What Makes a Mineral Critical?
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A mineral is critical when it matters to an economy and its supply could be disrupted. The official lists turn that idea into different tests. The EU calls a raw material critical when its supply risk is at least 1 and its economic importance at least 2.8. The United States asks whether a disruption would cut U.S. output, using a model of more than 1,200 scenarios, and whether a single domestic producer is a point of failure. Australia and Canada add a test of whether the country can produce the mineral.
1.0 and 2.8
EU thresholds for supply risk and economic importance
1,200+
disruption scenarios USGS modelled across 84 commodities for the 2025 U.S. list
Source: USGS Open-File Report 2025-1047
$2 million
annual probability-weighted GDP loss above which USGS recommended a commodity
Source: USGS Open-File Report 2025-1047
87
individual materials the EU screened for its 2023 list
What factors do the official methods measure?
The methods measure a small set of factors, and the EU method writes most of them as a formula. The table maps each factor to the jurisdictions that use it and gives a data point where one is published.
| Factor | How it is used | Where it applies | Example from published data |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supply concentration | EU: Herfindahl-Hirschman Index of global supply or EU sourcing. U.S.: foreign trade disruption scenarios. | EU, United States | China processes 100% of heavy rare earths and 94% of gallium (EU 2023 study). |
| Country governance | EU: concentration weighted by World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators. | EU | Congo supplies 63% of cobalt extraction (EU 2023 study). |
| Trade restrictions | EU: a trade parameter reflecting export taxes, quotas and bans. | EU | See the export controls tracker. |
| Economic importance | EU: end-use shares in two-digit industry sectors times each sector's value added. U.S.: modelled GDP effect across 402 industries. | EU, United States | Arsenic's EU score rose from 2.6 to 3.0, which made it critical in 2023. |
| Substitution | EU: a substitution index inside both the importance and the supply risk scores. | EU | Nickel was never on the EU list because of good supply diversification. |
| Recycling | EU: end-of-life recycling input rate inside supply risk. | EU | Natural rubber fell below the supply risk threshold mainly because its recycling input rate rose from 1% to 5%. |
| Import reliance | EU: import reliance in the supply risk formula. | EU | The U.S. was 100% net-import reliant for 12 critical minerals in 2024 (Commerce). |
| Demand growth and difficulty of increasing production | EU strategic list only: forecast demand against current production, reserves-to-production ratio and project lead times. | EU strategic list | Applies to the 17 strategic raw materials. |
| Single point of failure | U.S.: a commodity with only one domestic producer is recommended. | United States | Used alongside the economic model in 2025. |
| Potential for domestic production | Australia: geological potential. Canada: a reasonable chance of production in Canada. | Australia, Canada | Australia rates 16 of its 31 critical minerals as high potential. |
Sources: Regulation (EU) 2024/1252, Annex II; EU 2023 study; USGS OFR 2025-1047; presidential proclamation of 14 January 2026; Australian lists; Canadian list.
Why does criticality change over time?
Criticality is a score on current data, so it moves when supply, demand or the method changes. In the EU's 2023 assessment, manganese became critical after EU production stopped in Bulgaria and Hungary and imports concentrated on South Africa and Gabon, while indium dropped below the thresholds because EU production exceeds consumption. In the United States, potash and rhenium were removed in 2022 and returned in 2025. The EU study stresses that a material classed as non-critical is still important to the economy.
Can a mineral be critical for security reasons alone?
Yes. The U.S. Energy Act lets the Secretary of the Interior designate a mineral that another federal agency has found strategic and critical to defense or national security. The 2025 U.S. list kept arsenic and tellurium that way after the Department of War argued for them, even though the economic model had recommended removing them. The EU reaches a similar result through its strategic list, which is chosen on strategic importance for the green and digital transitions, defense and aerospace.
Is a critical mineral the same as a scarce mineral?
No. The tests measure supply risk and economic importance, not geological scarcity. A mineral can be abundant in the ground and still be critical because one country processes most of it, as with heavy rare earths, or because one country mines most of it, as with cobalt in the Congo. The criticality frameworks pages cover each factor in turn.
Frequently asked questions
What makes a mineral critical?
A mineral is critical when it is important to the economy or national security and its supply is vulnerable to disruption. The EU puts numbers on this: supply risk of at least 1 and economic importance of at least 2.8. The U.S. models the GDP loss from foreign supply disruptions.
What are the two main criteria for criticality?
The two main criteria are economic importance and supply risk. The EU scores both and applies thresholds, the U.S. combines a modelled economic effect with a check for a sole domestic producer, and Australia and Canada add a test of domestic production potential.
Does a mineral stay critical once it is listed?
No. The lists are reviewed at least every three years in the U.S., EU and Australia, and minerals move on and off. In 2023 the EU dropped indium and natural rubber below its thresholds, and the U.S. removed four minerals in 2022 and added ten in 2025.
Who decides which minerals are critical?
In the United States the Secretary of the Interior decides, using USGS analysis. In the EU the Commission decides by delegated act, using its criticality assessment. Australia's Minister for Resources and Canada's government maintain their own lists.
Sources
Read on October 12, 2026. Figures on this page come from these documents; where a number is an estimate, the source says so.
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1252, Article 4 and Annex II. Read on EUR-Lex
- European Commission: Study on the Critical Raw Materials for the EU 2023. Executive summary and Table A read as a PDF
- USGS Open-File Report 2025-1047: Methodology for the 2025 U.S. List of Critical Minerals
- Federal Register: Final 2025 List of Critical Minerals
- 30 U.S.C. 1606 (Energy Act of 2020, section 7002)
- White House proclamation of 14 January 2026 on processed critical minerals
- Department of Industry, Science and Resources: Australia's Critical Minerals List and Strategic Materials List
- Government of Canada: Canada's critical minerals
