The Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, known as OMFIF, released its Global Public Investor survey on June 30, 2026, and the headline finding landed with unusual weight. For the first time in the survey’s history, more central banks said they plan to reduce their long-term dollar holdings over the next decade than to increase them.

The numbers behind the shift

The OMFIF survey pulled responses from over 70 central banks, giving it enough breadth to reflect a genuine consensus rather than a few outliers with grievances.

A separate World Gold Council Central Bank Gold Reserves Survey, released on June 16, 2026, reinforced the finding from a different angle. In that survey, 74% of central bank respondents said they expect USD allocations in global reserves to fall over the next five years.

The dollar’s share of global official foreign exchange reserves has already been sliding. It now sits at roughly 58%, down from peaks above 70% in the early 2000s.

Two forces are driving the shift. The first is political instability in the United States, which has made foreign institutions less comfortable holding large concentrations of dollar-denominated assets. The second is the long-term trajectory of US debt, which a growing number of central bank reserve managers appear to view as a structural risk rather than a manageable concern.

Early 2026 also saw notable reductions in foreign holdings of US Treasuries, linked to geopolitical tensions.

Gold is the primary beneficiary

Central banks have been net buyers of gold for several consecutive years, acquiring roughly 1,000 tonnes annually in recent years. Emerging market central banks have been particularly aggressive in this shift, increasing gold’s share of their reserves significantly. The logic is straightforward: gold carries no counterparty risk, cannot be frozen by a foreign government, and doesn’t depreciate when one country’s politics sour.

The euro has also been cited as an alternative destination for some of the capital moving away from dollar exposure.

What this means for investors

Reduced demand for US dollars from central banks, over time, creates structural downward pressure on the currency. The more immediate market signal is in gold. When 74% of central banks say they expect to reduce dollar holdings, and when those same institutions have been buying gold at roughly 1,000 tonnes per year, the demand picture for gold looks durable.

What the surveys do make clear is that foreign demand for US Treasuries faces a structural headwind. Reduced central bank appetite for Treasuries means the US government has to find other buyers for its debt, likely at higher yields. Higher yields affect everything: mortgage rates, corporate borrowing costs, equity valuations, and the relative attractiveness of risk assets.