Why Central Banks Are Adding to Their Gold Reserves

Short answer: Central banks buy gold because it is a reserve that no other state can freeze or create more of. Since 2010 they have bought more gold than they sold every single year. Since 2022 they have been buying about twice as much as in the decade before. The trigger was the freezing of Russia's currency reserves after the attack on Ukraine.

Gold pays no interest, costs storage fees and its price swings. Even so, central banks are putting more of it into their vaults than they have for decades. This article explains why, who is buying, how Germany and Switzerland handle their gold and what it means for bitcoin. The direct comparison of the two assets for you as a saver is in Bitcoin vs. Gold.

From sellers to buyers: the turn in 2010

Until 1971 the dollar was tied to gold. After that, many central banks saw gold as a relic. It paid no interest; government bonds did. In the 1990s and 2000s, European central banks in particular sold large amounts. The United Kingdom, for example, sold around 395 tonnes between 1999 and 2002, close to the lowest price in decades.

To keep these sales from crashing the gold price, 15 European central banks agreed on a ceiling in the Washington Agreement of 1999: no more than 400 tonnes a year, 2’000 tonnes over five years in total. The agreement was renewed several times.

Then the picture turned. After the 2008 financial crisis and in the middle of the euro crisis, central banks became net buyers again in 2010 for the first time in decades: they bought more gold than they sold. That has stayed the case every year since. The reasons at the time:

• Interest rates near zero. When government bonds pay almost nothing, holding gold instead costs little.
• Distrust of paper currencies. Central banks created money on a large scale to fight the crisis. How that works is explained in The fiat money system.
• Less dollar. Emerging economies such as Russia, China and Turkey wanted to spread their reserves more widely and depend less on the dollar.

2022: The freezing of Russia's reserves

At the end of February 2022, a few days after the attack on Ukraine, the EU, the US, the UK and other countries froze the currency reserves of the Russian central bank. Around $300 bn were affected, about half of its reserves, around €210 bn in the EU alone. Russia could no longer use this money.

For every central bank in the world this was a lesson: currency reserves are yours only as long as the state that issues the currency allows it. Dollar bonds sit in the US, euro balances in Europe. Anyone who might come into political conflict with these states has to expect that their reserves could be blocked.

Gold in your own vault is not affected. It is not a claim against another state but a physical object. This property is called neutral: gold depends on no issuer.

The figures of the World Gold Council (WGC), the gold mining industry's association, show the effect:

Source: World Gold Council, Gold Demand Trends Full Year 2025 and Central Bank Gold Statistics (October 2026). Estimates based on Metals Focus data; later revisions are common.

For 2022 the WGC reported the highest figure in decades. Even in 2025 the figure was still almost twice the average of the 2010s.

Since 2024, gold has been the second-largest reserve asset of central banks by market value after the dollar, ahead of the euro. The European Central Bank noted this in 2025 in its report on the international role of the euro. One reason is the sharp rise in the gold price: the value of the holdings grew faster than the quantity.

Who is buying the gold?

The officially reported purchases are spread across a few large buyers and many small ones.

Poland was the largest buyer in 2024 and 2025. Narodowy Bank Polski bought 102 tonnes in 2025 alone and held around 550 tonnes at the end of 2025, about 28 % of its reserves. In October 2025 it raised its target share from 20 % to 30 %. Central bank president Adam Glapiński openly cites the security of a country bordering Russia and Ukraine.

China has reported purchases almost every month since November 2022, with a pause from May to October 2024. At the end of 2025 the People's Bank of China officially held 2’306 tonnes. That is just under 9 % of its reserves; most of them are still in dollars and other currencies. So China has a lot of room, which is one reason many analysts suspect hidden Chinese purchases.

Turkey was one of the largest buyers in 2022. But its central bank buys and sells depending on the situation at home: in 2023 it sold gold for a time when Turks bought a lot of gold domestically. Together with the treasury, Turkey held around 644 tonnes at the end of 2025.

India buys steadily and in 2024 brought around 100 tonnes back home from storage in the United Kingdom.

Other buyers in 2025 included Kazakhstan, Brazil and Azerbaijan's oil fund. There are sellers too, such as Singapore. The big picture remains: it is mainly emerging economies and states close to geopolitical conflicts that are buying. How this ties into the debate about a world without dollar dominance is covered in BRICS and bitcoin.

Germany and Switzerland: lots of gold, no purchases

Western Europe's large gold owners are not joining in. They built up their holdings in the era of the gold standard and have kept them since.

Bundesbank: around 3’350 tonnes

The Deutsche Bundesbank owns around 3’350 tonnes of gold, the second-largest holding in the world after the US with 8’133 tonnes. Most of it comes from the export surpluses of the 1950s and 1960s, when other countries still settled their debts to Germany in gold.

The Bundesbank sells practically nothing and buys nothing. Its holding falls only slightly because it passes small amounts to the federal government for gold coins.

Swiss National Bank: 1’040 tonnes

Until 2000 Switzerland had around 2’590 tonnes, more per inhabitant than almost any other country. With the new federal constitution, the franc's tie to gold ended in 2000. After that the SNB sold around 1’550 tonnes by 2008. Since then it has held 1’040 tonnes and has not changed that figure.

In 2014 the Swiss voted on the popular initiative "Save our Swiss gold". It demanded that the SNB hold at least 20 % of its assets in gold, never sell gold and store all of it in Switzerland. On 30.11.2014 around 77 % of voters rejected it. The SNB had warned that the rules would paralyse its monetary policy.

Where is the gold? The repatriation debates

Nobody can freeze gold in your own vault. Gold in someone else's vault is a different matter. That is why citizens and politicians keep asking where their central bank's gold actually is.

Germany: gold in New York and London

During the Cold War the Bundesbank stored most of its gold abroad, at the Federal Reserve in New York, the Bank of England in London and the Banque de France in Paris. It was meant to be safe from seizure from the East and to sit where it could be exchanged for dollars or pounds in an emergency.

In 2012 Germany's Federal Court of Auditors criticised the Bundesbank for checking its gold abroad too rarely. A citizens' campaign demanded "Bring our gold home". In 2013 the Bundesbank decided to move around 674 tonnes to Frankfurt by 2020: 300 tonnes from New York and 374 tonnes from Paris. It finished in 2017, three years ahead of schedule.

Source: Deutsche Bundesbank, as of the completion of the transfers in 2017 (3’378 tonnes at the time). The total has fallen slightly since; the distribution has stayed about the same.

In 2025 the debate flared up again. Citing the unpredictable policies of the US government, individual politicians and the European taxpayers' association called for the gold in New York to be brought home as well. The Bundesbank saw no reason to do so and pointed to its trust in the Federal Reserve.

Switzerland and Austria

According to the SNB, it stores around 70 % of its gold in Switzerland, around 20 % at the Bank of England and around 10 % at the Bank of Canada. The storage abroad is meant to ensure that it can sell gold quickly in a crisis.

The Oesterreichische Nationalbank holds around 280 tonnes. In 2015 it decided to store half in Vienna by 2020, 30 % in London and 20 % in Switzerland.

What this means for bitcoin

Central banks are looking for a reserve that meets three conditions: no other state can block it, nobody can create more of it at will, and it will still be worth something in 30 years. Gold has met these for thousands of years. Bitcoin meets the first two even better:

• Cannot be frozen. Nobody can freeze bitcoin in self-custody. There is no vault in New York or London to bring it back from. It is wherever the keys are.
• Fixed supply. There will never be more than 21 million bitcoin. Gold grows by around 1.7 % a year through new mines, bitcoin by around 0.8 % as of 13.11.2026, and that rate keeps falling with every halving.
• Verifiable. A central bank can check its bitcoin holding on the blockchain itself at any time. For gold it needs inspectors on site, and the Bundesbank needed years and aircraft to move 674 tonnes.

On the third point, gold has a big lead: it has thousands of years of history, bitcoin not even two decades. And bitcoin swings much more. That is the argument most central banks use to reject it, the SNB included.

As of November 2026, no major central bank holds bitcoin in its official reserves. The exceptions are states, not central banks: since 2025 the US has been putting seized bitcoin into a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve at the Treasury, El Salvador keeps buying, Bhutan mines its own. The Czech National Bank is testing a small portfolio outside its reserves. Who holds how much is shown in Countries with bitcoin reserves.

For bitcoin holders the development is still remarkable. With their gold purchases, central banks show that they trust a reserve without an issuer more than the bonds of other states. That is exactly the idea behind bitcoin. Whether central banks will one day hold bitcoin too, and what price that could imply, is worked out in Bitcoin as a reserve currency.