HM Revenue & Customs published the UK overseas trade in goods statistics for July 2026 on 11 September 2026, recording Precious metals as the UK’s largest import chapter at £12,437 million, or 18% of total goods imports. The chapter rose £812 million, or 7%, on June 2026, with imports from Switzerland up £898 million to £3,637 million, from Uzbekistan up from under £1 million to £962 million, from Singapore up from £10 million to £467 million, and from the USA down £1.2 billion to £1,141 million. Non-monetary gold is reported separately: NMG imports rose £1.2 billion in the month and NMG exports fell £1.5 billion, and total imports of £67.4 billion fall to £56.2 billion once NMG is excluded.
The chapter total is a declared customs value in sterling, taken from import and export entries. It records no weight, no fineness and no refiner, so neither the quantity of metal nor the deliverable format behind £12,437 million is in the release. Four partner corridors moved inside one month against a chapter total that moved 7%, and a corridor is a booked route into an accredited vault: under the LBMA Good Delivery Rules a bar holds its London acceptability while it stays inside the chain of integrity, and a bar that leaves it is re-assayed before it is taken back. The London deliverable is a Good Delivery bar of roughly 350 to 430 oz at a minimum fineness of 995.0, while the 1 kg bar at 999.9 is the standard form across Hong Kong, Singapore and mainland China, and moving metal between the two formats is a refinery operation. UK exports of Precious metals fell £1.3 billion on June 2026, driven by Hong Kong and China and partially offset by Switzerland, while imports from Switzerland rose 33%. For allocation the partner country settles nothing: a bar is eligible on the accreditation its refiner holds on the LBMA Good Delivery List and on the responsible-sourcing requirements attached to that refiner, and Uzbekistan at £962 million is a country line that names no refiner.
The release records declared customs values for July 2026 and marks 2026 data provisional under HMRC’s revisions policy. Weight, fineness and refiner on any individual bar are fixed by the refiner’s assay mark and the weight list that travels with it.