Bank of France sells its 129-tonne US gold reserve, then buys it back in Europe for tidy $15 billion profit
The Bank of France found a novel way to get their gold out of U.S. custody without a diplomatic kerfuffle: Sell it at a profit in New York, then buy it right back on the continent.
As part of their fiscal year 2025 announcement, the central bank revealed an “exceptional item” that allowed it to flip a EUR 2.9 billion loss into an EUR 8.1 billion annual profit.
“Income from assets held for own account rose by EUR 12.2 billion as a result of an exceptional item,” the Bank said in the March 25 press release. “In 2025 and at the start of 2026, while the volume of gold reserves remained unchanged, the Banque de France had to align a residual portion (5%) with technical guidelines, resulting in a significant realised currency gain. This exceptional foreign exchange income totalled EUR 11 billion for 2025.”
The move was as clever as it was profitable. Unlike the ongoing saga of Germany’s massive U.S.-based gold holdings – which remain in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s vaults, much to the consternation of many of the country’s politicians – the Bank of France did not try to raise the issue of withdrawal or transfer of their gold. Instead, they simply sold the older, less pure gold bars in New York for what they were worth in U.S. dollars as gold prices were reaching all-time highs, then pocketed the cash and bought bars that met their updated weight and purity standards in Europe, as prices conveniently pulled back.
This resulted in a win-win-win for France’s central bank: No diplomatic pushback from the U.S. administration during a period of contentious relations over tariffs, Greenland, Ukraine, and now Iran, no fees for transportation and security across the Atlantic, and what worked out to a massive profit on the transactions themselves, boosting the Bank’s overall financial position.
“[T]he Banque de France’s net equity – comprised of own funds plus unrealised capital gains on asset holdings – is now extremely solid at EUR 283.4 billion, up from EUR 202.7 billion in 2024,” they noted. “The Banque de France’s net equity includes a revaluation reserve of state gold and foreign exchange reserves (RRRODE) of EUR 11.4 billion, to cover future monetary expenses.”
BdF Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau told reporters that the decision to keep the new bars in Paris instead of New York was “not politically motivated.”
France’s total bullion holdings remained unchanged at roughly 2,437 tonnes following the transactions, and the country’s entire gold reserve is now held at the BdF’s underground vault in La Souterraine.
