Where does gallium come from?

Each step from the bauxite mine to gallium metal is more concentrated in China than the one before. In 2025 China mined 19.8% of the world's bauxite, refined 62.0% of its alumina and made 99% of its low-purity primary gallium (USGS MCS; our arithmetic on the bauxite tables and this page). USGS says most gallium is recovered as a by-product of bauxite processing (see the by-products report). The site's concentration index (the sum of squared percentage shares) for 2025 gallium production is 9,804 out of a possible 10,000, the highest of the 110 commodities it tracks (our arithmetic on USGS MCS).

The 2025 rise in world output comes down to one country's estimate. World low-purity gallium output changed +7% in 2025, from 848 to 909 tonnes, and the whole rise came from China, whose figure went from 839 to 900 tonnes while Russia (6 tonnes) and Japan (3 tonnes) were unchanged (USGS MCS; our arithmetic). USGS says China's figures come from or are estimated from Asian Metal, a commercial data provider. The site's export controls register lists four Chinese entries covering gallium, dated from 2023 to 2025: three in force as of 9 October 2026 (one of them the suspension itself) and one suspended. The table covers only 2024 and 2025, so it cannot show output before or after any of those entries.

US buyers take only a sliver of the world's gallium, and the country makes none of it. USGS puts US reported consumption at 19 tonnes in 2025, equal to 2.1% of the 909 tonnes of world low-purity primary output, and US net import reliance at 100% in every year from 2021 to 2025 (our arithmetic on USGS MCS). Consumption and primary output are different measures, and USGS's import reliance figure leaves out gallium arsenide wafers, so the 2.1% shows scale only.

USGS reports gallium as low-purity primary production, not mine production, because the metal is a by-product. Its chapter says gallium occurs in very small concentrations in ores of other metals, that most of it is produced as a by-product of processing bauxite, and that the remainder is produced from zinc-processing residues.

In 2025 China accounted for an estimated 900 tonnes of low-purity primary gallium, 99% of the 909 tonnes world total (USGS MCS). Russia followed with 6 tonnes (0.7%) and Japan with 3 tonnes (0.3%). 3 producing countries are listed, the top three account for 100% of the total, and world output changed +7% on the previous year. USGS shows the United States with no primary production, and says none has been recovered there since 1987.

Three cautions. The world figure here is the sum of the three listed countries; USGS prints its own rounded world total, which is slightly lower. The 2025 figures are estimates, and USGS says China's come from or are estimated from Asian Metal Ltd, a commercial data provider. And production capacity is a separate USGS row, not mixed in here: for each of the three producers it is listed above estimated 2025 output. USGS adds that Germany, Hungary, Kazakhstan, the Republic of Korea and Ukraine are estimated to still have capacity, although none is credited with output; Kazakhstan, Hungary and Germany ceased primary production in 2013, 2015 and 2016, and Ukraine most likely in 2022.

There is no reserves figure on this page. USGS does not give one in its data table for gallium. In its text it describes resources: it estimates the gallium contained in world bauxite resources at more than 1 million tons, from bauxite averaging 50 parts per million gallium. That is metal present in the ore, not an amount that can be recovered at a profit, and this site does not estimate the latter.

This page has no trade table, and that is deliberate. At the international six-digit level there is no gallium-only customs code. HS 811292 covers unwrought gallium, germanium, indium, niobium and vanadium together (with their waste, scrap and powders), so any export or import total for that code would mix several different metals and could not be read as gallium. Some national schedules, such as the US tariff (HTS 8112.92.1000), do separate gallium metal, but they are not comparable across countries. This site therefore shows no gallium exporter or importer ranking. See HS codes for how these codes work.

What can be said comes from USGS, and it describes the United States only. USGS reports net import reliance of 100 percent of reported consumption (excluding gallium arsenide wafers) in each year from 2021 to 2025. For gallium metal, USGS lists import sources for 2021 to 2024 as Canada (28 percent), Japan (22 percent), China (18 percent) and Germany (16 percent), with the remaining 16 percent from other countries. It estimates that US imports of gallium metal in 2025 were more than double those in 2024, and that imports of gallium arsenide wafers fell by 24 percent.

Two cautions on those USGS statements. They cover the United States, not the world, and USGS gives no figures for US exports. And an import source is not the same as a producer: Germany, for example, is listed as a source of US imports, yet USGS says Germany ceased primary production in 2016.

This page shows no gallium price series. The site has no free public series for it and holds no license to publish a commercial one, and it uses no exchange benchmark for gallium. Price reporting agencies publish assessments instead. As of October 2026, Fastmarkets, for example, lists a gallium assessment (MB-GA-0001) for 99.99 percent purity metal in a warehouse in Rotterdam, quoted in dollars per kilogram and updated twice a week, and in May 2026 launched a second one (MB-GA-0003), for 99.99 percent ingot delivered duty paid in the United States, in lots of at least 100 kilograms, updated fortnightly. This page does not quote them.

The only dated price statistic USGS gives is derived: the average customs value of US imports of gallium metal (HTS 8112.92.1000) per kilogram, which it estimates at $580 per kilogram for 2025, about 30 percent more than in 2024. That is an average of import records, not a quote a buyer could trade against, and USGS gives no purity, lot size or delivery terms for it.

The sources used here do not describe how contracts are written, and this page makes no price forecast.

China required export licenses for gallium items from 1 August 2023, according to the IEA's policy database. USGS reports that China banned all gallium exports to the United States in December 2024 and that, in November 2025, China lifted that ban for one year. Because China accounts for 99% of the low-purity output in the data, a licensing regime there reaches most of the market. As of 9 October 2026 the suspension of the US-specific ban is still in force and is due to end on 27 November 2026; this page does not predict what happens then.

USGS says most gallium is produced as a by-product of processing bauxite and the remainder from zinc-processing residues. Supply therefore depends on where those industries operate and on whether a refinery or smelter chooses to fit equipment to recover the gallium already passing through it.

USGS says integrated circuits accounted for 73 percent of US gallium consumption in 2025 and optoelectronic devices (laser diodes, LEDs, photodetectors, solar cells) for 26 percent. Los Alamos National Laboratory says 98 percent of available gallium is consumed by the semiconductor industry.

USGS says several new gallium production projects were announced, including in Australia, Canada, Greece, Kazakhstan and the Republic of Korea. USGS names only the countries. Company examples from other sources include a plant Alcoa is building at its Wagerup alumina refinery in Western Australia (groundbreaking 24 August 2026) and a Rio Tinto and Indium Corporation research project.

USGS reports that the United States has recovered no primary gallium since 1987 and that its net import reliance was 100 percent of reported consumption in 2025. In September 2025 the US Department of Energy announced up to $6 million for projects to recover gallium from US metal processing streams, and USGS reports a $29.9 million Defense Production Act award in November 2025 for a Louisiana demonstration facility. On 1 September 2026 the US Department of War announced an estimated $174 million equity investment in the Wagerup plant, alongside Export Finance Australia, the Government of Japan and Sojitz (reported by secondary sources; the department's own release could not be read).

USGS says liquid crystals compete with LEDs in displays, silicon-based amplifiers compete with gallium arsenide in some handsets, indium phosphide and helium-neon lasers substitute in some laser applications, and silicon is the principal competitor in solar cells. It adds that for many defense uses no effective substitute exists for gallium arsenide and gallium nitride.

Alcoa, which is building a gallium plant, describes the route. Bauxite is processed into alumina by the Bayer process, in which a recirculating liquor dissolves the alumina from the bauxite. Gallium dissolves into the liquor as well, and Alcoa says its planned plant will pump a stream of that liquor to a separate unit, adsorb the gallium onto ion exchange resin, wash and purify it, and use electrolysis to recover the metal, returning the liquor to the refinery. This is one company's planned flowsheet, not every plant's.

The second route is zinc-processing residues, per USGS. This page does not describe those steps, because the sources used here do not.

Low purity and high purity are different stages. The production figures above are for low-purity primary gallium. USGS says the single US high-purity refiner it describes, a company in New York, recovered and refined high-purity gallium from imported low-purity metal and new scrap. USGS reports no old-scrap recycling, but substantial quantities of new scrap from making gallium arsenide devices were reprocessed at that one facility. The sources used here give no world figure for high-purity refining or recycling.

Los Alamos National Laboratory describes gallium as a silvery-white metal that melts at 302.9 kelvin, one of four metals liquid near room temperature.

USGS gives its end-use split for the United States only and publishes no world split; this page does not invent one. For 2025 USGS says gallium arsenide was used to make compound semiconductor wafers for integrated circuits and optoelectronic devices (laser diodes, LEDs, photodetectors and solar cells), and gallium nitride for integrated circuits and optoelectronics. It reports that integrated circuits accounted for 73 percent of US gallium consumption and optoelectronic devices for 26 percent.

On applications, USGS says optoelectronic devices were used in aerospace, consumer goods, industrial equipment, medical equipment and telecommunications equipment, and integrated circuits in defense applications, high-performance computers and telecommunications equipment. Substitutes are covered under the drivers above.

The chain runs from bauxite (or zinc ore) to an alumina refinery or zinc smelter, where low-purity gallium is recovered, to high-purity refining, then to gallium arsenide and gallium nitride wafers, and then to chips, LEDs, lasers and solar cells. China supplies 99% of the first step in the USGS data, so almost the whole chain starts from one country at its first step. In the United States, USGS shows no primary gallium, one high-purity refiner in New York, and imports of metal and wafers.

Gallium is a critical mineral on both main lists; the glossary entry defines the term. The US Interior Department and USGS announced the final 2025 US critical minerals list on 6 November 2025 (Federal Register notice 7 November 2025) with 60 minerals, and gallium is on it, described as used in semiconductors. As of October 2026, the European Commission's critical raw materials page lists gallium among the 34 materials on the 2023 critical list, and under Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 it is also designated a strategic raw material. A listing is a government assessment, and this page does not claim a shortage.

China's Ministry of Commerce announced on 9 November 2025 that it would suspend, until 27 November 2026, the clause of its December 2024 announcement that barred, in principle, gallium exports to the United States; the suspension did not remove the ban on supply to US military users or end the licensing in force since 1 August 2023. A tracker of Chinese export controls (materialsdispatch.com, profile dated August 2026) reports no extension or early end announced; this page has found no Ministry statement after 9 November 2025 on extension or end as of 9 October 2026, and makes no prediction. Outside China, Alcoa said on 20 October 2025 that the governments of the United States and Australia supported a gallium plant at its Wagerup refinery that would be expected to produce 100 metric tons a year, and said that, under a non-binding agreement, the partners would receive gallium offtake in proportion to their interests; its 24 August 2026 release marked the start of construction. On 1 September 2026 the US Department of War announced an estimated $174 million equity investment in the plant, alongside Export Finance Australia, the Government of Japan and Sojitz, and said the plant would have 100 tons a year of capacity (reported by secondary sources; the department's own release could not be opened). This suspension is separate from the one that covers China's October 2025 expansions, and no extension of it had been reported as of 9 October 2026. Rio Tinto said in May 2025 that it had extracted gallium from its Vaudreuil alumina refinery in Quebec as a research project with Indium Corporation. Related metals are aluminum, zinc and silicon.