India now holds more foreign reserves than Saudi Arabia
Total reserves including gold, US$ billion, end of year, 2014–2025. India first passed Saudi Arabia in 2020.
- 1. India now has more working-age people than China
- 2. India's UPI now handles 86% as many payments as Visa
- 3. Indian students now outnumber Chinese students in the US
- 4. India's GitHub developers outnumber China's, Brazil's and Japan's combined
- 5. India's stock market grew 23-fold since 2000
- 6. Indian phone users now average 25 GB of data monthly
- 7. India's metro network quadrupled in a decade
- 8. India now ships over a third of world rice exports
- 9. India went from 1% to 37% of Russia's crude sales
- 10. India's wild tigers have more than doubled since 2006
- 11. Two in three rickshaws sold in India are electric
- 12. Indians now file more patents at home than Germans
- 13. India published more science papers than Germany and Britain combined
- 14. India now holds more foreign reserves than Saudi Arabia
India's reserves, gold included, at the end of 2025, against Saudi Arabia's US$505 bn.
The year India first passed Saudi Arabia; in 2014 the kingdom held more than twice as much, US$744 bn to 325 bn.
Saudi reserves shrank from US$627 bn in 2015 while India's nearly doubled: the oil buyer now holds the bigger cushion.
the numbers & method
| Year | India (bn) | Saudi Arabia (bn) |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 325 | 744 |
| 2015 | 353 | 627 |
| 2016 | 362 | 547 |
| 2017 | 413 | 510 |
| 2018 | 399 | 510 |
| 2019 | 464 | 515 |
| 2020 | 590 | 473 |
| 2021 | 639 | 474 |
| 2022 | 567 | 478 |
| 2023 | 628 | 458 |
| 2024 | 643 | 464 |
| 2025 | 700 | 505 |
Claim types Fact · Interpretation
Read on the World Bank API (api.worldbank.org/v2, indicator FI.RES.TOTL.CD, WDI last updated 2026-10-08) on 4 Nov 2026. US$ bn, India / Saudi Arabia: 2014 325.08 / 744.44; 2015 353.32 / 626.99; 2019 463.47 / 514.96; 2020 590.23 / 472.85; 2024 643.04 / 463.87; 2025 700.07 / 505.16. India is ahead every year from 2020. Total reserves = monetary gold, special drawing rights, reserve position in the IMF and foreign exchange held by the monetary authority, end-of-year stocks valued at market prices, so part of the 2025 rise reflects the gold price. Changes and ratios (Saudi −19% from 2015, India ×1.98 from 2015, 2.29× in 2014) are progrss calculations. 'The oil buyer now holds the bigger cushion' is an interpretation.
Published 4 Nov 2026
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