· Germany, Italy, France, China complete top 5
· Gold prices reach record highs 2025 y-t-d
The U.S., continues to dominate official global gold holdings, with reserves of 8,133.46 tonnes currently valued at $1.09 trillion, according to the World Gold Council’s latest data analysed by BestBrokers.
Germany, Italy, France, and China complete the top five countries with the world’s largest gold reserves, showing no changes over the past decades, even as gold prices reached multiple record highs throughout 2025 and continued climbing into the first months of 2026.
The report, highlighting trends in gold accumulation among central banks in 2026 as well as the largest national reserves of gold around the world, showed that while markets debate interest rates and recession risks, central banks are buying and selling gold at one of the most sustained prices in decades.
According to the World Gold Council data on the top 10 countries with the largest gold reserves, the United States continues to dominate official global gold holdings, with reserves of 8,133.46 tonnes valued at an estimated $1.09 trillion, more than double what any other country owns and accounting for 83.3 percent of its total foreign reserves. Germany remains a distant second with 3,350.25 tonnes worth $447.11 billion, followed by Italy with 2,451.83 tonnes at a current market value of $327.21 billion. France and China round out the top five, holding 2,436.97 tonnes ($325.23 billion) and 2,321.55 tonnes ($309.82 billion), respectively.
Together, these five countries control more than 18,600 tonnes of gold worth nearly $2.5 trillion, over 50 percent of global gold reserves.
Russia, with 2,298.53 tonnes worth $306.75 billion was pushed down to the sixth place by China with steady accumulation, narrowing the gap with European reserve holders. Others are Switzerland in seventh place with 1,039.94 tonnes worth $138.79 billion, India in eighth with 880.51 tonnes (worth $117.51 billion), Japan, 845.97 tonnes (valued at $112.90 billion), and Netherlands, 612.45 tonnes worth $81.74 billion. Poland has also continued its rapid ascent ― following three consecutive years of large-scale purchases, it has climbed to 11th place globally with 595.65 tonnes of gold valued at $79.50 billion. Having added 45.4 tonnes so far in 2026 ― the largest increase of any central bank this year ― Poland remains the world’s most aggressive gold buyer.
On the selling side, the BestBrokers analysis which covered the entirety of 2025 and the first months of 2026, also identifying the countries that emerged as the world’s largest buyers and sellers of gold during this period showed that Turkey emerged as the most significant source of official-sector gold sales in 2026, overtaking Russia after reducing its holdings by more than 78 tonnes. Much of the decline was concentrated in March, when reserves fell by approximately 60.4 tons, marking one of the largest monthly reductions recorded this year. The sell-off has pushed Turkey down the global rankings to 12th place, leaving it with 535.44 tonnes of gold worth an estimated $71.46 billion. Most of Turkey’s transactions, however, have not been reported as official gold holdings but announced separately as bank operations aimed at liquidity management.
Alan Goldberg, lead data analyst at BestBrokers, said, “Central banks are still buying gold at a steady clip, and the signal matters more than the pace. In a market dominated by Fed commentary, dollar swings, and constant macro noise, official sector demand has become the quiet, almost invisible layer underneath the volatility. It doesn’t chase rallies or flinch on pullbacks. Instead, it accumulates in the background, steadily and without urgency, as if price is not the main question anymore.
“That creates a strange split screen in global markets. On one side, traders and investors are reacting in real time to interest-rate expectations, inflation prints, and every shift in US dollar momentum. On the other, reserve managers are operating on a much longer horizon, continuing to edge exposure toward an asset that sits outside the banking system’s liabilities and geopolitical exposure. Gold, in that sense, is not being rebranded or reimagined, it’s being reallocated to, quietly and repeatedly, one balance sheet at a time”.
Among the countries whose central banks bought and sold the most gold include Poland (45.4 tonnes), Uzbekistan (20.0 tonnes), China (15.2 tonnes), Kazakhstan (13.3 tonnes), Czech Republic (7.6 tonnes), Malaysia (5.0 tonnes), Guatemala (2.5 tonnes), Cambodia (1.9 tonnes), Kyrgyzstan (1.7 tonnes), Indonesia (1.5 tonnes), Bulgaria (–1.9 tonnes), Turkey (–27.9 tonnes), and Russia (–78.3 tonnes).
Largest gold reserves but low grams per citizen
Though the United States holds the world’s largest gold reserve overall, it ranks only 12th on a per capita basis, with around 23.3 grams of gold per person. Switzerland tops the per capita ranking due to its relatively small population, holding more than 115 grams per citizen, nearly five times the U.S. level. Lebanon follows in second place with roughly 50 grams per person, while Italy and Germany come next with about 41 grams and 40 grams per capita, respectively. Qatar, Portugal and France also sit among the higher-ranked countries, each at close to 40 grams per citizen.
