Where does bismuth come from?

South Korea is the main alternative to China as a supplier of refined bismuth. In 2024, for bismuth of more than 99.99% purity (HS 810610), China supplied 95% of the European Union's imports from outside the EU, 93% of India's and 73% of Japan's, while the United States took 64% from South Korea and 22% from China (CEPII BACI; see supplier exposure). South Korea's exports in that line equal 84% of its 1,000 tonnes of 2024 refinery output, against 21% of China's 14,000 tonnes (our arithmetic on CEPII BACI and USGS MCS 2026; the customs line includes scrap and alloys, so the ratios are approximate).

The United States exports bismuth at a far higher declared price than China does. In 2024 its exports in the main line were declared at $26,418 per tonne, 2.9 times China's $9,028 and 2.4 times its own imports at $10,808 (our arithmetic on CEPII BACI value and net weight). The data show the gap without explaining it, and the lines include alloys and scrap. USGS puts US net import reliance at 92% in 2025, in a range of 90% to 97% since 2021, and secondary supply at 80 tonnes against consumption of 1,000 tonnes, or 8% (USGS MCS 2026, US only; see US import reliance).

Bismuth supply follows other metals, and Vietnam shows the limits of the data. USGS names lead, tungsten and zinc as the hosts, with tungsten the host in China and Vietnam (see by-product minerals). Vietnam mined 3,000 tonnes of tungsten in 2025, 3.5% of the world total, yet has no line in the bismuth refinery table. China refined 86% of the world's 16,280 tonnes of bismuth that year (the sum of the country figures), the top three countries made 95%, and China's 14,000 tonnes was unchanged from 2024 (USGS MCS 2026, tungsten from the site's tungsten data).

USGS reports bismuth as refinery production, not mine production, because of how the metal occurs. Its chapter says bismuth minerals rarely occur in amounts large enough to be mined as the principal product. Bismuth is most often a by-product of processing lead ores; in China and Vietnam it is also a by-product or co-product of tungsten and other ores, and in Japan and South Korea of zinc ores. USGS names only two mines where bismuth has been the main product: the Tasna mine in Bolivia, inactive since 1996, and one mine in China.

In 2025 China refined 14,000 tonnes of bismuth, 86% of the 16,280 tonnes world total (USGS MCS). South Korea followed with 6.1%, then Japan and Laos with 3.1% each, and Kazakhstan with 1.1%. The top three account for 95% and 7 producing countries are listed, plus the United States with no production. The United States is shown with no refinery production: USGS says it stopped producing primary refined bismuth in 1997.

Three cautions. The world figure is the sum of the listed countries, because USGS rounds its own world total; dividing by that rounded number, USGS's text gives China a slightly higher share than the one calculated here. The figures are estimates, and USGS revised its 2024 figures for Bolivia and Laos using company and government reports. And USGS says capacity figures were unavailable, so the table shows output but not spare capacity. There is no reserves table on this page: USGS states that bismuth reserves and resources are generally not reported at mine or country level and are difficult to quantify, and this site does not estimate them.

Bismuth is traded under two customs lines, and neither is a clean measure of the metal. HS 810610 covers bismuth of more than 99.99 percent purity, including waste and scrap; HS 810690 is the rest, including lower-purity metal and articles. The first line is a fair guide to refined metal but also takes in scrap. The second mixes metal, alloys and articles. Neither captures bismuth in chemicals such as pharmaceutical and pigment compounds, and neither says where the metal was originally refined.

In 2024 China was the largest exporter of bismuth of more than 99.99% purity, including waste and scrap (HS 810610) with 52% of world export value, ahead of South Korea (19%) and the United States (8%), on world trade of $51.6 million (CEPII BACI). The largest importer was the United States with 24%, followed by Germany (20%) and India (9.7%). China leads both refining and exports, which is the simple case. The United States is less simple: USGS reports no US primary refined production since 1997, though it estimates secondary production from scrap at 80 tons a year. US exports of this line are therefore probably mostly re-exports of imported metal or scrap, although customs data do not show origin.

In HS 810690 the leading exporter in 2024 was the United States (28% of world export value), ahead of China (24%) and Germany (13%), on world trade of $36.1 million. The largest importer was China (18%). The two lists differ from each other and from the refinery table. See producing, exporting and processing and HS codes for how to read such tables.

This page shows no bismuth price series, because this site has no free public series for it and does not hold a license to publish a commercial one. This site uses no exchange benchmark for bismuth. The USGS price series comes from Fastmarkets: the in-warehouse Rotterdam price of bismuth metal of 99.99 percent purity, in lots of at least one ton, in dollars per pound.

That description shows how narrow a bismuth quote is: one purity, one location and one minimum lot size. A buyer of alloys, chemical-grade material or smaller lots is not buying on that basis.

USGS records that the price moved sharply in 2025. It reports that average monthly prices (in-warehouse, Rotterdam) increased from $5.96 per pound in January to $17.50 per pound in October, and that the highest monthly average, $34.22 per pound, was in March, which USGS links to the export controls China issued in February. It estimates the 2025 annual average at $20 per pound, almost four times the 2024 average and the highest annual average on record. These are USGS figures for 2025, not a current price. Naming a company on this page is not investment advice.

USGS lists lead, tungsten and zinc as the sources of bismuth, depending on the country, so supply follows what those industries do. Mines run for bismuth alone are very rare, so the practical question is whether refineries recover the bismuth already passing through them.

China's licensing requirement for exports of bismuth items took effect on 4 February 2025 and was still listed as valid in a November 2025 law-firm tracker and in a trade-control profile reviewed in August 2026; this page has found no notice lifting it. USGS ties the highest monthly average price of 2025 to these controls. Because China refines most of the world's bismuth, a licensing regime there reaches most of the market.

USGS reports that bismuth is a nontoxic substitute for lead in brass, free-machining alloys and solders, and that its use in plumbing brass (pipe fittings, fixtures and water meters) increased after 2014, when the definition of lead-free under the Safe Drinking Water Act was modified.

USGS reports that most US bismuth consumption is for chemicals used in cosmetic, industrial, laboratory and pharmaceutical applications, including bismuth subsalicylate, the active ingredient in over-the-counter stomach remedies.

USGS describes the United States as highly import reliant and reports that the last domestic primary lead smelter closed at the end of 2013, after which all US lead concentrates were exported for smelting. USGS reports that US supply of primary bismuth has depended completely on imports since 1997.

USGS lists substitutes for many uses, for example cadmium, indium, lead and tin in low-temperature solders, and estimates that recycled bismuth-containing alloy scrap made up as much as 10 percent of US apparent consumption in each year from 2021 to 2025.

Bismuth is recovered at refineries that process other metals; it is not mined and processed on its own. According to USGS, the usual source is lead ore processing, with tungsten and other ores also yielding bismuth in China and Vietnam and zinc in Japan and South Korea. This page does not describe the refining steps, because they differ by plant and a general description could be wrong for any given refinery.

What can be said is what the finished metal looks like. As of October 2026, Korea Zinc lists bismuth as a rare-metal product with a minimum purity of 99.99 percent, a typical analysis a little higher, supplied as slabs of about 20 kilograms bundled into lots of about a tonne. That is close to the threshold the customs system uses to separate refined metal (HS 810610) from the rest. Los Alamos National Laboratory describes bismuth as a brittle, crystalline white metal with a pinkish tinge and a density of about 9.8 grams per cubic centimetre. USGS gives its melting point as 271 degrees Celsius, low for a heavy metal, which is behind many of its metallurgical uses. Recycling starts from alloy scrap rather than ore, and everything on this page is refined bismuth unless stated.

USGS publishes no world split of bismuth by end use, and this page does not invent one. The USGS chapter describes US use, and what follows is that description.

On chemicals, USGS says most domestic consumption is for chemicals used in cosmetic, industrial, laboratory and pharmaceutical applications. It names bismuth subsalicylate, the active ingredient in over-the-counter stomach remedies, and other compounds used for burns, intestinal disorders and stomach ulcers. Bismuth nitrate, oxychloride and vanadate go into ceramic glazes, crystalware and pigments. As of October 2026, the company 5N Plus, which makes bismuth-based pharmaceutical ingredients, lists subsalicylate, subgallate, oxychloride and citrate among its products.

In metallurgy, bismuth improves the integrity of malleable cast iron, and it is a nontoxic replacement for lead in brass, free-machining aluminum alloys and steels, and solders. That is why lead-free rules matter to bismuth. USGS also lists fishing weights, hunting ammunition and lubricating greases.

USGS also says fusible bismuth alloys are used in holding devices for grinding optical lenses, plugs for abandoned oil wells, a temporary filler during tube bending, and the triggering mechanism in fire sprinklers. For many uses USGS names a substitute, for example pharmaceuticals, pigments, solders, holding alloys and free-machining alloys; glycerin-filled glass bulbs can replace bismuth alloys in sprinkler triggers.

The chain runs from a lead, tungsten or zinc ore to a smelter or refinery, where bismuth is recovered, then to refined metal, and then to alloy makers, chemical makers and fabricators. Because the metal is recovered at plants that process other metals, supply is tied to where those plants are, and the refinery table is concentrated: 95% of output from three countries. See lead, tungsten and zinc for the linked metals.

The European Commission lists bismuth among the 34 critical raw materials on its critical raw materials page, so it is a critical mineral there; the glossary entry defines the term. The United States added bismuth to its final 2025 list of critical minerals, released on 6 November 2025 (USGS). The concern for a consuming country is what the data show: output is concentrated, there are no stated reserves to point to, and a government controls export licenses from the leading producer.

In the United States, USGS reports no primary refined bismuth production since 1997, high import reliance and no government stockpile. On 4 February 2025 China's Ministry of Commerce and General Administration of Customs announced export controls on items related to tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, molybdenum and indium, effective that day (Xinhua). The IEA policy database describes the bismuth items as the metal and products, bismuth germanate, triphenyl bismuth and triethoxyphenyl bismuth, with related technology, and says exporters need a license. A Pillsbury law-firm tracker of November 2025 listed the measure as still valid and not among those suspended that month. This page has not confirmed its status after November 2025 and makes no prediction about it.