Key takeaways
- Total gold demand including OTC reached 5,002.3 tonnes in 2025, a record, but up only 1% on 4,961.9 tonnes in 2024.
- The LBMA annual average price was US$3,431.5/oz, up 44%; the Q4 average was US$4,135/oz, up 55%.
- Jewellery consumption fell 18% to 1,542.3 tonnes while ETFs swung from -2.9 tonnes to +801.2 tonnes.
- Central banks bought 863.3 tonnes, down 21% from 1,092.4 tonnes — below 1,000 tonnes for the first time in four years.
- Mine production hit a record 3,671.6 tonnes and recycling rose just 3%, despite a 44% higher average price.
A record year that grew 1%
The World Gold Council's Gold Demand Trends for Q4 and full-year 2025, published 29 January 2026, records total demand including OTC of 5,002.3 tonnes against 4,961.9 tonnes in 2024. That is a record, and it is a 1% increase. Gold demand excluding OTC rose 8%, to 4,999.4 tonnes — the gap is an OTC line that collapsed from 331.3 tonnes to 2.9 tonnes.
The headline number is therefore close to useless on its own. The composition underneath it moved violently, and that is where the information is.
Jewellery collapsed 18% while ETFs swung by 804 tonnes
Jewellery consumption fell to 1,542.3 tonnes, down 18% in volume. Jewellery fabrication fell 19% to 1,638.0 tonnes. The WGC attributes part of the weakness in China to new VAT regulations layered on an already soft market, and notes that jewellery demand was "overtaken by retail investment for the first time."
Against that, global gold ETFs moved from an outflow of 2.9 tonnes in 2024 to an inflow of 801.2 tonnes in 2025 — a swing of 804.1 tonnes, and the second strongest ETF year on record. Bar and coin demand rose 16% to 1,374.1 tonnes, a 12-year high. Total investment demand reached 2,175.3 tonnes, up 84%.
The chart plots the four demand components in tonnes on a single axis: jewellery 1,542.3, bar and coin 1,374.1, central banks 863.3, ETFs 801.2. A demand base that used to be anchored by adornment is now anchored by allocation.
Central banks slowed. They did not stop, and the distinction matters
Central bank and other institutional buying was 863.3 tonnes, down 21% from 1,092.4 tonnes. The WGC describes purchases as reaching "the upper end of our expected 2025 range" and as "historically elevated and geographically widespread but... slowed from their recent pace." The 1,000-tonne threshold cleared in each of the previous three years was not cleared in 2025.
This is the part of the 2025 story most often told backwards. The official sector did not drive the record; it subtracted 229 tonnes from it. What replaced official-sector buying was private Western investment through funds — a buyer with an entirely different reaction function. Central banks buy on reserve policy and are close to price-insensitive. ETF holders buy on price momentum, real yields, and portfolio stress, and they sell for the same reasons.
Supply barely responded to a 44% rise in the average price
Mine production reached a record 3,671.6 tonnes, up about 1%. Recycling rose 3% to 1,404.3 tonnes against an annual average price 44% higher; the WGC calls this "a relatively muted response to a 67% increase in the US dollar gold price." The LBMA price set 53 all-time highs during the year. Total supply was 5,002.3 tonnes, up 1%.
A 44% rise in the average price that pulls out 1% more mine supply and 3% more scrap tells you the supply curve is close to vertical over a one-year horizon. Which means the price is being set almost entirely on the demand side — and, in 2025, by the most price-sensitive buyer in the stack.
What this changes about sizing a gold sleeve
The practical consequence of the composition shift is that gold's 2025 buyer base is more correlated with equity-market stress than its 2022–24 buyer base was. A 5% gold allocation held as a diversifier against equity drawdown was, in the central-bank era, supported by a bid that does not care what the S&P 500 does. In the ETF era it is supported partly by a bid that does.
The measurable threshold is the ETF line. In 2024 it was -2.9 tonnes. A return to that level in 2026 removes roughly 800 tonnes of annual demand — about 16% of total 2025 demand — with no offsetting change required anywhere else in the table.
What would falsify this
If jewellery recovers as the Chinese VAT drag fades — the WGC explicitly flags that "that drag could fade in 2026" — then the composition shift reverses and the ETF dependence shrinks. The WGC's own outlook expects "another year of strong gold ETF inflows and robust bar and coin demand, underpinned by elevated central bank buying," with jewellery staying weak. That is a forecast, not data, and the report also flags that "the risk of a pullback in investment on profit-taking remains a distinct possibility."
What the tonnage data cannot tell you is the price at which the 2025 ETF cohort bought. Without cost basis, the pain threshold for that 801.2 tonnes is unknowable from this release.
The number that will not appear in the headline
Next January's release will lead with total demand again. The line to read first is OTC — which fell 99%, from 331.3 tonnes to 2.9 tonnes, and single-handedly turned an 8% increase in reported gold demand into a 1% increase in total demand. A category that can move 328 tonnes in a year, and that nobody quotes, is doing more work in this table than the headline it sits under. and .
This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Always do your own research or consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.