Asset Purchase Facility: Gilt Sales – Market Notice 19 December 2025

Market Notice 

  
At its September 2025 meeting, the MPC voted to reduce the stock of gilts held in the APF by £70 billion over the period from October 2025 to September 2026, to a total of £488 billion. 

The Bank set out in the consolidated APF gilt sales Market Notice published on 1 September 2022 that it would publish a quarterly schedule for the sales of gilts held in the APF for monetary policy purposes. The details and schedule for the Q1 2026 sales of such gilts are set out in this Market Notice, which covers the period from 12 January 2026 to the week commencing 16 March 2026.  

The Bank set out in the 15 December 2023 Market Notice that it would set a schedule of auctions in order to continue to reduce the stock of gilts held in the APF as evenly as possible across maturity sectors, measured in initial proceeds terms. The maturity sectors are defined as gilts with a residual maturity of between: 3-7 years (short), 7-20 years (medium) and over 20 years (long).  

As set out in the 18 September 2025 Market Notice, for the year starting Q4 2025, the Bank will aim to sell fewer long maturity sector gilts than gilts at other maturities, to better reflect demand conditions.  

Accordingly, in Q1 2026, the Bank will sell short maturity sector bonds across two auctions of £800 million, medium maturity sector bonds across two auctions of £775 million, and long maturity sector bonds across one auction of £675 million. Further details are outlined in the tables below.  

Other than as amended in this Market Notice, the detailed operational parameters and participation requirements set out previously will apply to these gilt sales. 

The Bank will continue to monitor the impact of its gilt sales programme on market conditions, and reserves the right to amend its schedule, including the gilts to be sold and the size of its auctions, or any other aspect of its approach at its sole discretion.  

The Bank expects to announce the sales schedule for Q2 2026 at 4.30pm on 20 March 2026. 

Table 1: APF gilt sales auction calendar – January to March 2026

The table below indicates the number of auctions that the Bank expects to hold in each of the following quarters over the next nine months. The number and size of auctions needed to meet the MPC’s target in future quarters may change, depending on the movement in gilt prices and the realised distribution of sales throughout the year, and therefore the numbers below should be understood as strictly indicative. 

Table 2: Indicative number of auctions for future quarters