Critical Minerals
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Critical minerals are minerals that a government judges vital to its economy or security and whose supply is vulnerable to disruption. There is no single list: the United States lists 60 minerals, the European Union 34, Canada 34 and Australia 31. The EU calls a raw material critical when its supply risk is at least 1.0 and its economic importance at least 2.8, while the 2025 U.S. list rests on a model of more than 1,200 trade disruption scenarios. This section explains the definitions, the scoring methods, the bottlenecks and the role of recycling.
60
minerals on the U.S. 2025 critical minerals list, which added ten to the 2022 list
Source: USGS, November 2025
34
critical raw materials in the EU Critical Raw Materials Act, of which 17 are also strategic
Source: Regulation (EU) 2024/1252
86%
average share of the top three refiners across six key minerals in 2024, up from about 82% in 2020
Source: IEA, May 2025
Where should you start in this section?
The pages below answer one question each. Read the definition pages first, then the scoring methods, then the supply and recycling pages that explain why a mineral stays critical.
| Page | Question it answers | Key figure |
|---|---|---|
| What Are Critical Minerals? | How do the four main governments define and list them? | U.S. 60, EU 34, Canada 34, Australia 31 |
| What Makes a Mineral Critical? | Which tests turn the idea into a list? | EU 1.0 and 2.8; USGS 1,200+ scenarios and a $2 million threshold |
| Criticality Frameworks | How do governments score minerals, and on which six dimensions? | Five EU assessments from 2011 to 2023; 84 commodities in the 2025 USGS model |
| Supply risk | How concentrated is supply and how import-reliant are buyers? | EU 2023: gallium processing 94% Chinese, import reliance 98% |
| Economic importance | How much economic activity depends on a mineral? | Lithium 88% batteries; vanadium over 90% metallurgical |
| Demand growth | How fast is demand rising? | Cathode shipments up 34% in 2025 |
| Byproduct risk | What happens when a mineral is only a byproduct? | 35 of 60 U.S. listed minerals are byproducts or co-products |
| Recycling potential | How is recycling counted in a score? | EU rate 55% for copper, 0% for gallium and lithium |
| Substitutability | How are substitutes counted? | EU index from 0.59 (gadolinium) to 1.00 (manganese) |
| Critical Minerals vs Rare Earths | Are the two terms the same? | China processes 100% of heavy and 85% of light rare earths (EU 2023) |
| Critical vs Strategic Minerals | How do governments separate the two terms? | 17 of the EU's critical raw materials are strategic |
| Supply Chain Bottlenecks | Which stage of the chain is the constraint? | U.S. rare earth separation capacity about 15,000 t against demand of about 45,000 t |
| Processing and Refining Bottlenecks | Where is refining tighter than mining? | Congo mines 73% of cobalt; China leads refining |
| Recycling and Circularity | How much supply does recycling provide? | Scrap is about 60% of U.S. nickel use, under 1% of rare earths |
Figures are taken from the linked pages, which cite USGS, the European Commission, the IEA and other primary sources.
How do the official lists differ?
The lists differ because each government asks a different question. The EU scores supply risk and economic importance for each material, the United States models the loss to its own GDP from a year-long foreign disruption, and Australia and Canada add a test of whether the country can produce the mineral. The result is that the same mineral can have different status: copper is critical in the United States, strategic in the EU and a strategic material in Australia. The official lists section compares them mineral by mineral, and the mineral profiles show the status of each mineral on all four lists.
Frequently asked questions
What are critical minerals?
Critical minerals are minerals that a government judges essential to its economy or national security and whose supply is vulnerable to disruption. Each government publishes its own list, so the same mineral can be critical in one country and not in another.
How many critical minerals are there?
The United States lists 60 minerals, the European Union 34, Canada 34 and Australia 31. Lithium, cobalt, graphite and rare earths appear on most of them.
How is a mineral judged critical?
The EU requires a supply risk of at least 1.0 and an economic importance of at least 2.8. The United States uses a model of more than 1,200 trade disruption scenarios to estimate the loss to U.S. GDP, and recommends commodities whose probability-weighted annual loss exceeds $2 million.
Why are processing and refining bottlenecks important?
Refining is often more concentrated than mining. The International Energy Agency found the top three refiners held an average 86% of supply across six key minerals in 2024, so a mineral mined in many countries can still depend on one.
Sources
Read on October 13, 2026. Figures on this page come from these documents; where a number is an estimate, the source says so.
- USGS: Interior Department releases final 2025 list of critical minerals
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 (Critical Raw Materials Act)
- USGS Open-File Report 2025-1047. Disruption model behind the 2025 U.S. list
- IEA: Diversification is the cornerstone of energy security (May 2025). The IEA site blocks automated readers, so the figures come from reports of the release
