Dutch central bank moves 86 tonnes of gold to UK from US and Canada, citing ‘geopolitical unrest’

AI desk brief

De Nederlandsche Bank says it moved 86 tonnes of gold reserves out of the US and Canada to London, framing the shift as a resilience and crisis-readiness measure amid “increasing geopolitical unrest.” The move raises London’s share of Dutch gold to 32.1% from 18.1%, while New York and Ottawa each fall to 18.5%; the Netherlands still holds 30.8% domestically. The bank said London gold is quicker to deploy and easier to trade in a crisis.

DNB said the transfer was completed between March and August using a mix of buying/selling and physical transport, with more than 27 tonnes of physical gold moved from the US and Canada to Zeist and the same amount then moved on to London, avoiding a full melt-and-recast process. The Dutch gold stock stood at 612.4 tonnes, valued at €72.2bn ($83.7bn) at end-2025. DNB president Olaf Sleijpen said the aim was to improve deployability and preparedness, even though the bank assumes it will never need to use the gold.

For the gold market, the headline is not immediate flow pressure but another confirmation that central banks continue to treat bullion as a strategic reserve asset and are increasingly sensitive to geopolitical and storage-location risk. The move reinforces London’s role as the primary liquidity hub for sovereign gold, and could add to the broader narrative of reserve diversification away from the US if other central banks follow. The near-term market read is mildly supportive for gold sentiment, though the impact is more structural than price-sensitive in isolation.