Dutch central bank moves 86 tonnes of gold from US and Canada to London

DNB relocates 86 tonnes of gold

According to The Guardian, the Dutch central bank, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), has transferred 86 tonnes of its gold reserves out of the United States and Canada into London, pointing to “increasing geopolitical unrest” as the reason for the shift. The bank said gold held in London can be traded more readily than stock sitting in New York or Ottawa, making it the fastest option to put to work if a crisis hits. DNB president Olaf Sleijpen said the step improved the deployability of the reserves, adding that while the bank assumes it will never actually need to use the gold, strengthening resilience and preparedness remains necessary.

How the move was carried out

The operation, which ran from March to August this year, was not simply a matter of shipping bullion across the Atlantic. DNB combined market transactions with physical transport: more than 27 tonnes of gold was physically moved from the US and Canada to Zeist in the Netherlands, while an identical quantity was transferred from Zeist to London. Matching the amounts in this way meant that gold bars did not have to be melted down and recast. The bank said that mixing buying, selling and physical transport spread the risks involved in relocating such a large quantity of gold in one go.

What the Dutch reserve looks like now

DNB’s total gold stock stood at 612.4 tonnes at the end of 2025, valued at €72.2 billion ($83.7 billion). Before the relocation, New York held 31.3% of Dutch gold and Ottawa 19.7%. After the move, each location accounts for 18.5%. London’s share rose from 18.1% to 32.1%, while 30.8% of the gold remains stored in the Netherlands itself.

A decade of shifting reserves, with a sharper edge now

Commenting to The Guardian, Laurent Schwartz, president of the Paris-based National Gold Counter, which facilitates gold trading in France, said central banks have been rearranging where they keep their gold for roughly a decade, but that the current political context in the United States might push some of them toward other storage locations. He described London as the deepest and most liquid gold market, where central banks can more easily lend gold to other banking institutions.

John Plassard, an analyst at Cite Gestion Private Bank, told the paper the Dutch move was intended to secure “more immediate availability in the event of a crisis”. He characterised it as a fairly one-off step for now, but warned that if other central banks followed suit it could damage confidence in the US.

Germany offers a contrasting case. The Guardian reports that concerns were raised there at the start of the year about the security of Bundesbank reserves held in New York, but the Bundesbank has so far chosen not to move them, telling German public broadcaster ARD in January that “the New York Fed is and remains an important storage site for our gold”.

Why it matters

When a central bank explicitly names geopolitical unrest while pulling a substantial share of its gold out of US vaults, it signals how political risk is reshaping even the most conservative corners of reserve management. The mechanics are telling too: DNB engineered the relocation around liquidity and speed of deployment, treating gold as an instrument that must be usable in a crisis rather than a passive store of value.

The bigger question is whether others follow. The Bundesbank’s decision to stay put suggests there is no stampede yet, but the Dutch precedent shows how quickly long-standing assumptions about where sovereign assets should be held can be revisited. If more central banks favour London over New York, the concentration of foreign gold in the US, and the confidence that underpins it, would gradually erode, with consequences that reach well beyond the bullion market.