Hong Kong's Russian Gold Imports Hit 112.7 Tonnes in First Seven Months of 2026, Already Beating Last Year's Record

Russia's gold is finding a new home, and it's not subtle about it.

Hong Kong imported 112.7 tonnes of Russian-origin gold in the first seven months of 2026, according to precious metals firm BullionVault's analysis of data from the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, first reported by CNBC. That already beats the 92.1 tonnes imported during the entirety of 2025, which was itself a record. Compare that to 2021, the year before Russia invaded Ukraine, when Hong Kong took in just 3.3 tonnes.

Russian bullion now makes up almost 15% of Hong Kong's non-monetary gold imports this year. In 2021 it was 0.6%. That's not a gradual shift. That's a market getting rerouted wholesale.

Why London Shut the Door

The London Bullion Market Association suspended all six Russian gold and silver refiners from its Good Delivery lists in March 2022, weeks after Russia's invasion. The U.S., U.K., and other Western governments followed with their own restrictions on Russian bullion. Before that, Russia's gold industry ran through London. BullionVault data shows Russian gold exports to the U.K. between 2019 and 2021 equaled roughly two-thirds of the country's annual mine production.

That pipeline is gone. "Russian exports of gold to the UK and other Western-sanction nations of course collapsed," said Adrian Ash, director of research at BullionVault, in comments to CNBC.

China Didn't Get the Memo

China never sanctioned Russian gold. Beijing's refusal to join Western restrictions is the entire reason this trade route exists.

"Most gold goes to Mainland China as it hasn't placed sanctions on Russian gold," said Vita Spivak, senior consultant at Gatehouse Advisory Partners, in remarks to CNBC. Spivak called Hong Kong "an important hub for Russia-China trade since the full-scale invasion," adding that the city offers Moscow direct access to the world's largest gold-consuming market on top of whatever sanctions-dodging value it provides.

Ash put it more bluntly: "The fact that Hong Kong's official data clearly shows a steep rise in imports of Russian gold reflects the kind of support and bilateral trade for which Putin has repeatedly thanked Xi."

That's Vladimir Putin's own public gratitude toward Xi Jinping, cited by an industry analyst, tracking a near 100-fold jump in gold volume since the invasion began.

The Infrastructure Play

Hong Kong isn't just a convenient loophole. It's investing to become the permanent answer. Rhona O'Connell, head of market analysis for EMEA and Asia at StoneX, told CNBC that Hong Kong has "always been an important entrepot for gold going into China," and that while Shanghai has grabbed market share in recent years, Hong Kong is now in "a race with Singapore for hub supremacy" and is roughly six months ahead on storage, clearing, and trading infrastructure.

To be fair to Beijing's position here, nothing in this reporting establishes that Hong Kong or Chinese buyers are breaking any law. China has not sanctioned Russian gold, so routing it through Hong Kong isn't a violation of Chinese or Hong Kong law. It's only a problem for the sanctions regime if you think the sanctions regime was supposed to actually stop Russian gold from reaching any market, not just Western ones. Critics of the current sanctions design would say that's exactly the hole: cutting Russia off from London did nothing to cut Russia off from revenue, it just redirected the money through a government that's happy to take it.

No U.S., U.K., or EU government has announced new secondary sanctions targeting Hong Kong refiners or financial institutions handling this gold, based on the available reporting. Whether Washington or London moves to close that gap, or whether Hong Kong simply cements itself as the new London for Russian bullion, is the open question nobody in this data set has answered yet.