Nations Withdraw Gold Reserves from New York Fed Amid Global Tensions
Several countries including the Netherlands and France are removing or selling their gold reserves stored at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The high-security Manhattan vault, located 80 feet underground, faces shifting international storage preferences.
A growing number of sovereign nations, including the Netherlands, France, Germany, and India, are actively withdrawing their national gold reserves from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. This global shift in asset management comes amid heightened geopolitical instability and ongoing international trade tensions that are reshaping how countries choose to secure their sovereign wealth.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York houses its legendary vault 80 feet below the surface of the earth in Manhattan, New York, United States. Widely recognized as the single largest gold repository in the entire world, this high-security underground facility has historically served as the premier global destination for foreign central banks seeking to store their precious metal reserves safely.
Statistical data highlights the massive scale of these holdings and the recent shifts taking place. Up until the first week of the current month in September 2026, the total amount of foreign gold reserves stored inside the Fed's underground vault stood at approximately 6,200 metric tons. Detailed historical records from 2024 indicate that the secure facility previously contained roughly 507,000 individual bars of gold, which collectively amounted to an astonishing total weight of 6,331 metric tons.
Individual nations have begun implementing distinct strategies regarding their allocated portions of these massive reserves. Official records show that the Netherlands successfully transferred a substantial 86 tons of gold away from the United States and Canada. Meanwhile, France—which maintains a total national gold reserve of approximately 2,437 tons—adopted a different financial approach by choosing to sell off 129 tons of the gold it had previously kept stored inside the New York Fed during the period spanning from July 2025 to January 2026.
Broader global sentiment surveys regarding the safekeeping of precious metals further illustrate changing international preferences among institutional and official observers. Recent polling data reveals that 57 percent of respondents selected the Bank of England as their preferred destination for storing gold assets. In parallel, 49 percent of surveyed participants expressed a strong preference for keeping sovereign gold reserves securely housed within their own domestic territories rather than abroad.
