Canada critical minerals: the 34-mineral list, the 30% CMETC, federal funds and where the deposits are

Canada critical minerals are the 34 minerals on the federal list updated in June 2024; 27 of them now qualify for the 30% Critical Mineral Exploration Tax Credit on flow-through agreements signed on or before March 31, 2027.

Ask a VP Exploration why their next program targets lithium, nickel or tungsten rather than gold, and the answer often starts with tax: Canada critical minerals projects can pass a 30% federal credit to flow-through investors, double the general rate. That credit, the federal list behind it, the Canada critical minerals strategy that funds roads and power lines, and each province’s own list now shape where juniors raise and spend money. This page sets out what the official sources say, as of October 2026, and links each fact to the government page that states it. It replaces our older overview of Canadian critical minerals and the USGS list, which had gone out of date.

Canada’s critical minerals list grew from 31 to 34 minerals in June 2024, and is reviewed every three years.

The Canada critical minerals list: 34 minerals and how they qualify

Thirty-four minerals and metals sit on the Government of Canada’s critical minerals list: aluminum, antimony, bismuth, cesium, chromium, cobalt, copper, fluorspar, gallium, germanium, graphite, helium, high-purity iron ore, indium, lithium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, niobium, phosphorus, platinum group metals, potash, rare earth elements, scandium, silicon metal, tantalum, tellurium, tin, titanium, tungsten, uranium, vanadium and zinc. The list was first released in 2021 and updated in 2024 in consultation with the provinces and territories.

The update came on June 10, 2024. Natural Resources Canada’s news release on the updated list says all 31 minerals from 2021 were kept and three were added: high-purity iron, phosphorus and silicon metal. The same release sets the test. A mineral must have a threatened supply chain and a reasonable chance of being produced in Canada, and it must also do at least one of three things: be essential to economic or national security, be needed for the low-carbon and digital economy, or position Canada as a strategic partner in global supply chains. Ottawa committed in 2021 to review the list every three years.

Why the list matters more than its length suggests

For a listed explorer, a place on the Canada critical minerals list is not a label for the website. It decides whether a flow-through financing can carry the 30% credit and whether a road or power line serving a project can compete for federal money. A mineral that is critical but not CMETC-eligible, such as antimony or potash, still counts for some funds but not for the enhanced credit. That gap is the first thing to check before you write a financing plan.

▶ How new survey methods are being used to look for rare earth targets in Canada's critical minerals districts. · 2:25

Which Canada critical minerals actually ship in volume? The 2024 production table from Statistics Canada and Natural Resources Canada answers part of that. Potash shipments were worth about C$7.8 billion, copper C$4.9 billion and nickel C$2.6 billion. Lithium, a mineral that dominates junior news flow, was worth C$233 million, about 3% of potash. Uranium’s value is not shown, because the table suppresses it for confidentiality.

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Value of 2024 shipments, selected critical minerals

Canada, millions of Canadian dollars (C$M)

Sources: federal critical minerals list; Budget 2022 and Budget 2025 tax measures. The two credits cannot be combined on the same expenditure.

Canadian critical minerals and the USGS list compared

Many TSXV companies also court US buyers, so the US list matters as much as the Canada critical minerals list. The Department of the Interior published the final 2025 US List of Critical Minerals in the Federal Register on November 7, 2025. It names 60 minerals and added ten: boron, copper, lead, metallurgical coal, phosphate, potash, rhenium, silicon, silver and uranium. Copper, potash and uranium were already on the Canada critical minerals list in 2021, so the two lists now overlap more than they did. The older figure of 50 US minerals, quoted in many articles, refers to the 2022 list.

Agriculture is part of the overlap. The 2024 Canadian release ties phosphorus to fertilizer and food security as well as to lithium iron phosphate batteries, and potash has been on the list since 2021. For a phosphate or potash junior, being one of the Canada critical minerals and critical on both sides of the border helps with offtake talks even though neither mineral earns the 30% credit in Canada.

Canada critical minerals strategy: what it set out to do, and progress so far

The Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy is backed by nearly C$4 billion from Budget 2022. Its five objectives are economic growth and jobs, climate action, reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, diverse and inclusive workforces, and global security with allies. It named six minerals for early priority: lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, copper and rare earth elements. The money behind it includes a C$1.5 billion critical minerals envelope in the Strategic Innovation Fund, up to C$1.5 billion for infrastructure, and the 30% exploration credit.

Canada’s critical minerals strategy also created the Critical Minerals Centre of Excellence inside Natural Resources Canada. It coordinates federal policy and offers project developers a concierge service on permits and programs. For a small company working on Canada critical minerals, that is the first federal door to knock on before applying for anything else.

What the progress update reports

The federal progress update on the strategy, dated February 2026, counts 56 active mines producing critical minerals, 31 processing facilities and 171 advanced projects as of March 2025. Critical-mineral exploration spending reached C$2.1 billion in 2024, up 4% on the year and 51% of all mineral exploration in Canada. The sector contributed about C$40 billion to GDP in 2023. Since 2022, one new mine has started commercial production (the North American Lithium mine in Quebec), two nickel mines have completed expansions, and 68 company technical reports were released, 20 of them for lithium.

Critical minerals took 51% of Canada’s mineral exploration spending in 2024: C$2.1 billion.

Total exploration spending gives the wider context for the Canada critical minerals numbers. Natural Resources Canada’s April 2026 exploration information bulletin puts all exploration and deposit appraisal spending at C$4.4 billion in 2025 (preliminary) and companies’ intentions for 2026 at C$5.3 billion, which would be a record. Juniors planned C$2.91 billion of that, more than senior producers.

Chart

Mineral exploration spending in Canada

All minerals, billions of Canadian dollars (C$B); 2025 preliminary, 2026 intentions

The Major Projects Office and the two named corridors

On September 11, 2025, the Critical Minerals Strategy itself was referred to the Major Projects Office as a “transformative strategy”. The office’s page names two regions: the Fosse du Labrador in Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Northwest Critical Mineral and Conservation Corridor in British Columbia. It also says five critical minerals projects had been referred to the office. If your ground sits in or near those regions, expect infrastructure planning to move faster there than elsewhere, and expect more competition for open ground.

Critical mineral exploration tax credit (CMETC): how the 30% works

The critical mineral exploration tax credit is a 30% non-refundable credit for individuals (not trusts) who buy flow-through shares. It applies to specified mineral exploration expenses incurred in Canada and renounced to investors. Budget 2022 created it for 15 minerals, and the Budget 2025 tax measures propose to add 12 more: bismuth, cesium, chromium, fluorspar, germanium, indium, manganese, molybdenum, niobium, tantalum, tin and tungsten. The expansion applies to flow-through agreements entered into after Budget Day and on or before March 31, 2027.

Three rules decide whether a Canada critical minerals program qualifies. First, the Budget 2022 design requires a qualified person, as defined in National Instrument 43-101, to certify that the renounced spending will be incurred on a project targeting the specified minerals. Natural Resources Canada’s summary of mining tax provisions adds that the CRA generally reads “primarily” as more than 50%. Second, the same expense cannot earn both the CMETC and the 15% METC. Third, if the certification fails, the credit is recovered from the investor. Our explainer on NI 43-101 and the qualified person covers who can sign.

METC and CMETC side by side

The general Mineral Exploration Tax Credit pays 15%. The Department of Finance extended the METC on March 3, 2025 for two years, to March 31, 2027, and Budget 2025 confirmed it. So, as published in October 2026, both credits run to the same date. Underneath both sits the deduction itself: Canadian exploration expenses are 100% deductible in the year incurred, while Canadian development expenses are deducted at 30% a year on a declining balance, according to the NRCan summary.

Timing is the trap. Under the look-back rule described in the CRA’s flow-through share glossary, a company can sign agreements in Year 1, renounce the spending effective December 31 of Year 1, and actually spend it in Year 2. Unspent renounced amounts trigger Part XII.6 tax. With the credits currently ending on March 31, 2027, a program financed early in 2027 has little room for weather delays.

Infographic

How a CMETC flow-through deal works

1. 1Target and QP letterOne of the 27 CMETC minerals; a QP certifies the project.
2. 2Sign the agreementFlow-through agreement on or before March 31, 2027.
3. 3Renounce (T101)Look-back rule: effective December 31 of Year 1.
4. 4Spend in CanadaIncur the expense in Year 2; unspent amounts are taxed.
5. 5Investor claims30% CMETC, never stacked with the 15% METC.

How much does the credit change a raise for Canada critical minerals work? The calculator below uses only the published rates: 30% for CMETC-eligible spending, 15% for METC-eligible spending, and a 100% deduction for exploration expenses. Enter the raise, the share going to a qualified-person-certified critical minerals project, and an example marginal tax rate for an investor.

A worked example

A junior raises C$1,000,000 in flow-through shares for a lithium pegmatite program that a qualified person has certified. Investors share C$300,000 in CMETC. Had the target been gold, the same raise would carry C$150,000 in METC instead. Both cases also pass on the full exploration deduction; at a 45% example rate that is worth C$450,000 to investors who can use it. The C$150,000 gap is why flow-through buyers ask “is it CMETC?” before they ask about the geology.

Federal funding for critical minerals in Canada beyond the tax credit

Infrastructure money for Canada critical minerals changed shape in 2026. The Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund offered up to C$1.5 billion until 2030 for clean energy and transportation infrastructure. Most applicants could receive up to C$50 million per project (C$100 million for provinces and territories), covering up to 50% of eligible costs, or up to 75% for Arctic, Northern and Indigenous-led projects. Its second call closed in two streams, on June 27, 2025 and March 4, 2026.

Budget 2025’s first chapter created the First and Last Mile Fund with C$371.8 million over four years from 2026-27, and folded the infrastructure fund into it to provide up to C$1.5 billion through 2029-30. The First and Last Mile Fund page says there is no open call. NRCan identifies and invites proponents to send an expression of interest, while Indigenous groups can self-identify for capacity funding.

What has been funded so far

At PDAC in March 2026 the government announced up to C$165.2 million for 22 projects. The backgrounder listing them includes up to C$50 million for BC Hydro’s Highland Valley Copper power upgrades, C$44.2 million for Northwest Transmission Line upgrades, C$18.1 million for a SaskPower interconnection, C$1.9 million for Defense Metals’ Wicheeda rare earth infrastructure, and smaller geoscience grants to provincial surveys in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Equity is the newest tool in the Canada critical minerals toolkit. Budget 2025 proposed a C$2 billion Critical Minerals Sovereign Fund over five years from 2026-27, for equity, loan guarantees and offtake agreements. It has since become the Canada Critical Minerals Accelerator, delivered by Export Development Canada. The first agreement, announced July 7, 2026, supports an expansion at Teck’s Trail Operations in British Columbia that could double germanium and antimony output and possibly add gallium, with a planned Canada Growth Fund investment of up to C$400 million.

▶ Copper exploration in British Columbia, where most of Canada's mined copper comes from. · 3:11

Critical minerals in Canada by province: where the deposits and mines are

Each province keeps its own list and plan, and they do not match the Canada critical minerals list. The 2024 production table from Statistics Canada and Natural Resources Canada shows where output comes from. British Columbia produced 300,187 tonnes of copper in 2024, about two-thirds of Canada’s 444,587 tonnes. Quebec, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador and Manitoba produced all of Canada’s 132,429 tonnes of nickel. Saskatchewan produced all 24.7 million tonnes of muriate of potash.

Chart

Nickel produced by province, 2024

Tonnes; Canada total 132,429 t

Production from the NRCan and Statistics Canada 2024 table; strategies from each government’s own page. Lithium converted from the kilograms reported in the table.

Ontario critical minerals

Ontario’s Critical Minerals Strategy, published March 17, 2022, runs to 2027 and lists 33 critical minerals, including some not on the federal list, such as barite, beryllium, selenium and zirconium. The province said it would review its list every three years. Its Ontario Junior Exploration Program received C$24 million, with C$12 million set aside for a critical minerals stream. The Ring of Fire, about 500 km northeast of Thunder Bay, holds nickel, copper, platinum and chromite, and Ontario has committed close to C$1 billion to legacy road projects there, conditional on federal matching. For Ontario critical minerals juniors, the claims system is covered in our mining cadastre guide.

Quebec, Manitoba and Saskatchewan

Quebec’s critical and strategic minerals list started with 22 minerals in 2020 and added six in January 2024: aluminum, apatite, germanium, high-purity iron (concentrate of at least 67% iron), high-purity silica and manganese. Manitoba’s November 2024 strategy, Securing Our Critical Mineral Future, says the province hosts 30 of the 34 federal critical minerals and produced all of Canada’s cesium and lithium in 2022. Saskatchewan’s critical minerals page sets two 2030 goals, 15% of Canadian exploration spending and twice as many critical minerals in production, and offers a drilling grant of 25% of direct drilling costs up to C$150,000 (C$50,000 for uranium).

▶ Soil-survey methods tested on a Manitoba rare earth target, one of the province's critical minerals plays. · 2:38

Alberta critical minerals and the North

For Alberta critical minerals, the province’s minerals page notes that the Mineral Resource Development Act received royal assent in 2021 to support a renewed mineral strategy. Brine lithium is the province’s main critical minerals story, and our page on lithium in Alberta and Canada explains the brine and pegmatite rules. On June 25, 2026, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut released Stronger Together, a joint critical minerals strategy built on investment certainty, infrastructure corridors and regional strengths, with Indigenous participation at every stage.

Where exploration money is heading next

The April 2026 NRCan bulletin shows companies planning to spend more on uranium (C$737 million, up 61%) and on the “other metals” group of lithium, cobalt and rare earths (C$447 million) in 2026, while base metals hold flat at about C$1.16 billion. Quebec leads the provincial intentions at C$1.16 billion, ahead of British Columbia at C$1.03 billion and Ontario at C$999 million.

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Exploration spending by mineral group

Canada, millions of Canadian dollars (C$M): 2025 preliminary vs 2026 intentions

What satellites can and cannot see for Canada critical minerals

Many hard-rock critical mineral targets in Canada sit in the Canadian Shield, where boreal forest, lakes, glacial till and seasonal snow hide much of the rock. That limits what any optical satellite can do. A pegmatite outcrop on a burned ridge in Quebec or Manitoba can show up clearly. The same dyke under spruce and thick till will not, and lithium in Alberta brines is invisible from orbit. Being plain about this saves money.

Where satellites help with Canada critical minerals is in sorting ground before you pay for fieldwork. Multispectral and hyperspectral data can map exposed alteration, iron oxides and clay minerals, along with fold and fault structures, lineaments and access. That is how we work at Farmonaut. Our satellite-based mineral detection service analyses the spectral signatures of minerals and alteration zones to flag target zones, alteration halos and faults across a whole licence block. Lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, zinc, uranium, tantalum, niobium and rare earth elements are among the materials we screen for.

The numbers we can stand behind are these. Satellite screening cuts early-exploration timelines from months to days and lowers early-exploration cost by up to 80 to 85%, with no ground disturbance. We have scanned more than 100,000 hectares for 20+ mineral types in 25+ countries. You send coordinates, a KML or KMZ file, or a polygon, plus the target minerals, and we deliver in 5 to 20 business days. To see your own block, use Map Your Mining Site (mining.farmonaut.com), or get a quote for a full report.

The premium report gives ranked high-potential zones, prospectivity heat maps, estimated depth ranges and a geological interpretation, as PDF and georeferenced GIS files. The Premium+ report adds TargetMax drilling intelligence and interactive 3D subsurface models; see a sample of 3D mineral prospectivity mapping. These are exploration targets that come before any resource estimate. They are not NI 43-101 resources, they do not replace a qualified person’s work, and they do not guarantee a discovery.

A checklist for explorers working on Canada critical minerals

What should a TSXV company holding Canada critical minerals ground do with all of this? We would work through seven questions before the next financing.

• ✔ Is the target on the federal list, and is it one of the 27 CMETC minerals? Antimony, potash and helium are critical but earn only the general credit.
• ✔ Will a qualified person certify that the project primarily targets eligible minerals? If gold or silver is the real driver, assume the 15% METC instead.
• 📊 Can the money be spent in time? Map out when you will sign agreements, when you will renounce, and the field season. Snow and fire seasons are real limits in the Shield.
• 📊 Which provincial list applies? Ontario’s 33 and Quebec’s 28 differ from the federal 34, and provincial programs follow their own lists.
• Is there funded infrastructure nearby? Check the projects named under the First and Last Mile Fund and the two Major Projects Office corridors.
• ⚠ Are Indigenous rights holders engaged early? The federal strategy, Ontario’s, Manitoba’s and the Western and Northern strategy all make Indigenous partnership a pillar or objective.
• Is the disclosure current? Quote list sizes, credit dates and fund names with their dates. Several changed between 2024 and 2026.

Two questions remain open as of October 2026. Ottawa has not announced whether either credit will run past March 31, 2027, and on its three-year cycle the federal list is due for another review after the June 2024 update. Neither is decided, so plan around the published dates and watch the Department of Finance and NRCan pages. For a wider look at battery metals targets, see our graphite, nickel, cobalt and vanadium guide and the rare earth elements map.

If this topic matters to you, read Minerals Mined in Canada: Ranked by Value of Output next.

Canada critical minerals: frequently asked questions

Authored by: Farmonaut Research & Content Team · Reviewed by: Farmonaut Mining & Mineral Exploration Team · Updated October 2026

General information only, not tax, legal or investment advice; confirm with your advisers and the exchange. Lists, credits, programs and deadlines change; confirm with Natural Resources Canada, the Department of Finance, the CRA and the provincial regulator. Farmonaut is not a licensing agent, broker, tax, legal or investment adviser, and satellite targets are exploration targets, not resources or reserves.