The Dutch central bank's announcement last month that it was moving gold from North America to Europe marked the latest chapter in a global redistribution of reserves that has been building for years. The quiet relocation of bullion between vaults in different jurisdictions has become a window into how central banks weigh where their reserves sit, how quickly they could reach them in a crisis, and how exposed they are to foreign financial infrastructure.

For decades, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has served as custodian of gold on behalf of the U.S. government, foreign governments, other central banks, and official international organizations. Much of that stockpile arrived during and after World War II, as countries sought a safe location for their gold reserves—a role cemented by the postwar Bretton Woods system, under which the dollar was pegged to gold. Holdings peaked in the early 1970s, then began a gradual slide after the United States took the dollar off the gold standard; today the vault holds roughly half of its peak.

U.S. custodianship is now declining further. France removed all of its gold from the New York Fed between July 2025 and January 2026. The Dutch central bank, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB followed by moving more than 78 tons of gold stored in New York and seven tons in Canada to London, citing “increasing geopolitical unrest” and the need to improve its “crisis preparedness.”

DNB Governor Olaf Sleijpen pointed to London's status as the world's largest trading hub for bullion, noting that gold stored at the Bank of England would be more accessible. “We expect that we will never need to use them, but we do need to strengthen our resilience and preparedness,” Sleijpen said.

A repatriation wave years in the making

Although global tensions have risen recently, central banks around the world have been reshuffling their gold holdings for years while also adding to their reserves, according to the World Gold Council. Germany transferred 930 tons from London to Frankfurt in 2000, then moved 674 tons from New York and Paris to Frankfurt between 2013 and 2017. The Netherlands shifted 122.5 tons from New York to Amsterdam in 2014, and Austria repatriated 90 tons from London between 2015 and 2018.

Outside Europe, Venezuela brought home 160 tons between 2011 and 2012, while India has accelerated the pace of relocation since 2023. The breadth of that list underscores that repatriation is not confined to any single region or alliance.

Krishan Gopaul, a senior analyst at the World Gold Council, explained in a blog post last month that gold movements have come in waves and began well before relocation became a geopolitical issue. The current wave, however, is more complex.

“Heightened geopolitical uncertainty has increased attention on jurisdiction, access during a crisis and exposure to overseas financial infrastructure,” Gopaul said. “Yet recent operations by France and DNB show that the answer does not necessarily lie in domestic storage alone. Central are increasingly optimizing across three considerations: custody risk, physical accessibility and market liquidity.”

Political pressure builds over gold held in the U.S.

Lawmakers in Germany and Italy—holders of the world's second- and third-largest gold reserves, respectively—have demanded that more of their gold also be taken out of the U.S., citing President Donald Trump's hostility toward Europe, including his threats to seize Greenland. Germany's central bank, for its part, has dismissed fears that its gold in New York could be vulnerable, arguing that the U.S. would harm itself if it threatened the confidence of financial markets.

Gopaul noted that some central banks are increasing domestic storage while others are spreading reserves across more overseas locations, signaling that diversification of custody is a priority. Relocation, he added, does not mean central banks are preparing to sell their gold.

“But the emerging picture is one in which security alone is no longer enough,” Gopaul said. “For some central banks, gold must also be accessible, tradable and distributed across locations that remain dependable under stress.”

The standoff between politicians pressing for repatriation and central bankers defending existing arrangements leaves unresolved how much of the world's gold will remain in New York—and whether the recent departures by France and the Netherlands mark an acceleration of a shift already underway.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.