Brazil’s Federal Government Establishes List of Critical and Strategic Minerals

Brazil’s mining sector has reached a new milestone. The National Council for the Industrialization of Critical and Strategic Minerals (CIMCE) has identified 27 substances classified as critical or strategic minerals. On November 4, 2026, Decree No. 13,146 was published, setting out the economic, socio-environmental, and climate criteria for defining and updating the list of critical and strategic minerals and providing a framework for organizing these substances into priority tiers. The decree implements provisions of Law No. 15,506 of September 16, 2026, which established Brazil’s National Policy on Critical and Strategic Minerals (PNMCE)—a comprehensive federal policy designed to safeguard the country’s mineral supply chains and promote domestic industrialization of key mineral resources.

List of critical and strategic minerals approved by CIMCE

At its inaugural meeting on November 5, 2026, the CIMCE Plenary approved a list of 27 critical and/or strategic minerals to be prioritized under the PNMCE, grouped into three tiers:

• Tier 1 (high priority): rare earths, graphite, lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese, silicon, and uranium. These substances warrant priority government action because of their high relevance to national interests and the severity of the risks or strategic opportunities they pose.
• Tier 2 (medium priority): tungsten, chromium, vanadium, tantalum, titanium, phosphate, potassium, and sulfur. The significance of these substances warrants targeted development measures, vulnerability reduction, or supply-chain strengthening.
• Tier 3 (low priority): niobium, tin, iron ore, zinc, gold, magnesium, molybdenum, thorium, aluminum, and platinum-group metals. These substances warrant strategic monitoring and periodic reassessment.

Once the substances and their respective tiers are defined, CIMCE may direct the various policy instruments of the PNMCE on a tier-by-tier or substance-by-substance basis, in accordance with legal requirements and the regulations governing each instrument. The selection of specific critical and strategic mineral projects will follow the general criteria set by CIMCE and the powers established under Decree No. 13,118 of September 16, 2026, which governs the Council’s operations.

Notably, the decree makes clear that a substance’s classification in a given tier does not, by itself, automatically qualify associated projects for benefits such as access to the government guarantee fund or tax incentives. Each project proponent must demonstrate that its project meets the applicable requirements and is therefore eligible for such benefits. In addition, now that the list of critical and strategic minerals has been established, transactions involving changes of control of companies that hold assets related to these minerals will be subject to CIMCE approval through a foreign investment screening mechanism. Contracts for the supply of critical and strategic minerals that could affect Brazil’s economic or geopolitical security are also subject to approval, as are sales or encumbrances of related assets.

CIMCE has yet to define the specific approval procedures and screening criteria that will apply to these transactions.

Criteria for classification as a critical mineral

For a substance to be classified as a critical mineral, the following factors must be considered cumulatively:

• Whether the substance is essential to key sectors of the national economy, taking into account its applications in those sectors and the feasibility of substitution;
• Whether its availability is insufficient, unstable, or vulnerable—due to inadequate domestic production, import dependence, geographic concentration of supply, geopolitical risks, or market or technological constraints; and
• Whether a potential shortage could materially impact the national economy and, by extension, production, employment, and access to goods and services in dependent sectors.

In assessing a substance’s availability, authorities must analyze the entire production chain, particularly the capacity to meet demand and diversify supply sources—including through recovery and recycling, reprocessing of mine tailings and waste rock, and use of other secondary sources. The assessment must also account for limitations related to water and other natural resources, the socio-environmental impacts of production on local territories and communities, and the exposure of production and transportation infrastructure to climate-related events.

Criteria for classification as a strategic mineral

Classification as a strategic mineral requires meeting two cumulative requirements. The first is that the substance must be relevant to the country based on significant mineral resources (the decree uses the term “reserves,” but the broader concept of mineral resources is more precise), as indicated by available geological data and Brazil’s position in the global supply. The second is that the substance must be essential to at least one of the following objectives:

• Generating a trade surplus;
• Advancing technological development;
• Promoting regional development; or
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions within the relevant production chain.

A substance may be classified as both a critical mineral and a strategic mineral, provided it independently satisfies the requirements of each definition.

Priority tiers

As noted above, critical and strategic minerals are organized into priority tiers (also referred to as criticality tiers) to guide the implementation of the PNMCE. Tier assignment occurs after a substance has been designated as critical or strategic, based on an assessment of the severity and relevance of the risks and opportunities associated with each substance, using the following criteria:

• Geopolitical risk: the extent to which supply is exposed to armed conflicts, sanctions, trade restrictions, export controls, or logistical disruptions;
• Supply concentration: the degree of geographic concentration in production, processing, or transformation—including refining—across the most significant links in the supply chain;
• Substitutability: the availability and technical and economic feasibility of alternative materials or technologies for the substance’s primary applications;
• Brazil’s position in the production chain: the extent of the country’s participation and self-sufficiency at each stage of production, processing, transformation, and industrialization, taking into account both existing capacity and development potential; and
• National dependence and vulnerability: the extent of reliance on foreign sources across the production chain and the severity and time horizon of the effects on the economy, the energy transition, food and nutritional security, industrial and technological development, and national security and sovereignty.

The list of critical and strategic minerals must be periodically reassessed against these parameters so that substances may be added or removed as circumstances evolve.

For more information on this topic, please contact Mattos Filho’s Infrastructure & Energy and Mining practices.