reserves while strengthening DNB’s readiness in the face of severe crisis conditions.

However, the move was not simply about transferring 86 tons of gold from North America to Europe.

Approximately 59 tons of gold were sold in New York and replaced with internationally tradable gold in London.

Meanwhile, over 27 tons of gold were physically moved from North America to DNB’s facility in Zeist, the Netherlands. About the same amount of gold was then transferred from Zeist to London.

As a result, the share of the Netherlands’ gold reserves stored in London rose from 18.1 percent to 32.1 percent. This portion even surpassed the amount kept domestically in the Netherlands, which stood at 30.8 percent.

KOMPAS.com/SAKINA RAKHMA DIAH SETIAWANCentral banks in various countries have started reassessing their gold reserve storage locations.

Meanwhile, the amount stored in New York and Ottawa declined to 18.5 percent each, down from 31.3 percent and 19.7 percent, respectively.

This shift demonstrates that central banks’ strategies regarding gold reserve locations do not always aim simply to bring gold back home.

According to Gopaul, DNB’s decision reflects a shift in how central banks view gold storage.

“Central banks are increasingly optimizing three considerations: storage risks, physical accessibility, and market liquidity,” he said in the report.

Gold Repatriation Is Not New

Moving gold reserves back home is actually not a new phenomenon.

Gopaul noted that Germany repatriated about 930 tons of gold from London to Frankfurt in 2000. Then, between 2013 and 2017, Germany’s Bundesbank moved another 674 tons of gold from New York and Paris back to Frankfurt.

Venezuela also returned 160 tons of gold from foreign institutions between 2011 and 2012. The Netherlands moved 122.5 tons from New York to Amsterdam in 2014, while Austria relocated 90 tons from London between 2015 and 2018.

Subsequently, other countries adjusted their gold storage locations as well. Turkey altered some of its overseas gold storage, while Hungary and Poland transferred physical reserves to domestic storage.

Serbia reportedly repatriated about 13 tons of gold between 2021 and 2022. India has gradually increased domestic gold holdings since 2022, with a sharp rise in relocation rate after March 2023.