On Wednesday, September 2, the Dutch Central Bank announced the removal of part of its gold reserves from New York and Ottawa to London. Officially, this is explained by the need to prepare for “serious crises.”
From March to August 2026, the Netherlands Bank (DNB) transported about 86 tons of gold from the United States and Canada to London, “which is considered the world's main trading center for physical gold,” the agency said in a press release. In total, DNB stored about 313 tons of gold in the USA and Canada.
Gold held at the Bank of England is considered the most liquid and can be used more quickly in a crisis than gold held in New York or Ottawa, DNB says.
The Netherlands' gold reserves amount to just over 612 tons; at the end of 2025, their value was estimated at 72.2 billion euros. Before the removal of part of the reserves to London, 30.8% of the reserves were stored in the Dutch Zeist near Utrecht, 31.3% in New York, 19.7% in Ottawa, and 18.1% in London. Now London will have 32.1% of reserves, and New York and Ottawa will each have 18.5%. The geographical distribution of Dutch gold is now more balanced, DNV notes.
Part of the movement of gold was physical: from the USA and Canada to Zeist, and from Zeist to London, partly through the sale of gold in New York and purchase in London. This, they say at DNB, made it possible to diversify risks.
The Netherlands' total gold reserves remained unchanged.
Why transport gold
This is not the first time the Netherlands has exported some of its gold from the United States.
In 2014, DNB transported 122 tons of gold from New York to the Netherlands (the total value of this volume was about 4 billion euros at that time). This decision was also explained by the need to diversify where gold reserves are stored, examples of other European central banks and the need to increase the level of citizen confidence.
Previously, only 11% of the Netherlands' gold reserves were located within the country, while more than half of the reserves were stored in New York. In the 20th century, the Federal Reserve vaults in New York were the safest place in the world, able to withstand even an atomic bomb, and this distribution of resources during the Cold War seemed logical.
This time, DNB cites not only balancing and diversification as the reasons, but also “growing political tensions,” without specifying what it is about.
Relations between the United States and European countries have become more strained since the start of Donald Trump's second presidential term, including due to his statements about the need to establish American control over Greenland.
Dutch economists and gold traders spoke about the need to remove reserves from the United States at the beginning of this year, arguing, among other things, that Donald Trump is unpredictable.
“He could refuse to release [gold], impose additional tariffs, or drag out the process for decades. The United States is not a reliable partner now,” Johan de Reyter, director of the Goudwisselkantoor company specializing in precious metals trading, told AD.
Politicians also raised this issue. In early June, the far-right Freedom Party, with the support of the far-right Forum of Democracy, introduced a proposal to the Dutch parliament to transport Dutch gold from New York to the Netherlands, but it did not receive a sufficient number of votes.
Judging by the DNB press release, the diversification of gold reserve storage facilities had already begun at that time.
The export of gold reserves from the United States is a trend that has affected not only the Netherlands.
The Bank of France, for example, now stores all its gold in the country. By selling and buying gold at the right time to withdraw reserves from the United States in July 2025 - January 2026, the French Central Bank managed to earn 13 billion euros.
German economists are calling on the Deutsche Bundesbank to remove gold from the United States (about a third of Germany's gold reserves are stored in New York), arguing that the current White House administration is unreliable. The German Central Bank has not yet agreed to this.
