Which Country Owns the Most Gold? Gold Reserves By Nation
Monday, 5/12/2025 14:40
Data and charts for today's Top 10 largest gold buyers and holders...
CENTRAL BANK gold buying is a vital factor in the global gold bullion market today.
Over the past 5 years, central banks as a group have chosen to buy almost 1 in every 8 ounces produced by global gold mining. Their demand outweighed inflows to gold-backed ETF investment products more than 5 times over.
In fact, the total quantity of gold now reported to be held in national central-bank reserves – shown on BullionVault's interactive data table and map below – today accounts for 17% of all the gold ever mined in all of history.
Which countries lead this central-bank gold buying? Here, BullionVault shares data and analysis revealing both today's largest gold reserves holders plus which nations have chosen to buy the most gold since the start of 2020.
As we shall see, China, Poland and India have topped the table for gold buying since the Covid pandemic began 5 years ago, with Russia close behind. But none of those counties top the table for outright gold reserves holders. Not yet, and not on the official data at least.
Get the full picture of the world's largest central bank gold buyers and holders with these interactive map and tables.
Top 10 countries by gold reserves 2025
Gold continues to be a cornerstone of financial security for many nations in the 21st Century, especially in times of global uncertainty. Over the five years to 2025, central banks around the world have continued to bolster their bullion reserves as a hedge against inflation, currency fluctuations, and geopolitical instability.
But which countries hold the most gold? Explore all the
gold reserves data in detail at the bottom of the page.
USA
Official data for the start of 2025 says that the United States continues to lead the global gold rankings with a massive
8,133.5 tonnes of gold held in reserve. Against its population of close to
340 million, this translates to an average of
23.9 grams of gold per person, worth almost $2200 per head at gold's early 2025 prices. Despite no change in reserve volume over the past five years, that per capita figure underscores the scale of America’s longstanding investment in gold as a strategic asset. The consistent volume also reflects the Federal Reserve’s conservative approach to its gold policy.
Germany
Germany’s gold reserves amount to
3,351.6 tonnes, maintaining its position as Europe’s top gold-holding nation. With a population of just over
83 million, this equates to an impressive
40.2 grams per person. This high per capita figure reflects Germany’s deep-rooted trust in gold as a store of value, managed by the Deutsche Bundesbank. Although the tonnage has dipped slightly from 2019, the country's commitment to gold remains firm.
Italy
Based on Italy’s official data for the end of 2024, its gold holdings stand firm at
2,451.9 tonnes, unchanged from five years earlier. With a population nearing
58.9 million, the country enjoys a strong
41.6 grams of gold per capita, one of the highest ratios in Europe. This consistent reserve level demonstrates Italy’s continued reliance on gold as a key component of its national financial security, overseen by the Banca d’Italia.
France
France holds a substantial
2,437.0 tonnes of gold, virtually unchanged from five years ago. With a national population approaching
64.8 million, this amounts to around
37.6 grams of gold per capita. Managed by the Banque de France, the country’s long-standing commitment to gold underscores its strategic role in safeguarding monetary stability, even as public interest in gold fluctuates.
Russia
Russia has, on its publicly stated data, boosted its gold holdings to
2,333.1 tonnes, reflecting a steady rise from its start-2020 level. With a population of approximately
144.4 million, this equates to
16.2 grams per capita. Though not the highest on the list, Russia’s strategic focus on increasing its reserves over time points to a broader effort to bolster economic independence and reduce exposure to foreign currencies.
China
China’s gold reserves grew significantly to
2,279.6 tonnes by the end of 2024, marking a continued upward trend in accumulation. However, with a vast population of over
1.42 billion, the country still only holds
1.6 grams of gold per person, one of the lowest per capita levels among major reserve holders. This disparity highlights the impact of population size on per capita figures, even when total reserves are high. But it might also be contradicted by the widespread view among gold-market analysts that Beijing is most likely growing its gold holdings faster than it reports in public, cutting its exposure to the Dollar and other US assets in favor of bullion.
Switzerland
Switzerland remains a global outlier when it comes to per capita gold, with
1,039.9 tonnes of gold reserves shared among just
8.8 million people. This results in an impressive
118.2 grams per person, by far the highest gold-per-head ratio in the world. Despite a referendum in 1999 voting to end the Franc's formal gold-backing in law, the Swiss National Bank’s commitment to maintaining large reserves of bullion reflects Switzerland’s historic role as a haven of financial security and independence.
India
India’s gold reserves rose significantly from 635.0 to
876.2 tonnes over the past half decade, a 38% increase in just five years. However, with a population of more than
1.43 billion, this results in just
0.6 grams of gold per person. While the per capita figure is small, the growth in reserves signals the Indian authorities' recognition of gold’s role in supporting national economic resilience and diversifying financial assets. That appeal is already well-known by India's private households, the 2nd largest buyers of the precious metal behind China's household sector.
Japan
Japan’s gold reserves increased to
846.0 tonnes by the end of 2024, up from 765.2 in 2019. With a population around
123.3 million, that gives the country a modest
6.9 grams of gold per capita. While not among the highest, this figure reflects Japan’s cautious and balanced approach to reserves management, with gold playing a supporting role alongside foreign currencies and other assets.
Netherlands
The Netherlands maintained its gold holdings at
612.5 tonnes as of New Year 2025, nudging the Central Bank of Turkey out of the Top 10 on BullionVault's analysis because, on its reported figures, Ankara counts a large portion of Turkey's commercial bank gold holdings among its sovereign reserves. With a population of about
17.6 million, the Netherlands shows a healthy
34.8 grams of gold per capita, placing it among Europe’s more robust gold-per-head nations. As with Switzerland, the consistency of its reserves reflects a long-standing national strategy focused on fiscal conservatism and stability.
Who is buying the most gold among central banks and why?
At the start of the 21st Century, all of the Top 10 central bank gold nations were 'legacy' holders, sitting on massive reserves built during or in the years following World War Two.
Led then as now by the United States, eight of those Year 2000 giants were in Western Europe, and the other was Japan. Whereas today, Russia comes in 5th place, with China in 6th and India in 8th.
In fact, Turkey would be in 10th position, ahead of the Netherlands, if we counted commercial-bank gold holdings − needed to back their customers' gold investment accounts − as part of its sovereign-state reserves like the central bank in Ankara does on its official data.
What changed to drive this surge of non-Western gold buying?
First came the early 2000s' rush of globalization. It poured Western consumers' cash into emerging-market nations' central-bank reserves, buying gas and crude oil from Russia plus manufactured goods from China and India. It also coincided with ill-advised gold bullion sales by many Western nations, made at what proved to be the eve of gold's dramatic 21st Century gains to date.
Then, around 2010, the US and European financial crisis saw emerging-market central banks buy gold to spread their portfolio risk away from the Dollar. That move has since continued, but with a sharp geopolitical edge, since Russia was hit by Western financial sanctions over its invasions of Ukraine, first annexing the region of Crimea in 2014 and then attempting to take the whole country since 2022.
That has seen demand to buy gold for national central bank reserves spread among many smaller nations. Because Washington and Brussels have, in the eyes of many, chosen to 'weaponize' their currencies as a tool of geopolitical control. Gold, in contrast, is no one's to control through bank clearing systems or outright default. So it shines as a way of diversifying exposure to the Dollar, to the Euro, and to the political actions of Western governments.
China
The world's 7th largest economy in US Dollar terms in 1999, China jumped to 3rd place on the GDP league table within 10 years and then overtook Japan, closing the gap with world No.1 economy the USA to less than 50% by 2014 and then to barely 30% last year.
Driving that economic growth, China has built a giant manufacturing sector and earns a huge trade surplus against the rest of the world. Today it ships out over 14% of all merchandise exports by value, but it buys less than 11% of global imports. To pay for the gap, other countries – led by the USA – must send huge quantities of currency to China to get the goods that they want. That has enabled the central bank in Beijing to build massive reserves of foreign currency and bonds, led by the US Dollar.
China's FX reserves at the People's Bank are so huge, its massive gold holdings still accounted for just 5.5% of the total in US Dollar terms at New Year 2025. But that ratio has more than doubled over the past 20 years as Beijing more than tripled the weight of its gold bullion reserves to reach more than 2,270 tonnes on the official data.
That makes China the 6th largest national gold holder, with analysts believing that the vast bulk if not all of its gold is stored domestically. But do those figures understate China's true bullion reserves?
Many analysts believe China's national gold bullion holdings are larger than the reported total, perhaps twice the size if you compare the country's visible private-sector demand against its gold mining output and bullion imports. The excess supply must have gone somewhere, and the People's Bank has in the past kept the changes in its gold holdings a secret,
suddenly announcing huge increases in its gold reserves.
India
For a country with such a deep and famous love for gold, India began the 21st Century very shy about buying any gold for its central-bank reserves. But looking to diversify its foreign-exchange reserves as economic growth in the world's most populous nation accelerated, the Reserve Bank of India in late 2009 bought a massive 200 tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund.
India's 2009 gold purchase was the largest increase in its national gold holdings on record. It cost the central bank $1045 per Troy ounce, then the highest gold price ever. The very same level then became the final floor for the gold prices when the market slumped in 2012-2015. Perhaps that proves – as several analysts had noted – that the staff at India's central bank really do
know a thing or two about gold.
After the 2009 purchase of IMF gold, the RBI kept its record-large gold reserves unchanged for 8 years, focusing instead on trying to boost the Rupee's exchange-rate value while building its holdings of US Dollars and other foreign currencies. Indeed, there was discussion about
selling or lending some of India's gold to help the central bank defend the Rupee, something it had done two decades earlier.
But the officials in Mumbai then began to buy gold regularly from the end of 2017, adding almost 320 tonnes since then to take the Reserve Bank of India's total reported bullion reserves to the 8th largest worldwide among national central banks. Over 27% of the total has been added in the past 5 years alone, as our table shows.
What's more, India has recently joined another key central-bank gold trend – repatriating some of its gold reserves from abroad, and keeping more of its bullion at home.
More on this geopolitical trend and the reasons behind it below.
Poland
Trailing the monster gold buyers of China, India and Russia, three members of the European Union have also shown strong appetite for central-bank gold reserves over the past five years, led by Poland.
While some of
Warsaw's gold buying appeared politically motivated under the right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS), Poland's gold purchases have continued since they lost power in 2023, adding another 89.5 tonnes last year alone.
Hungary and the Czech Republic have meanwhile more than doubled their gold reserves since the start of 2020, eve of the global Covid pandemic. Like Poland, they are due to join the single Euro currency at some stage. But for now, they continue choosing the safety of gold bullion as a key monetary reserve.
Countries doubling their gold reserves
Other countries doubling the weight of their gold reserves since the end of 2019 include Georgia and Kyrgyzstan in eastern Europe, major African gold-mining nation Ghana, EU and Euro member Ireland (albeit to only 12.0 tonnes), plus Middle East states the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
Russia
As with China, the Central Bank of Russia is believed to keep all its gold bullion domestically, rather than holding much if any abroad.
Also like China, there's debate over the true size of Russia's government gold holdings. But on the central bank's official data, Moscow now holds the world's 5th largest national gold hoard after choosing to buy almost 2,000 tonnes for its reserves over the last 20 years.
That gold-buying spree took off as the price of oil and gas – which make up half of Russia's total exports and account for almost 1/5th of its entire economic output – began rising in the 'commodity supercycle' of the early 2000s. Boosting Russia's GDP as well as Moscow's tax revenues, the country's trade surplus with the rest of the world also spurred a jump in the central bank's reserves of foreign currency, most of all the US Dollar.
At the same time, Vladmir Putin – then as now President of Russia – called for the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) to increase gold's share in its foreign-exchange reserves, and he also called for greater investment into Russia's gold-mining industry. The country has since moved from 5th position to No.2 among the largest producer nations, almost doubling its annual gold mine output by weight.
As a major supplier to the global bullion market, Russia's gold miners hit a big problem when Western sanctions hit the country's banking sector after its invasion and annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014. Those US and EU sanctions meant Russia's gold miners couldn't easily access the international market to sell their output. So after reporting no sales and only purchases between 2007 and 2012, the Central Bank of Russia accelerated its
relentless campaign of gold buying in 2014-2018, paying domestic mining companies with Rubles to buy 80% of their output.
Russia's huge gold accumulation means that it accounted for more than one-third of all national central-bank gold buying worldwide since 2004. But Moscow's dominance has slipped, sinking below 4% of the sector's net demand over the last 5 years while China accounted for 20% and India 14%, with Poland and Turkey both on 13%.
First, that's because other countries began buying gold during the Western financial crisis of the late 2000s. Russia's accumulation then slowed because of the 2020 Covid Crisis, when the plunging price of crude oil hit Moscow's tax revenues and forced the Ruble's foreign exchange rate lower. Thirdly, Moscow's war on Ukraine then hit the Russian state's finances and international liquidity reserves as the US, UK and EU authorities have tried to lock it out of the global financial system.
The CBR initially said it
wouldn't buy any domestic gold output, but it relented as Western sanctions hit both Russia's mining industry and its own ability to grow its reserves of non-Ruble assets.
Why do central banks buy and hold so much gold?
"Gold," says a research paper co-written by monetary historian Barry Eichengreen in 2023 and published by the IMF, "appeals to central-bank reserve managers as a safe haven in periods of economic, financial and geopolitical volatility."
Because those stresses have worsened so far in the 21st Century, gold's appeal has only grown for many central-bank buyers, as you can see on this interactive table (click the column headings to sort the table).
Overall, the total quantity of gold held in national central-bank reserves has increased almost 19% by weight over the past 20 years – and it has jumped 7-fold in US Dollar value to $2.5 trillion – led by Russia, China, India, Turkey and Uzbekistan.
How much gold does the UK have?
The UK held
310.3 tonnes of gold at the end of 2024, unchanged from 2 decades before, when it ended a heavy gold-selling program which coincided with the bottom of the precious metal's long bear market. With a population of approximately 67.7 million, this works out to just
4.6 grams of gold per person, a relatively low figure when measured against other leading Western nations. Despite the modest reserve size, the UK's gold is securely managed by the Bank of England and plays a supporting role in the country’s foreign reserves portfolio.
Why are UK gold reserves low?
The United Kingdom’s low gold reserves can largely be traced back to that controversial decision made between 1999 and 2002
when the UK government sold more than half of its gold holdings at historically low prices. Instead of accumulating gold, the UK has focused its reserve strategy on a
diversified basket of foreign currencies and other financial assets, viewing gold more as a hedge than a primary store of value.
Uses of gold FAQs
Gold has been used in jewelry for thousands of years primarily due to its appearance and natural lustre that doesn’t diminish over time due to gold’s inertness and resistance to tarnishing. Pure gold is relatively soft and easy to craft into delicate and intricate pieces and can also be combined or alloyed with different metals to change its colour and hardness.
The global wholesale gold investment market, centred in London deals in the London Good Delivery gold bullion bar. This London Good Delivery bar weighs 400 troy ounces - about 12.4 kilograms - and is about eleven inches long. It is stamped on the top (the larger face) with the manufacturer's name, the weight, and the assayed purity. The minimum specified fineness must be 99.5% pure gold, but improvements in the refining process mean that Good Delivery bars now reach 99.99% purity or higher.
In the UK gold jewelry is subject to Value Added Tax (VAT) at the standard rate of 20%. In the UK gold jewelry is considered a consumer good much like a mobile phone or TV. However, investment grade gold bullion in the form of London Good delivery bars or investment grade coins and small bars can be bought and sold free of VAT.
Since 2010 the percentage of gold used for investing has averaged 29%. 2013 saw the lowest investment percentage at 18% and in 2020 during the Covid pandemic the percentage of investment gold peaked at 49%. If you include Central Banks reserves as gold investment of sorts, then between 2022 and 2024 this reached 23% of gold demand.
Between 2010 and 2024 the percentage of gold used in technology has averaged 8% with little variation over the past decade. In comparison over the past 15 years gold used in jewelry has accounted for 50% of total gold demand.
Central Bank Gold Reserves
