Greenland emerges as new source of Swiss gold imports

Mon Jan 19 2026

According to provisional federal customs data cited by Sunday’s SonntagsZeitung newspaper, Swiss gold imports from Greenland jumped from zero to CHF18 million ($22.5 million) over the past year.

The explanation for this increase is both technical and geographical.

“Since Greenland does not have its own refinery, this gold arrives in Switzerland,” Christoph Wild, president of the Swiss Association of Precious Metal Producers and Dealers, told the paper.

The mining company that operates the island’s only gold mine, which reopened at the end of 2024 after a pause, has confirmed this trade.

The raw metal, totalling around 200 kilogrammes in 2025, according to the Swiss paper, is sent to the Metalor refinery in canton Neuchâtel in western Switzerland for processing and transformation into ingots or other high-purity finished products.

The figures, while significant for the new gold source, are still marginal compared to the overall volume of Swiss gold trade. Switzerland exported more than 550 tonnes of gold to the United States alone in 2025, worth more than CHF46 billion.

Source: https://www.swissinfo.ch/