Most gold in Tanzania is found in the Lake Victoria Goldfields, a set of greenstone belts wrapped around the south and east of the lake: Sukumaland around Geita and Bulyanhulu, Musoma-Mara near the Kenyan border, Nzega, Shinyanga-Malita, Iramba-Sekenke and Kilimafedha. Further southwest, the Lupa goldfield had East Africa’s first gold rush in 1922. Together they made Tanzania one of Africa’s larger producers, at 61.6 tonnes in 2024.

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This guide is for licence holders, explorers and investors. It draws on the USGS Minerals Yearbook for Tanzania, a peer-reviewed synthesis of the goldfields by Henckel and co-authors in the journal Episodes, the Mining Commission’s own guidance and Bank of Tanzania export data. Deposits are named as geological examples with sources, and every figure has a date you can check.

The honest summary, from the geologists who explored it: the Lake Victoria Goldfields are now considered mature. The large, easy-to-see deposits have been found. That does not mean the gold in Tanzania is finished, only that new ounces will come from depth, from under cover, and from lower-grade styles that early explorers passed over. Our guide to finding gold deposits covers those styles and the signs to look for.

“Tulawaka was picked out after a company interpreted Landsat imagery and a government aeromagnetic survey.”

Gold in Tanzania in numbers

The USGS put Tanzania at about 1% of world gold mine output in 2019, with production of 48,408 kg that year after 39,304 kg in 2018. Gold was 39.8% of the country’s total exports in 2019. By 2024 output had reached 61.6 tonnes, according to the Ministry of Minerals figures in the Economic Survey reported by TanzaniaInvest, and the ministry reported 67.8 tonnes for the financial year to June 2026.

For current figures, the Bank of Tanzania’s Monthly Economic Review gives gold export values every month, and the Ministry of Minerals and Mining Commission publish production in their annual reports and budget speeches. Gold in Tanzania is also a big share of the economy: on the Bank’s figures reported by TanzaniaInvest, gold exports were worth USD 3.4 billion in 2024 and about USD 4.7 billion in 2025.

The geology: greenstone belts of the Tanzania craton

The Lake Victoria Goldfields sit on the northern part of the Tanzania craton, which extends into Kenya and Uganda. According to Henckel et al., the greenstone belts are made mainly of Nyanzian volcanic rocks overlain by younger Kavirondian sediments, and they were cut and disrupted by a large suite of granites intruded around 2,650 to 2,640 million years ago. Gold deposits are widespread but concentrated in three belts: Sukumaland, Musoma-Mara and Busia-Kakamega, the last of which lies mostly in Kenya.

The same paper describes four broad deposit styles, which is the most useful thing an explorer can take from it:

• Quartz veins in shear zones and fractures in the Nyanzian volcanics, as at Bulyanhulu and Buck Reef.
• Quartz vein arrays inside intrusions, as at Buzwagi and Nyabirama.
• Gold in folded banded iron formation, as at Geita, Golden Ridge, Tulawaka and Nyanzaga.
• Stockwork and disseminated gold tied to porphyritic volcanic and intrusive rocks, as at Gokona-Nyabigena at North Mara, with strong K-feldspar alteration.

Most of these deposits were first found in colonial times and then greatly expanded by modern work using aeromagnetic, electromagnetic and radiometric surveys, regolith and outcrop mapping, and systematic drilling. That sequence, regional data first and drilling last, is still how gold deposits in Tanzania are found.

The production figures show why the belts attract capital. Bulyanhulu, a narrow-vein underground mine in the Sukumaland belt, produced more than 3 million ounces between 2001 and 2014, and Henckel et al. put its proven and probable reserves at 9.4 million ounces at the time. The three North Mara deposits had produced 2.87 million ounces by the end of 2014. Golden Pride, on the Bulangamirwa shear zone in the Nzega belt, produced 2.2 million ounces before closing in 2014.

How the big gold deposits in Tanzania were found

The discovery stories in Henckel et al. are worth reading closely, because they show what worked on this ground. Almost none of the modern deposits was found by walking over outcrop.

The pattern is consistent. Regional data, often remote, picks an area; soil or regolith geochemistry narrows it; geophysics sees through cover; drilling decides. The deposits that took longest were the ones hidden under ferricrete, lava or thick soil, which is exactly the ground still open today.

What the ownership rules mean for a project

Before anyone values gold in Tanzania, the state’s share needs to be on the table. The USGS summarises the 2017 laws as mandating government ownership of at least 16% in mining projects and raising the gold royalty to 6% from 4%. Regulations in 2018 added at least 5% equity for Tanzanian companies on top of the government’s free carried interest. The calculator shows how those shares split a year’s profit before you add your own partners.

Gold mining areas of Tanzania, belt by belt

The table groups the main areas where gold deposits in Tanzania have been found and mined. Deposits are named as geological examples from the Episodes synthesis and the USGS Yearbook.

Geita and the iron formations

Geita is the classic example of BIF-hosted gold in Tanzania. The old Geita mine produced more than 1 million ounces at 5.3 g/t between 1936 and 1966, according to Henckel et al. The modern mine was built on Nyankanga, found after a soil survey over ferricrete-covered ground west of Lone Cone returned a gold anomaly above 200 ppb, followed by rotary air blast drilling. The USGS recorded about 18,800 kg from the Geita Mine in 2019.

Buzwagi and Bulyanhulu show how quickly an operation can change. In 2019, the USGS reported, Bulyanhulu’s underground mine was shut and the site was producing gold by re-treating tailings, while Buzwagi was expected to go onto care and maintenance in 2021. Company reports are the place to check what each mine is doing now.

The Lupa goldfield and the southwest

Outside the craton, the Lupa goldfield in the southwest hosted a 1922 alluvial gold rush, the event Henckel et al. single out as the one early exception to East Africa’s slow start in gold. The field is Proterozoic, younger than the Lake Victoria belts. In 2019 the USGS recorded 2,628 kg from Shanta Gold’s New Luika open pit in Mbeya Region, with planned output of 2,500 to 2,600 kg in 2020.

The same belts cross into Kenya and Uganda

The Lake Victoria Goldfields do not stop at the border. The Busia-Kakamega belt lies mostly in western Kenya and runs into Uganda, and the Migori-Kendu belt is in Kenya too. Henckel et al. record that Kenya’s Rosterman mine produced more than 250,000 ounces between 1935 and 1952, while the Ugandan part of the goldfield produced no more than 30,000 to 45,000 ounces in the Busia district from 1937 to 1952. Tanzania has had by far the most modern exploration of the three.

Terms used in Tanzanian gold geology

Nyanzian

The older volcanic sequence of the Lake Victoria greenstone belts, host to many shear-vein deposits.

Kavirondian

Younger sedimentary rocks laid over the Nyanzian volcanics.

Ferricrete

An iron-cemented crust formed by weathering; it hides bedrock across much of the goldfields.

BIF

Banded iron formation, the host at Geita and Nyanzaga.

Stockwork

A mesh of small veins; the style at Gokona and Nyanzaga, often lower grade and bulk-mineable.

RAB and aircore

Cheap, shallow drilling methods used to test soil anomalies under cover.

Artisanal and small-scale gold in Tanzania

The USGS estimated that as many as 1.5 million artisanal miners worked in Tanzania, producing gold, gemstones and other minerals. In March 2019 the government set up 28 mineral trading centres to formalise sales and reduce smuggling, and cancelled about 1,000 inactive licences with plans to redistribute them to small-scale miners. Formal sales of gold from small-scale mines rose to 4,660 kg in 2019 from 337 kg in 2016.

For an explorer, artisanal workings are both a clue and a complication. Drilling beneath artisanal workings led to the discoveries at Nyabirama and Nyabigena at North Mara in the 1990s, Henckel et al. record, and up to 30,000 artisanal miners are thought to have worked the Bulyanhulu ground before the mine. Any licence over worked ground needs a plan for the people already on it.

“Gold was 39.8% of Tanzania’s total exports in 2019, on Bank of Tanzania data cited by the USGS.”

Where the next gold in Tanzania is likely to come from

Henckel et al. are direct about it: because the Lake Victoria Goldfields are mature, future developments will need vein deposits tested to greater depth and more examples of the lower-grade stockwork and disseminated styles that early rounds of exploration may have overlooked. That gives three practical target types for gold in Tanzania today.

The first is depth below known shear-vein systems, where Bulyanhulu-style reefs continue down-dip. The second is bulk, lower-grade stockwork of the Gokona and Nyanzaga type, which a prospector chasing visible gold would have walked past. The third is any belt segment under ferricrete, lava or soil where no modern survey has been run.

A working sequence for a Tanzanian gold licence

1. Confirm the ground is free on the Mining Commission’s public map and check neighbouring licences.
2. Gather public data: Geological Survey of Tanzania maps and airborne magnetics over your belt.
3. Screen the licence for alteration, structures and iron formations, and rank the targets.
4. Map the regolith so you know where bedrock is exposed and where ferricrete or transported cover sits.
5. Run soil or regolith sampling on the best targets; above 200 ppb gold was the anomaly that led to Nyankanga.
6. Use IP or EM where sulphides and silicification are expected, as at Gokona.
7. Drill cheaply first (RAB or aircore), then RC and diamond on what survives.

Budget for each step before you start, and keep the data: a clean, well-documented dataset is what a later partner or buyer will pay for, whatever the drill results.

None of these steps is new, and that is the point: the deposits that built gold in Tanzania were found this way, and the ground that remains is harder, so discipline matters more.

Gold and mineral exploration companies in Tanzania

The producers named in the USGS Yearbook for 2019 were Geita Gold Mining (AngloGold Ashanti), Barrick, which bought out the minority shareholders of its Tanzanian operations that year, and Shanta Gold at New Luika. The state miner STAMICO operated the Biharamulo mine. Projects the Yearbook expected to add output included Buckreef and Nyanzaga, and the Singida mine.

Gold exploration companies in Tanzania range from these majors to juniors and local licence holders. Mineral exploration companies in Tanzania that work around the lake use the same toolkit Henckel et al. describe: airborne magnetics and radiometrics, soil and regolith sampling, IP and EM, then RAB, aircore, RC and diamond drilling. If you are comparing juniors, our guide to gold and lithium exploration companies covers what to look for in their disclosures.

Licences for gold in Tanzania: the Mining Commission

Mineral rights in Tanzania are administered by the Mining Commission (Tume ya Madini) under the Mining Act, Cap. 123. Applications go through the online cadastre at portal.madini.go.tz; the Commission’s application procedure explains that the area must be free of existing licences and lists the licence types. The Mining Act as revised in 2019 sets out the prospecting, primary mining, mining and special mining licences.

Our Tanzania mining cadastre portal guide walks through the portal, licence tiers and fees. The Geological Survey of Tanzania, at gst.go.tz, holds the regional maps and geophysical data that most exploration programmes start from.

Ranking a Tanzanian gold licence before fieldwork

The history of the Lake Victoria belts is a history of remote data leading to drilling: Landsat and aeromagnetics pointed to Tulawaka, soil geochemistry to Nyankanga, IP to Gokona. Our satellite-based mineral detection sits at the start of that chain. We analyse multispectral and hyperspectral imagery of your licence, where each mineral and alteration zone reflects light in its own spectral signature, and flag likely mineralised target zones, alteration halos and structures. Our guide to satellite gold exploration explains the approach.

• ✔ Input: licence coordinates, KML/KMZ or polygon, plus the target mineral.
• Turnaround: 5–20 business days depending on area and mineral complexity.
• Deliverables: prospectivity heatmaps, high-potential zones with estimated location and depth ranges, geological interpretation, PDF and GIS files. Premium+ adds TargetMax™ drilling intelligence and 3D subsurface models.
• Cost and time: up to 80–85% lower early-exploration cost, and timelines cut from months to days.
• ⚠ Limits: results are exploration targets, not resources; under thick cover they guide where to run geophysics and soil lines rather than where to drill.

Draw your licence on mining.farmonaut.com (Map Your Mining Site), or send the coordinates through our mining query form for a quote. See a sample in the satellite-driven 3D mineral prospectivity mapping overview. We have scanned 100,000+ hectares for 20+ mineral types across 25+ countries.

Export earnings have risen faster than volumes because of the gold price, which is why state revenue and ownership terms get so much attention in Tanzania. Check the Bank of Tanzania’s latest monthly review for current values.

Frequently asked questions

Reviewed September 2026 against the USGS 2019 Minerals Yearbook for Tanzania, Henckel et al. (2016) in Episodes 39(2), the Mining Commission’s application procedure, the Mining Act Cap. 123, and Ministry of Minerals and Bank of Tanzania figures as reported by TanzaniaInvest.

Deposits and mines are named only as published geological examples; Farmonaut did not discover them. Production, reserve and export figures carry the dates shown and are revised by their publishers. Ownership, royalty and licensing terms can change; confirm with the Mining Commission. This guide is general information, not legal or investment advice.