Gold's Share of Global Reserves Hits 27%, Overtaking US Treasuries for the First Time in Decades

What happened

Gold has overtaken US Treasuries as the single largest asset class in global central bank reserves, according to the European Central Bank's (ECB) semiannual review of the euro's international standing, published June 2, 2026. Bullion accounted for 27% of official reserve assets worldwide at the end of 2025, up from 20% a year earlier, while US Treasuries slipped to 22% from 25% over the same period. Roughly two-thirds of that jump reflects gold's own price surge -- bullion gained about 60% in 2025 on top of a 30% rise in 2024 -- rather than fresh buying alone; stripped of valuation effects and priced at 2023 levels, gold and the euro are roughly tied at 16% each, with Treasuries still comfortably ahead at 26%. The underlying buying, though, has been real and broad. World Gold Council (WGC) data show central banks added 863.3 tonnes of gold in 2025, and Poland's central bank led every other buyer for a second straight year, adding 102 tonnes to lift its reserves to 550 tonnes -- 28% of its total holdings -- with Governor Adam Glapinski targeting 700 tonnes for what he has called reasons of national security. Kazakhstan added 57 tonnes, its largest annual purchase since 1993, and Brazil returned to the market with 43 tonnes after sitting out since 2021. Azerbaijan's State Oil Fund added 38 tonnes. Several of these buyers trace their reasoning back to February 2022, when the United States and its allies froze roughly $300 billion of Russia's foreign-currency reserves over the invasion of Ukraine -- an event that showed reserve managers everywhere that assets held in another country's financial system can be seized by that country's own government.

The details

Start with what actually changed, not just the headline. The European Central Bank's semiannual review of the euro's global standing found that gold's 27% share of world reserve assets at the end of 2025 topped US Treasuries' 22%. Two forces produced that number, and they don't carry equal weight. Bullion itself gained roughly 60% in 2025 on top of a 30% rise in 2024, and because central banks report reserves at current market value, a price rally alone inflates gold's share even if not one additional ounce gets bought. Strip that valuation effect out and hold gold at its end-2023 price instead, and the picture changes: gold and the euro are essentially tied at 16% apiece, with Treasuries still the largest single holding at 26%. The milestone is real, but it is a price story as much as a buying story, and conflating the two overstates how much central banks have actually reallocated.

What isn't just a price effect is the physical tonnage moving into vaults, and Poland's central bank did more of that than anyone else in 2025. The National Bank of Poland added 102 tonnes over the year, its second straight year atop the World Gold Council's buyer rankings, lifting its reserves to 550 tonnes -- 28% of everything it holds. Governor Adam Glapinski has said the bank intends to keep going to 700 tonnes, and by mid-2026 it had already added a further 82 tonnes toward that goal. He has framed the target in security terms rather than portfolio theory, describing it as part of "the state's role in ensuring the security of Poland and Poles under all circumstances." That framing tracks Poland's position on NATO's eastern flank, and its gold-buying pace has followed the war in Ukraine almost step for step since 2022.

Poland isn't buying alone, and the rest of the list is telling in its own right. Kazakhstan added 57 tonnes in 2025, its largest annual purchase since 1993, with its central bank saying plainly that it wants "to stay a net gold buyer until global tensions ease." Brazil returned to the gold market for the first time since 2021, buying 43 tonnes and pushing bullion to about 7% of its reserves. Azerbaijan's State Oil Fund added 38 tonnes. None of these four is a G7 economy, and none sits especially close to Moscow -- which is itself the point. China's own accumulation, still running at a record pace into 2026, made the initial case that a major economy could shift meaningfully into gold. Poland, Kazakhstan, Brazil and Azerbaijan buying at the same time, for reasons their own officials describe in nearly identical language, is what turns one country's strategy into a market-wide one.

Turkey shows the other side of the same coin. In the two weeks after the Middle East conflict escalated around Iran in late March 2026, Turkey's central bank sold and swapped roughly 118 tonnes of its own gold -- worth more than $8 billion at the time -- to defend the Turkish lira and shore up foreign-exchange liquidity. Governor Fatih Karahan called it a "proactive, flexible, and controlled" use of reserves, not a change of strategy. Reserves that can be frozen by a foreign government aren't available in a crisis; reserves held at home and drawn down on a central bank's own decision are. Turkey's sale runs on the same logic as Poland's purchases, just applied to the opposite need.

None of this is happening in a vacuum. The reference point every one of these central banks keeps coming back to, directly or not, is February 2022, when the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Japan froze roughly $300 billion of Russia's foreign-currency reserves over its invasion of Ukraine. That single event told every other reserve manager something they'd mostly treated as theoretical: a bond or a bank deposit held in another country's financial system answers to that country's laws, not the owner's. Gold sitting in a domestic vault doesn't have that problem. For an Indian reader tracking daily rupee gold rates, the connection to Poland's target or Kazakhstan's governor is indirect but real -- it's the same price-insensitive, multi-year institutional demand that has kept gold's structural floor firm through 2026, now arriving from a wider and more geographically scattered set of buyers than a year ago.

Why it matters

Central bank reserve decisions move over years, not days, but they set a floor under gold demand that doesn't depend on any single week's headlines. A widening group of buyers -- not just China, but Poland, Kazakhstan, Brazil and Azerbaijan, each citing tensions or security explicitly -- shows gold's role as a reserve asset has broadened beyond a single country's story. For anyone watching the daily Indian gold rate, that broader base is one reason gold has kept a structural bid even on days its own price isn't moving.