Central banks, once the staid custodians of national treasure, have in recent years developed something of a glittering habit. In 2024 and through 2025 they resumed large-scale buying of gold, often at a pace not seen since the 1960s.
The renewed enthusiasm, led by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), has coincided with a world marked by war, fractious geopolitics and a wobbling global economy. Gold, so often dismissed as a relic, is once again the instrument of choice for nervous policymakers.
According to analysis by BestBrokers, drawing on the World Gold Council’s November data release, the price of gold surged to €3,612 per ounce by November 19th, erasing a month-long slump. At that level, the notional value of official global reserves rose to €4.22trn, up a striking 44.7% from December 2024.
For central bankers, that windfall has provided both comfort and temptation: some have treated the rally as validation of their accumulation strategy; others have seized the chance to take profits.
- Beginners Guide to Commodities
- Armchair Academy: Introduction to Precious Metals
- Rolls-Royce shares: Is now the time to buy?
- Bitcoin and Gold increasingly seen by investors as better together
- Has Michael Burry got it right about AI sector earnings?
Poland leads central bank gold bulls
Poland sits atop the league table of buyers in 2025. Its central bank added 67.1 tonnes of gold in the year to date, though the latest confirmed purchase (6.2 tonnes) came as far back as May. With no verified acquisitions since then, the Narodowy Bank Polski appears, for now, to be relying on market appreciation rather than additional stockpiling. Even so, the rise in prices has driven the value of Poland’s hoard to €59.9bn, up by two-thirds on a year earlier.
Kazakhstan, less noisy in its pronouncements but equally busy in the bullion market, was the largest net buyer in the third quarter. It expanded its reserves by 18 tonnes, bringing the country’s total to 324 tonnes. Counting purchases made earlier in the year, the National Bank of Kazakhstan has amassed roughly 40 tonnes in 2025. With the tenge fragile and the economy exposed to fluctuations in commodity markets, gold provides a form of insurance that policymakers appear unwilling to forgo.
China, meanwhile, has re-entered the buying cycle after a brief pause. Its purchases of 1.2 tonnes in September and 0.9 tonnes in October brought this year’s total additions to roughly 35.5 tonnes. Compared with Poland and Kazakhstan, China’s 2025 buying looks restrained. Yet context matters: the PBoC already sits on a stockpile of 2,303 tonnes (sixth in the world) and tends to adjust its reserves in carefully calibrated increments. Its renewed appetite suggests that Beijing views gold as a useful hedge as it grapples with a property slump at home, tense relations with America and a weakening renminbi.
Which central bank owns the most gold?
At the top of the hierarchy sits the United States, whose 8,133-tonne cache remains the world’s largest, worth roughly €945bn at current prices. Switzerland stands out on a different metric: its per-capita holdings translate, at least in theory, into 37 gold coins per citizen, a statistic guaranteed to warm Helvetic hearts.
The broader backdrop is a shift in the way central banks think about reserves. Gold, unlike foreign-exchange assets, carries no counterparty risk and cannot be frozen by an adversary, an attribute that has grown more salient since Russia’s reserves were seized in 2022. As countries from the Gulf to South-East Asia seek to diversify away from the dollar without provoking market turmoil, gold’s appeal has only strengthened.
If current buying patterns hold, central-bank demand could keep prices lofty into 2026. China may yet accelerate its purchases; mid-tier economies could continue tweaking their portfolios as they navigate an unpredictable Federal Reserve and jittery currency markets. In an era short on safe harbours, the oldest of them is once again gleaming.
Related ETFs
Would you like your funds listed here? Contact us
Core Physical Gold Gold
LON:WGLD / USD 
Gold 1x Daily Short Gold
SBUL / USD 
Gold 2x Daily Leveraged Gold
LBUL / USD Gold 3x Daily Leveraged Gold
3GOL / USD Gold 3x Daily Short Gold
3GOS / USD Physical Gold – GBP Daily Hedged Gold
GBSP / GBP
Comments (0)