SENTIMENT towards gold remains high among central banks, according to a World Gold Council survey published today which said official sector purchases were likely to increase over the next 12 months.
Central bank gold purchasing was a net 863 tons last year, lower than the preceding three years when net buying exceeded 1,000 tons per year, but higher than in any of the 12 years from 2010. First quarter central bank demand for gold totalled 244 tons, a 17% increase quarter-on-quarter, the council said in April.
In those years, official sector purchases were to primarily hedge against interest rate increases and geopolitical instability. According to the World Gold Council today, those factors remain uppermost in central bank concerns.
About 89% of respondents to the council’s survey – which enlisted a record number of replies – believe the global central bank gold reserves will increase in the next 12 months. In addition, 45% expect their own gold reserves to increase.
There were though changes in where vaulting would take place. “This year’s survey reveals an emergent trend of central banks increasingly looking to diversify gold vaulting locations,” the WGC said.
The survey found 57% of respondents stored gold at the Bank of England, down from 64% last year, while 14% held bullion at the New York Federal Reserve, down from 17%. Despite the decline in share, the BOE remained the world’s most popular gold vault. Banks are preferring domestic storage. Interestingly, the Swiss National Bank saw a decline in preference, dropping to 6% from 12% in 2025, the council said.
Interest rate concerns was the major factor in gold displacing US government bonds as the world’s leading reserve asset, according to a report in June. This was driven by central bank buying and a price rally that has saw bullion nearly double over two years.
Bullion accounted for 27% of global central bank reserve assets at end-2025, up from 20% a year earlier, said the Financial Times citing a European Central Bank report. US Treasuries fell to 22% from 25% over the same period, though dollar-denominated assets as a whole still represent the largest share of reserves at 42%.
The shift reflects a broad move by central banks to reduce dependence on the US dollar, a trend that accelerated after Washington froze Russia’s dollar reserves following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. “Geopolitical tensions continue to drive strong central bank demand for gold,” ECB president Christine Lagarde wrote in the report.
Central banks’ gold holdings now exceed 36,000 tons, approaching the peak levels of the Bretton Woods era. Net purchases slowed slightly to 850 tons in 2025 after three consecutive years above 1,000 tons. China, Poland, Turkey and India were the largest accumulators since 2022, though stablecoin company Tether emerged as the single biggest buyer in 2025, purchasing more than 100 tons.
Turkey’s trajectory illustrates the volatility of the trend: after accumulating 220 tons since 2022, it sold or loaned 130 tons following the outbreak of the Iran war in early 2026 — one of the largest reserve drawdowns in recent years, the ECB said.
