The Dutch central bank has relocated 86 tonnes of its gold reserves from the United States and Canada to London, citing “increasing geopolitical unrest”. De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) announced the move on Wednesday, stating that gold held in London can be traded more easily than in New York or Ottawa, enabling faster deployment in a crisis.
Why the gold was moved
DNB explained that London’s gold market offers greater liquidity and flexibility. “This makes it the quickest for DNB to deploy in a crisis situation,” the bank said in a statement. The bank’s president, Olaf Sleijpen, added: “With this step, we have improved the deployability of the gold reserves. We assume that we will never need to deploy the gold, but it is nevertheless necessary to strengthen our resilience and preparedness.”
The total Dutch gold stock stood at 612.4 tonnes, valued at €72.2bn ($83.7bn) at the end of 2025, according to DNB. Before the transfer, 31.3% of the gold was held in New York and 19.7% in Ottawa. After the move, each location now accounts for 18.5% of the reserves. The share in London rose from 18.1% to 32.1%, while the Netherlands retains 30.8% of the gold.
How the transfer was executed
The operation combined buying and selling with physical transport. DNB moved more than 27 tonnes of physical gold from the US and Canada to its facility in Zeist, Netherlands. An equivalent amount was then shipped from Zeist to London, avoiding the need to melt down gold bars. “By combining buying and selling and physical transport, the risks associated with physically moving a large quantity of gold have been spread,” the bank noted. The transfer took place between March and August of this year.
Market and geopolitical context
Laurent Schwartz, president of the Paris-based National Gold Counter, which facilitates gold trading in France, said central banks have been relocating reserves for about a decade. “The current political context in the United States might also push certain central banks into favouring other storage locations,” he said. Schwartz highlighted that London’s market is the deepest and most liquid, making it easier for central banks to deploy gold in crises and to lend it to other institutions.
John Plassard, an analyst at Cite Gestion Private Bank, described the Dutch move as “fairly one-off” for now, but warned that if other central banks followed suit, it could damage confidence in the US. Earlier this year, Germany raised concerns about the security of its reserves in New York, but the Bundesbank has decided not to shift them. “The New York Fed is and remains an important storage site for our gold,” the Bundesbank told public TV station ARD in January.
