EU Strategic Raw Materials List: The 17 Materials
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The EU strategic raw materials list has 17 entries in Annex I, Section 1 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1252. They are the materials judged most important for the green and digital transitions and for defense and aerospace, and they are the only materials covered by the Act's 2030 capacity benchmarks. All 17 are also on the 34-entry critical raw materials list.
3
selection criteria: number of strategic technologies, amount needed per technology and expected global demand growth
Source: Annex I, Section 2
65%
maximum share of EU consumption of any strategic material from one non-EU country by 2030
Source: Article 5(1)
Which raw materials are strategic?
The 17 strategic raw materials are listed below in the order of Annex I. Several entries are limited to a grade, such as battery-grade lithium or metallurgy-grade boron, so the same element can be critical in general and strategic only in a specific form. The right-hand column adds a supply fact from the latest US Geological Survey data where this site has verified one.
| No. | Material (Annex I wording) | Supply fact, 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bauxite/alumina/aluminium | See profile |
| 2 | Bismuth | See profile |
| 3 | Boron (metallurgy grade) | See profile |
| 4 | Cobalt | Congo (Kinshasa) mined 230,000 t of 310,000 t in 2025 (USGS) |
| 5 | Copper | See profile |
| 6 | Gallium | China produced 99% of primary low-purity gallium in 2025 (USGS) |
| 7 | Germanium | China is the leading producer and exporter of germanium metal (USGS) |
| 8 | Lithium (battery grade) | Australia mined 92,000 t and China 62,000 t of about 290,000 t in 2025; batteries take 88% of end use (USGS) |
| 9 | Magnesium metal | See profile |
| 10 | Manganese (battery grade) | See profile |
| 11 | Graphite (battery grade) | China produced an estimated 82% of natural graphite in 2025 (USGS) |
| 12 | Nickel (battery grade) | Indonesia mined 2.6 Mt of 3.9 Mt in 2025 (USGS) |
| 13 | Platinum group metals | See profile |
| 14 | Rare earth elements for permanent magnets (Nd, Pr, Tb, Dy, Gd, Sm and Ce) | China mined 270,000 t of 390,000 t of oxide in 2025 (USGS) |
| 15 | Silicon metal | See profile |
| 16 | Titanium metal | See profile |
| 17 | Tungsten | China mined 67,000 t of 85,000 t in 2025 (USGS) |
Source for the list: Regulation (EU) 2024/1252, Annex I. Supply facts: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026.
How are strategic raw materials chosen?
Strategic raw materials are chosen by three measures in Annex I, Section 2: how many strategic technologies use the material, how much of it each technology needs, and how fast global demand for those technologies is expected to grow. The Act then looks at how hard it will be to raise supply, based on the current scale of world production, the ratio of known reserves to annual production and the lead times of new projects. Materials that score highest across strategic importance, demand growth and difficulty of increasing production qualify.
The Act names the sectors that decide strategic importance: the green and digital transition and defense and aerospace applications. That is why the list is dominated by battery metals, magnet rare earths, semiconductor inputs such as gallium and germanium, and structural and defense metals such as titanium and tungsten.
What obligations come with the strategic status?
Strategic status brings the Act's benchmarks and its project rules. The Union aims to extract at least 10%, process at least 40% and recycle at least 25% of its annual consumption of each strategic raw material by 2030, and to ensure that no third country supplies more than 65% of annual consumption at any relevant stage of processing. Strategic projects, which get a permit time limit of 27 months for extraction or 15 months for processing and recycling, must be in a strategic raw material. The Act also requires makers of products with large permanent magnets to publish how much neodymium, dysprosium, praseodymium, terbium, boron, samarium, nickel and cobalt in the magnets is recycled, from 24 May 2027 or two years after the delegated act on calculation rules, whichever is later.
Will the list change?
The Commission must review the strategic list by 24 May 2027 and every three years after that, and the European Critical Raw Materials Board can ask for an earlier review. At the first update the Commission must in particular assess whether synthetic graphite should remain on the list. The review cycle page explains the process.
Frequently asked questions
How many strategic raw materials does the EU have?
The EU has 17 strategic raw materials, listed in Annex I, Section 1 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1252. They include battery-grade lithium, nickel, graphite and manganese, cobalt, copper, gallium, germanium, magnet rare earths, tungsten and titanium metal.
Are rare earths on the EU strategic raw materials list?
Rare earths are on the EU strategic list, but only those used in permanent magnets: neodymium, praseodymium, terbium, dysprosium, gadolinium, samarium and cerium. Annex II lists heavy and light rare earth elements as separate critical raw materials.
Is the EU strategic list the same as the critical list?
The EU strategic list is not the same as the critical list. The strategic list has 17 entries and the critical list has 34, and every strategic raw material is also critical.
What are the 2030 benchmarks for strategic raw materials?
The 2030 benchmarks for strategic raw materials are extraction of at least 10% of EU annual consumption, processing of at least 40%, recycling of at least 25%, and no more than 65% of consumption from one third country. They are set in Article 5 of the Act.
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, Official Journal L, 3 May 2024. Annex I, Articles 3, 5, 11 and 29 read in full
- USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026. Chapters on cobalt, gallium, germanium, lithium, graphite, nickel, rare earths and tungsten
- European Commission: Critical raw materials
