Central Banks Add 41 Tonnes of Gold in May as Record 45% Plan to Buy More

Poland and China Lead a Broad Official Buying Wave

The World Gold Council (WGC), the manufacture assemblage that tracks authoritative assemblage bullion flows, elaborate the May enactment successful a probe enactment authored by Marissa Salim, the council’s elder probe pb for the Asia-Pacific region. The National Bank of Poland led each buyers with 18 tonnes, followed by the People’s Bank of China with 10 tonnes, Uzbekistan with 9 tonnes, Kazakhstan with 7 tonnes, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore with 4 tonnes.

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The council’s 2026 Central Bank Gold Reserves Survey, conducted earlier this year, captured the temper among the world’s reserve managers. The WGC stated:

“89% of cardinal bankers expect planetary gold reserves to summation successful the adjacent 12 months. A grounds precocious 45% of cardinal bankers expect their ain institution’s gold reserves to summation implicit the adjacent 12 months.”

Poland has accumulated 64 tonnes successful 2026 alone, making it the year’s largest gold purchaser arsenic it works toward a publically stated 700-tonne target. China has added 25 tonnes year-to-date, bringing its authoritative holdings to 2,331 tonnes, oregon astir 9% of its full reserves. Kazakhstan’s stockpile stands astatine 361 tonnes, astir 78% of its reserves, portion gold makes up 87% of Uzbekistan’s (among the highest allocations successful the world).

Not each instauration was a purchaser arsenic Turkey trimmed 3 tonnes successful May and Russia sold 6 tonnes, leaving Moscow with 2,292 tonnes aft 34 tonnes of disposals this year. Those sales, however, were dwarfed by request elsewhere, fixed the Czech National Bank has present recorded 39 consecutive months of nett purchases, 1 of the longest progressive streaks among monetary authorities.

A Structural Break From the Last Decade

The existent gait represents a departure from humanities norms, fixed that cardinal banks person absorbed an mean of 1,000 tonnes annually implicit the past 4 years, treble the astir 500 tonnes averaged crossed the preceding decade, the survey found. The authoritative assemblage besides opened 2026 strongly, with estimated nett purchases of 244 tonnes successful the archetypal 4th (above some the anterior 4th and the five-year quarterly average). Reserve managers mention inflation hedging, sanctions risk, and diversification distant from the U.S. dollar arsenic the starring motivations.

The consequences are disposable successful reserve compositions with gold present accounting for a larger stock of planetary cardinal slope reserves than U.S. Treasuries for the archetypal clip since 1996, a displacement analysts picture arsenic a turning constituent successful however authoritative institutions store nationalist wealth. Because cardinal banks are among the largest azygous holders of bullion, their purchases region proviso from the marketplace for years astatine a time, giving the authoritative assemblage outsized power implicit semipermanent prices.

Lastly, Goldman Sachs sees 20% upside for gold successful 2026, portion Devere Group main enforcement Nigel Green has argued the metal’s relentless rally has sparked fresh doubts astir the Federal Reserve’s adjacent move.

More Buying Incoming?

The Bank of Korea, which holds 104 tonnes, is preparing its archetypal allocations to gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs), a measurement that would unfastened a caller transmission for authoritative demand. Chile has added 8 tonnes year-to-date arsenic Latin American involvement builds.

Singapore, itself a 4-tonne purchaser successful May with 197 tonnes successful full reserves, plans to motorboat cardinal slope gold vaulting services successful October 2026, positioning the city-state arsenic a custody hub for the precise reserves its peers support accumulating. With 89% of surveyed cardinal bankers expecting planetary holdings to emergence further, the authoritative bid underneath the gold marketplace shows small motion of fading successful the 2nd fractional of the year.