Global Central Banks Buy Gold at Four Times Pre-2022 Pace and Shift Storage Out of U.S.
Goldman Sachs estimates central banks purchased 79 tonnes of gold in August, more than four times the pre-2022 average, as institutions diversify reserves away from G7 currencies and relocate holdings from New York to London and domestic vaults.
Central banks around the world are buying gold at more than four times their pre-2022 pace and quietly moving part of their reserves out of the United States, according to estimates from Goldman Sachs. The bank said central banks purchased about 79 tonnes of gold in August, compared with an average of 17 tonnes a month before 2022, the year Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. On a three-month seasonally adjusted basis, purchases are running at roughly 85 tonnes per month.
China accounts for a large share of the demand, with Goldman estimating purchases of about 25 tonnes in August. The People's Bank of China was the largest identifiable buyer, meaning other economies could be buying more without being publicly identified. Goldman noted that China is not necessarily buying at an alarming rate and remains underweight in gold relative to plausible long-term allocations. Even so, the bank said the motivations for diversifying away from G7 reserve currencies, most notably the U.S. dollar, are likely to remain in place.
The buying spree reflects a broader reassessment of reserve security amid geopolitical tensions, including the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and the trade battles that followed President Trump's tariff agenda. Central banks in advanced economies have largely stayed on the sidelines of the purchases over the past four years because they already hold substantial gold reserves for historical reasons. For those institutions, the debate is no longer about how much gold to hold but where to store it, pointing to wider concerns about reserve security and cross-country trust.
In September, the Dutch central bank confirmed it had spent the previous six months moving 86 tonnes of gold out of New York and Ottawa to London. De Nederlandsche Bank said the decision was made because of increasing geopolitical unrest and was intended to improve the tradability of Dutch gold. The bank described gold stored at the Bank of England in London as the most easily tradable gold in the world and the fastest way to deploy reserves in a crisis, while holdings in New York and Ottawa are less directly deployable.
In March, the Banque de France announced it had sold 129 tonnes, or 5% of its total gold holdings, in New York and purchased gold in Europe. Unlike the Dutch move, the French central bank made no reference to geopolitics, citing instead a desire to bring the purity of its gold holdings above 99.99%, a threshold the U.S. stock did not meet.
The reallocation is visible in vault data. Goldman said central bank holdings at the New York Fed declined by 40 tonnes in August, while holdings at the Bank of England rose by 46 tonnes. In a survey of central banks conducted in August, 12% declined to confirm where their gold was stored, up from 10% a year earlier. About 10% said they had significantly diversified their overseas storage in 2026, compared with 2% the year before, and 9% said they had increased domestic storage, up from 5% in 2025.
The trend appears set to continue. Eighteen percent of central banks declined to say where they would store their gold over the next 12 months, and 9% said they planned to diversify further. The shift suggests that for many reserve managers, the question of gold is increasingly about access and control in a crisis rather than the size of the stockpile itself.
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