For the past three years, Poland has stood at the center of the global gold market. As the world’s most aggressive central-bank buyer, Warsaw accumulated more than 130 tons of gold between 2023 and 2025, helping propel bullion into one of its strongest rallies in decades. Over the last 12 months alone, gold has surged roughly 75%, buoyed by geopolitical instability, investor demand, and sustained official-sector purchases led in no small part by Poland.
Now, in a striking reversal, the country is weighing the once-unthinkable: selling part of its gold reserves to finance a massive military expansion.
According to reports, National Bank of Poland (NBP) Governor Adam Glapiński has proposed raising $13 billion (approximately 48 billion złoty) by selling a portion of Poland’s gold reserves, estimated at roughly 550 to 700 metric tons, to fund an expanded defense budget. The proposal, discussed with President Karol Nawrocki, could ultimately form part of a broader $50 billion financing package aimed at doubling Poland’s military capacity. The plan emerges as Poland enters the fourth year of war on its eastern border, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reshaping Europe’s security architecture. At the same time, NATO unity appears more fragile, and uncertainty over U.S. policy particularly under President Donald Trump’s renewed criticism of certain EU defense initiatives has forced Warsaw to rethink its funding options. Poland has already committed to raising defense spending to 4.8% of GDP, one of the highest levels in NATO. Financing that ambition, however, presents political and diplomatic challenges.
The European Union’s €150–174 billion Security Action for Europe (SAFE) loans-for-weapons program offers substantial funding, with as much as €44 billion earmarked for Poland. Yet the initiative has drawn opposition from Washington, which has signaled discomfort with programs that favor European defense contractors over American firms. President Nawrocki, aligned with the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, has reportedly expressed concern that relying heavily on EU loans could strain Poland’s relationship with the United States. Warsaw remains one of Washington’s closest military partners in Europe and has signaled interest in further purchases of American-made F-35 fighter jets.
Selling gold, therefore, is being explored as a way to maintain strategic autonomy: financing defense expansion without deepening dependence on Brussels or risking tension. The proposal marks a dramatic shift in tone. As recently as September 2025, Glapiński declared that gold was “the only safe investment for state reserves” amid global turmoil and the search for a new financial order. Under his leadership, the NBP aimed to increase gold to 30% of total reserve assets.
In 2024 and 2025 alone, Poland added over 100 tons annually to its reserves, making it the largest reported official-sector buyer of gold in 2025, according to the World Gold Council. Those purchases were widely interpreted as a hedge against currency volatility, geopolitical fragmentation, and the weaponization of foreign-exchange reserves.
Now, the central bank is reportedly considering selling part of those holdings, potentially at record-high prices, with the option to buy them back later. Another option under discussion would allow the NBP to revalue its gold reserves to realize accounting gains without physically selling the metal, provided legislation directs those profits toward defense spending. In effect, Poland may be attempting to transform gold’s appreciation into immediate strategic capital.
The global gold market is watching closely. Poland has been one of bullion’s strongest structural supporters. A meaningful sale by the world’s top recent buyer could introduce volatility, particularly if markets interpret the move as signaling a broader slowdown in central-bank demand.
Yet the impact may be more nuanced. If the sale is structured as a temporary liquidity measure with the intention of repurchasing reserves, the long-term effect on demand could be limited. Moreover, Poland would be selling at a time of strength. With gold trading above $5,000 per troy ounce after doubling in value over the past three years, Warsaw would effectively be monetizing a windfall generated by its own accumulation strategy. Rather than signaling a loss of faith in gold, the move could demonstrate its ultimate utility: liquidity in moments of national urgency.
Poland’s deliberation underscores a broader shift underway in global reserve management. For years, central banks accumulated gold as insurance against financial fragmentation and geopolitical risk. Now, one of the most committed buyers is considering deploying that insurance to meet an immediate security threat.
The decision reflects the reality facing Eastern Europe: traditional financial prudence must now coexist with hard-power imperatives. Gold may be a hedge against instability, but tanks, jets, and missile systems are deterrents against invasion. In that sense, Poland’s gold dilemma is not simply about markets. It is about sovereignty.
Whether Warsaw ultimately sells bullion, revalues it, or chooses an alternative path, the debate itself highlights a new era in which central bank reserves are no longer just passive stores of value. They are strategic assets and, if necessary, instruments of national defense. For the gold market, Poland’s next move could prove pivotal. For Europe, it signals something even more profound: in a world of renewed great-power competition, even the safest assets may need to serve more immediate purposes.