Tanzania’s central bank has been on a gold shopping spree, and the numbers are hard to ignore. The Bank of Tanzania has purchased approximately 28 metric tons of gold over the past 18 months, a haul valued at roughly $3.68 billion.
To put that in perspective: $3.68 billion is more than half the country’s total foreign exchange reserves. This is not a rounding error in a central bank’s portfolio. This is a deliberate, structural bet on gold.
How Tanzania built a gold war chest
The program was reinstated around 2023 and has accelerated steadily since. By June 2025, the Bank of Tanzania had accumulated about 5 tonnes of gold, valued at approximately $554 million. A year later, by mid-June 2026, that figure had climbed to roughly 27.5 tonnes.
A key regulatory lever helped accelerate the buildup. Starting in September 2024, a new mandate required mining companies and gold traders operating in Tanzania to sell at least 20% of their exported gold directly to the central bank.
