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The Netherlands has become the latest country to pull gold out of the United States in recent years, as the Dutch Central Bank announced on Wednesday that it was moving 86 tons of its reserves from New York and Canada to London, citing “increasing geopolitical unrest.” "A more balanced distribution of these reserves between North America, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands helps to spread risks and will make them more readily available for use in a crisis situation," De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) said in a statement. The gold held in the Bank of England in London “must meet modern international trade standards and is regarded as the world’s most easily tradable gold and will therefore be the most readily available for DNB in a crisis situation,” the Dutch bank said. Before the move, the Dutch bank held 31.3 percent of its gold in New York and 19.7 percent in Ottawa.
Now both hold 18.5 percent of the country’s gold reserve, while London’s share has grown from 18.1 percent to 32.1 percent. Another 30.8 percent of DNB’s gold is in the Netherlands. ... European Nations Moving Gold From The US It is the second European country this year to remove its gold reserves from the United States, after France did the same in January.
The Banque de France sold 129 tons of gold which had been held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York between July 2025 and January 2026, about 5 percent of its total reserves. With the money it made from the sale, the bank purchased an equivalent amount of new, compliant gold in Europe, which now sits in Paris alongside the rest of France’s reserves, which totals around 2,437 tons. It is not a completely new phenomenon.
In the summer of 2017, under the first Trump administration, Germany ’s Bundesbank completed the transfer of 300 tons of its gold from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to Frankfurt. The move was part of the German bank’s plan to have the majority of the country’s gold reserves stored in German vaults in Frankfurt. While 36.6 percent of its gold stock remained in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, all the 374 tons of gold in France’s Banque de France were pulled out.
Last year, Germany and another European country, Italy, resisted growing domestic and political pressure to repatriate approximately $245 billion worth of gold stored in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s vaults after trade tensions and concerns over U.S. monetary policy under President Donald Trump. The two countries hold the world’s second- and third-largest gold reserves at 3,352 tons and 2,452 tons, respectively. Italy holds roughly one-third in New York.
The single largest holder is the United States, which holds 8,133 tons of gold. List of Countries With Gold in the US Federal Reserve These countries still have gold in the Federal Reserve: Germany Germany stores 36.6 percent of its gold stock in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, according to the Bundesbank. Lebanon Lebanon keeps an estimated 40 percent of its gold reserves in New York, according to Bunker Blog .
India India stores gold in multiple foreign vaults, including New York as per NDTV . Italy Italy’s Banca d’Italia keeps over 43 percent of its gold reserves in the United States, according to Corriere della Sera. This list is not exhaustive, as multiple countries do not publicly reveal where their gold reserves are stored.
Hugo Chavez Repatriated 160 Tons Under President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela repatriated about 160 tons of its gold reserves from foreign banks, including the United States and Europe, back to Caracas by January 2012. The move, started a year earlier, was justified by Chavez as an act of national sovereignty meant to protect the country’s wealth from global economic instability. ... “The gold is returning to where it was always meant to be: the vaults of the Central Bank of Venezuela,” Chavez said in 2011.
Some 31 metric tons of Venezuelan gold are held in the Bank of England’s vaults in London. Previous efforts to recover the gold by Venezuela have been blocked by the bank, which did not recognize the legitimacy of former President Nicolas Maduro’s government. Venezuela’s National Assembly chief Jorge Rodriguez said last month that the new government was planning on revamping its efforts to “to promote the recovery of Venezuela’s international assets in the Bank of England,” as reported by Reuters .
Those assets would be used on projects aimed at rebuilding housing, health capacities, electricity availability and clearing the rubble caused by recent earthquakes. Contact Newsweek editor on this story: Edward Pearcey.
Source: Newsweek
