Dutch central bank shifts billions in gold from Canada, U.S. to London in ‘crisis preparedness’ move

The Dutch central bank announced Wednesday that it has moved billions of dollars worth of its gold reserves out of North America in a move it described as “crisis preparedness” in a time of global political unrest.

It said that between March and August, some 86 metric tons of gold were transferred to London from the combined total of around 313 metric tons held in New York and Ottawa. Before the move, New York housed 31.3 per cent of the Dutch gold and Ottawa held 19.7 per cent. After the move, both cities now hold 18.5 per cent, the bank said.

The bank owns 612.4 metric tons of gold that was worth €72.2-billion (about US$83.6-billion) at the end of 2025.

“With this relocation, we have improved the tradability of our gold reserves,” the bank’s governor, Olaf Sleijpen, said in a written statement. “We expect that we will never need to use them, but we do need to strengthen our resilience and preparedness.”

More than 27 metric tons of gold were “physically transferred” from the United States and Canada to the Dutch bank’s heavily guarded vault on a military base near the central town of Zeist, the bank said, without elaborating on exactly how the gold bars got across the Atlantic Ocean. A similar quantity of gold was transferred from Zeist to London.

The rest of the relocation was achieved by selling around 59 metric tons of gold in New York and using the proceeds to buy gold in London.

The Dutch bank, known by its acronym DNB, said that gold held at the Bank of England “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 gold reserves held in New York and Ottawa cannot be utilized as quickly and directly in such a situation.”