La Souterraine: The Banque de France Gold Vault
La Souterraine is the Banque de France gold vault, 27 m beneath central Paris. It holds France’s gold reserves of 2,436 tonnes – according to the bank now in full, after the last holdings in New York were replaced in 2025 and 2026.
What is La Souterraine?
La Souterraine is a high-security vault beneath the headquarters of the Banque de France in Paris. It lies 27 m underground. In 1940 the facility received an international prize for underground architecture.
Under the French Monetary and Financial Code, the Banque de France is responsible for the safekeeping and management of the gold reserves. La Souterraine is its most important storage site for this purpose.
How much gold is stored there?
According to the Banque de France, France holds 2,436 tonnes of gold. At the end of May 2023 this was 78.3 million ounces, or 2,436.8 tonnes. Holdings have not changed since the last sale in 2009.
This gives France the fourth-largest national gold reserves after the United States, Germany and Italy. If the International Monetary Fund is included, France ranks fifth. The bank publishes the level of the reserves monthly.
Why is all the gold now in Paris?
Until 2025, a small part of France’s reserves was held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. According to media reports, this was around 129 tonnes, about 5% of the holdings. The bars no longer met today’s standards for weight and purity.
According to the reports, the Banque de France sold these bars in New York between July 2025 and January 2026 and bought equivalent bars meeting current standards in Europe. These are now stored in Paris. Rather than being transported, the gold was replaced.
Selling and buying back has a practical advantage: no gold has to be shipped across the Atlantic and then re-assayed. The new bars already meet current requirements, and the old ones were released into the market in New York.
According to the bank, the transaction generated foreign exchange gains of €11 billion in 2025. Governor François Villeroy de Galhau stressed that the decision in favour of Paris was not politically motivated. Total holdings remained at around 2,437 tonnes.
How does Paris differ from New York and London?
The vaults in New York and London are mainly custodians of other parties’ gold. The New York Fed owns no gold in its vault, and the Bank of England only two museum bars. The Banque de France, by contrast, primarily stores France’s own reserves.
France thus takes a different approach from Germany, for example. The Bundesbank holds just over half of its gold in Frankfurt and deliberately keeps the rest at the trading centres of New York and London. According to the available information, France has had no gold abroad since 2026.
The standard of the bars matters for tradability. The replacement of the old New York bars shows that central banks, too, make sure their holdings meet the market’s current requirements.
Does the Banque de France also hold other parties’ gold?
Yes, on a small scale. The Banque de France offers custody for foreign central banks and international organisations. According to the bank, this accounts for only a small part of the gold it stores.
Until 2017, the Bundesbank also kept gold in Paris. Between 2013 and 2017 it moved a total of 374 tonnes to Frankfurt. At the end of 2015, 196.4 tonnes of German gold was still in Paris; the last 91 tonnes went to Frankfurt in 2017.
The Banque de France does not trade gold with private investors.
