The World Gold Council set out on 15 September 2026 why central banks are moving their gold reserves, citing its 2026 Central Bank Gold Reserves Survey. In that survey, 9% of respondents plan to diversify their overseas storage locations over the next 12 months, against 2% in the previous survey, and 7% plan to increase domestic storage. The World Gold Council classes a sale of gold in one market replaced by a purchase in another, with the quantity owned unchanged, as a change of location, and records that a custody position can change without a physical shipment. The Banque de France reported with its 2025 results on 9 April 2026 that 129 tonnes of its gold held in New York, 5% of the total, did not meet the LBMA standard its reserves have been brought into line with since 2005, and that it sold that gold and bought conforming gold in Europe rather than move it, with reserves unchanged at 2,437 tonnes.
Bars shipped between custodians reach the destination bar list under the refiner marks and serial numbers they carried at the origin, and the shipment leaves a release instruction to the origin custodian, the carrier’s receipt, a transit insurance certificate and, across a border, export and import declarations. A replacement by sale, the route the Banque de France took, puts the marks and serial numbers of the bars bought on the destination list, matched to the bars sold by fine weight, and leaves a sale confirmation, a purchase confirmation and a settlement for each leg. Serial numbers that match across the origin and destination lists record a shipment; a new set of equal fine weight records a replacement, or bars recast by a refinery on arrival. A shipment’s file dates the change of location by the booking-in at the destination vault, and a replacement’s file dates it by two settlements that can fall in different periods: the Banque de France booked its New York sale in 2025, and the World Gold Council dates the operation 2025–26. A tonnage or share by location is the sum of the fine weights on the lists and comes out the same after either route. A count at the destination vault confirms the bars on its list at the count date, and the transport documents or the two trade confirmations show how they arrived. A holding diversified across overseas custodians, as 9% of respondents plan, carries one such list per custodian.
The 9% and 7% figures come from the 67 central banks that hold gold and answered the survey question on the next 12 months. The standard the Banque de France cites is maintained by the LBMA.