Top 10 Countries That Have The Largest Gold Reserves 2021 (Latest)

Updated: Wednesday, June 2, 2021, 13:35 [IST]

Central banks are significant gold holders and play an important role in the management of reserves. A gold reserve is a gold owned by a country's central bank to support the value of its currency, and it was used as a pledge to redeem commitments to pay depositors, noteholders, or trading peers during gold standard periods. Governments place a high value on gold reserves. When inflation starts to rise, governments will buy large amounts of gold as a countermeasure.

According to World Gold Council (WGC) data as of April 2021, central banks bought 272.9 tonnes of gold in 2020. Because the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is not a country, it is not included on this list. The IMF, on the other hand, would have been third on the list, with 2,814 tonnes of gold in its vaults. The top ten countries with the most gold are listed below.

Top 10 Countries That Have The Largest Gold Reserves

Countries	Gold Reserve in Tonnes	Percent of foreign reserves
United States	8,133.5	77.5%
Germany	3,362.4	74.5%
Italy	2,451.8	69.3%
France	2,436.2	64.5%
Russia	2,298.5	22.0%
China	1,948.3	3.3%
Switzerland	1,040.0	5.4%
Japan	765.2	3.1%
India	686.8	6.5%
Netherlands	612.5	67.4%

United States: 8,133.5 tonnes of gold

The US stands in first place with 8,133.5 tonnes gold reserves. The United States Bullion Depository, commonly referred to as Fort Knox, is a fortified vault building adjacent to the United States Army post of Fort Knox, Kentucky. The Treasury Department of the United States manages it. The vault houses a significant portion of the US gold reserves, as well as other valuables owned by or in the custody of the federal government. All Federal depositories are supervised by the United States Mint Police.

Germany: 3,362.4 tonnes of gold

Germany's gold reserves are held at the Deutsche Bundesbank in Frankfurt am Main, the New York branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, and the Bank of England in London. Germany completed a four-year repatriation operation in 2017 to return 674 tonnes of gold to its own vaults from the Banque de France and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Italy- 2,451.8 tonnes of gold

Italy has also maintained the size of its reserves over time, and President Mario Draghi of the European Central Bank (ECB) has backed it up. Like the other Eurosystem national central banks, the Bank of Italy manages Italy's official reserves as well as a portion of the ECB's (NCBs). The Bank of Italy is in charge of the country's official foreign currency and gold reserves. After the US Federal Reserve, the Deutsche Bundesbank, and the International Monetary Fund, the Bank of Italy holds the world's fourth-largest gold reserves. The Bank's gold is 2,452 tonnes, mostly in bars (95,493) but with a few coins thrown in for good measure.

France- 2,436.0 tonnes of gold

Over the last few years, France's central bank has sold very little gold, and there have been calls to put an end to it entirely. Marine Le Pen, the country's far-right National Front party's president, has led the charge to not only halt the sale of the country's gold but also to repatriate the entire amount from foreign vaults. France is placed fourth in the list with a reserve of 2,435.7 tonnes of gold.

Russia-2,299.9 tonnes of gold

For the past seven years, the Russian Central Bank has been the largest gold buyer, surpassing China to become the fifth largest gold reserve holder in 2018. Russia purchased 224 tonnes of gold in 2017 in an effort to diversify its currency away from the US dollar. Russia has aggressively shifted its foreign reserves out of US dollars and into gold and other currencies over the last three years.

China- 1,948.3 tonnes of gold

For the first time since 2009, the People's Bank of China began publishing its gold purchasing activity on a monthly basis in the summer of 2015. Although China ranks sixth in terms of gold reserves, the yellow metal accounts for only 3.4 percent of the country's total holdings.

Switzerland- 1,040.0 tonnes of gold

Switzerland, which has the world's largest gold reserves per capita, is ranked seventh. During World War II, the neutral country became the epicenter of Europe's gold trade, dealing with both Allies and Axis powers.

Japan- 765.2 tonnes of gold

In February 2021, Japan's gold reserves were reported to be 42.878 USD billion. This is down from the previous figure of 45.854 USD billion in January 2021. Japan is also the eighth biggest gold hoarder, the third-largest economy in the world.

India- 687.8 tonnes of gold

Gold reserves grew to 676.61 tonnes, compared with 668.25 tonnes, in the fourth quarter of 2020 in India. Gold reserves in India increased by $1.008 billion over the week ended December 18 to $37,020 billion, data from RBI revealed. No wonder the Bank of India has one of the world's largest gold stores.

Netherlands- 612.5

The Dutch Central Bank announced that its gold vaults will be relocated from Amsterdam to Camp New Amsterdam, about an hour outside of the city, citing the current location's burdensome security measures. Netherland is in the tenth position with 612.5 tonnes of gold reserve