Lithium Production by Country: USGS Table and Chart

The USGS puts world lithium mine production at 204,000 metric tons of contained lithium in 2023, 222,000 tons in 2024 and an estimated 290,000 tons in 2025. Australia led every year, followed by Chile and China. These figures come from the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 lithium chapter (February 2026) and the 2025 edition, which holds the final 2023 numbers.

This page puts the USGS lithium production by country tables from four editions side by side, so you can see the 2023 and 2024 figures, the 2025 estimates, and how much each estimate was later revised. It also covers reserves, consumption, US import sources and USGS price data, and it includes a converter from lithium content to lithium carbonate equivalent and spodumene concentrate. All tons are metric tons of lithium content, as in the USGS tables, unless a line says otherwise.

USGS lithium production by country table: every year

Each USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries (MCS) edition gives two years of mine production: a revised figure for the year before last and an estimate for the most recent year. The table below uses the latest revised figure for each year, so 2021 comes from the MCS 2023 lithium chapter, 2022 from MCS 2024, 2023 from MCS 2025, and 2024 plus the 2025 estimate from MCS 2026.

Chart

World lithium mine production

Thousand metric tons of lithium content, excluding the US; 2025 is an estimate

Three notes on reading it. First, “withheld” means the USGS does not publish US output, to avoid disclosing company proprietary data; the world total excludes it. Second, several country numbers are USGS estimates rather than reported figures, marked with an “e” in the source PDFs. Third, “not listed” does not always mean zero output: Namibia was shown for 2023 and 2024 in MCS 2025, then removed in MCS 2026, which says it was “temporarily removed from mine production owing to legal uncertainties”.

The world total grew almost threefold in four years, from 107,000 tons in 2021 to an estimated 290,000 tons in 2025. The USGS links the 2025 rise to strong battery demand, high prices between 2021 and early 2023 that funded new capacity, and that new capacity coming on line.

Lithium producing countries: the USGS figures

For 2023, the revised USGS figures in MCS 2025 are: Australia 91,700 tons, Chile 41,400, China 35,700, Zimbabwe 14,900, Argentina 8,630, Brazil 5,260, Canada 3,240, Namibia 2,700 and Portugal 380, for a rounded world total of 204,000 tons. Australia’s share was about 45%, Chile’s about 20% and China’s about 17%. Those three countries made roughly 83% of the world’s mined lithium that year.

If you are using an older copy of the table, check which edition it came from. MCS 2024, published in early 2024, estimated 2023 output at only 180,000 tons. A year later the USGS revised that to 204,000 tons, 13% higher. The biggest changes were Zimbabwe (estimated at 3,400 tons, revised to 14,900) and Australia (86,000 revised to 91,700). China moved from 33,000 to 35,700 tons, while Chile went down from 44,000 to 41,400 and Argentina from 9,600 to 8,630.

The lesson for anyone citing a single year: the estimate column in a new edition is a first pass. Use the revised figure from the following edition when it exists, and say which edition you used. Natural Resources Canada, working from its own data, puts world output in 2023 at 201,290 tons, close to the revised USGS figure.

Lithium production by country: metric tons and shares

MCS 2026 gives revised 2024 output of 222,000 tons. The ranking was Australia (82,700 tons), Chile (48,900), China (41,400), Zimbabwe (20,000), Argentina (13,800), Brazil (10,200), Canada (4,820), Mali (770) and Portugal (380). Measured against the 222,000-ton total, that is about 37% for Australia, 22% for Chile, 19% for China, 9% for Zimbabwe, 6% for Argentina, 4.6% for Brazil and 2.2% for Canada.

Chart

Lithium mine production by country, 2024

Metric tons of lithium content (US withheld)

The 2024 year shows two shifts. Australia’s tonnage fell from 91,700 tons in 2023, while Chile, China, Zimbabwe, Argentina and Brazil all grew. The USGS also revised Argentina’s 2024 figure based on company reports and added Mali for the first time, after two new operations started there in 2024.

As in other years, the 2024 world total excludes the United States. Earlier USGS estimates are again worth checking against the revision: MCS 2025 put 2024 at 240,000 tons, and MCS 2026 brought it down to 222,000 tons, with Argentina cut from 18,000 to 13,800 tons.

Lithium production ranking: the estimates

For 2025 the USGS estimates world output at about 290,000 tons, up 31% from 2024. The estimated ranking is Australia (92,000 tons, about 32%), China (62,000, about 21%), Chile (56,000, about 19%), Zimbabwe (28,000, about 10%), Argentina (23,000, about 8%), Brazil (12,000), Mali (9,400), Canada (5,600) and Portugal (380).

Chart

2024 output vs 2025 estimate

Thousand metric tons of lithium content

China moved ahead of Chile for second place in the estimate, adding about 20,600 tons in one year. Argentina grew by roughly two-thirds and Mali by more than ten times from a small base. Treat these as provisional: the next edition will revise them, as it did for 2023 and 2024.

The USGS says the bulk of world output in 2025 came from a limited set of operations: four brine operations in Argentina, seven mineral operations in Australia, one in Brazil, two in Canada, two brine operations in Chile, nine mineral and six brine operations in China, two mineral operations in Mali and five in Zimbabwe.

Australia’s share of world lithium production

Australia has been the largest producer in every USGS table on this page, but its share is shrinking as other countries grow. Using the revised USGS figures, Australia produced about 51% of world output in 2022 (74,700 of 146,000 tons), about 45% in 2023 (91,700 of 204,000), about 37% in 2024 (82,700 of 222,000) and an estimated 32% in 2025 (92,000 of 290,000). Natural Resources Canada also describes Australia as the 2024 leader, with seven mines producing more than a third of world output.

Chart

Australia’s share of world lithium output

Percent of reported world mine production (US excluded)

Australian lithium comes from hard-rock mines rather than brine. The ore mineral is spodumene, a lithium aluminium silicate found in pegmatites (very coarse-grained granite-like rocks). Mines crush and concentrate the ore to a spodumene concentrate of about 6% lithium oxide (Li2O), which is mostly shipped to China for refining into chemicals. The USGS critical minerals professional paper on lithium lists Greenbushes in Western Australia among the largest lithium deposits in the world. For a mine-by-mine list in that state, see our guide to Western Australian gold and lithium mines, and for the wider picture our Australia mining map.

Australia also holds the second-largest lithium reserves after Chile: 8.4 million tons in MCS 2026. That makes it both the biggest current producer and one of the largest long-term sources.

Chile, China, Argentina and Zimbabwe: the other leading producers

Chile

Chile produced 48,900 tons in 2024 and an estimated 56,000 tons in 2025. Its output comes from two brine operations in the Salar de Atacama. A salar is a salt flat; lithium-rich brine is pumped from beneath it into evaporation ponds, where the sun concentrates it over months before processing to lithium carbonate. Chile has the world’s largest reserves, 9.2 million tons (USGS, 2026).

China

China mined 41,400 tons in 2024 and an estimated 62,000 tons in 2025, from both hard-rock and brine operations. Its larger role is in refining. The International Energy Agency reported that China accounted for about 60% of global lithium chemical production and over 80% of lithium hydroxide (IEA, 2021). Mined output and chemical output are therefore two different rankings.

Argentina

Argentina produced 13,800 tons in 2024 and an estimated 23,000 tons in 2025 from brine operations in the north-west of the country. Its measured and indicated resources, 28 million tons, are the largest of any country in the USGS list, ahead of Bolivia (23 million tons), though Bolivia does not appear in the production table.

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is the fastest-growing large producer in the series: from 710 tons in 2021 to 20,000 tons in 2024 and an estimated 28,000 tons in 2025, from five hard-rock mineral operations in 2025 (USGS, 2026). It is now the fourth-largest producer, ahead of Argentina.

Brazil, Canada, Mali and Portugal

Brazil reached 10,200 tons in 2024 from hard-rock mining. Canada produced 4,820 tons in 2024 by the USGS count; Natural Resources Canada reports an estimated 5,983 tons for the same year from two mines, Tanco in Manitoba and North American Lithium in Quebec. The difference reflects different estimation methods, so name your source when you quote either. Mali entered the table in 2024 and Portugal has held steady at about 380 tons a year. For European projects in development, see lithium mining in Europe.

How the USGS lithium figures are reported

The most common mistake with these tables is mixing units. USGS mine production is given as tons of contained lithium metal, not tons of lithium carbonate or of concentrate. Company reports and price quotes usually use one of three other units:

▶ Remote sensing for mining, explained in about two minutes · 2:01

• Lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE). One ton of lithium equals about 5.323 tons of lithium carbonate (Li2CO3), from the ratio of their molecular weights. So 222,000 tons of lithium in 2024 is roughly 1.18 million tons LCE.
• Lithium oxide (Li2O). Hard-rock grades are given as % Li2O. One ton of lithium equals about 2.153 tons of Li2O.
• Spodumene concentrate (SC6). Concentrate grading 6% Li2O contains about 2.79% lithium, so one ton of lithium needs about 36 tons of SC6.

Other conventions: an “e” marks a USGS estimate; “W” means withheld; reserves are the part of identified resources that could be economically extracted when the estimate was made, while resources are a much larger total that includes material not yet economic. The USGS updates reserves each year from company and government reports, so reserves grew from 26 million tons in MCS 2023 to 37 million tons in MCS 2026 even as production rose.

The calculator below converts any USGS tonnage, or your own project figure, into LCE and SC6 tonnes and puts an indicative value on each at prices you enter.

Lithium reserves by country compared with production

Production and reserves rank countries differently. MCS 2026 lists reserves of 9.2 million tons in Chile, 8.4 million in Australia, 4.6 million in China, 4.4 million each in Argentina and the United States, 1.6 million in Canada, 540,000 in Brazil, 500,000 in Zimbabwe, 370,000 in Mali and 60,000 in Portugal, with a world total of 37 million tons. Measured and indicated resources are about 150 million tons worldwide.

A simple test is the ratio of reserves to annual output. At 2024 rates, Chile’s reserves would last about 190 years and Australia’s about 100, while Zimbabwe’s would last about 25 years and Brazil’s about 53. These are rough indicators only, since reserves are re-estimated every year, but they show which producers rely on near-term discoveries to keep growing.

The IEA also noted that lithium reserves rose by 40% between 2011 and 2019 while production almost tripled, because higher demand paid for more exploration.

Lithium consumption and end uses

The USGS estimates world lithium consumption at 263,000 tons in 2025, up 20% from 220,000 tons in 2024. Consumption sits close to production, which is why prices fall quickly when new mines start faster than demand grows.

Batteries took an estimated 88% of lithium use worldwide in 2025 (USGS, 2026). The rest went to ceramics and glass (4%), lubricating greases (2%), air treatment (1%), continuous casting mold flux powders (1%), medical uses (1%) and other uses (3%). Battery demand comes from electric vehicles, grid energy storage, portable electronics and power tools. The USGS said electric vehicle sales growth in China and Europe and demand for battery storage systems lifted prices in the second half of 2025.

▶ The main environmental impacts of mining, explained in clay · 2:31

US lithium import sources: Chile, Argentina and others

Commercial-scale US lithium production comes from a continental brine operation in Nevada, and its output is withheld. The USGS puts US imports for consumption at 3,020 tons of lithium content in 2024 and an estimated 3,800 tons in 2025, with net import reliance above 50% of apparent consumption.

Searches often ask whether Australia and China supply US lithium. By the USGS count they do not, at least not directly: imports for 2021 to 2024 came from Chile (54%), Argentina (43%) and other countries (3%). In the earlier 2019 to 2022 window, Argentina supplied 51%, Chile 43%, China 3% and Russia 2%. Australian spodumene goes mainly to refiners in China, so it reaches US users, if at all, inside finished cells and battery packs, which are not counted as lithium imports.

Development projects in the United States include hard-rock, claystone and brine deposits. US reserves were raised to 4.4 million tons in MCS 2026. For the Nevada projects, see lithium mines in Nevada.

Lithium price data from the USGS

The USGS publishes an annual average US price for battery-grade lithium carbonate on fixed contracts. In real (inflation-adjusted) dollars per metric ton in MCS 2026, it was 11,700 in 2021, 63,700 in 2022, 39,000 in 2023, 11,800 in 2024 and an estimated 9,000 in 2025, down 31% from 2024. Older editions quote nominal prices, so the same year can show a different figure; MCS 2024 gives a nominal 68,100 dollars for 2022.

Chart

US battery-grade lithium carbonate price

Annual average, thousand US$ per metric ton, real dollars

For 2025 the USGS also reports spot prices: lithium carbonate in China rose from about 9,300 dollars per ton in January to about 10,300 in November, lithium hydroxide from about 10,300 to 11,200, and Australian spodumene concentrate (6% Li2O) from about 800 to 970 dollars per ton. Spot prices change daily; check a current quote from a price reporting agency before using any number in a model.

The price swing explains the production pattern. High prices in 2022 funded new mines in Zimbabwe, Brazil, Argentina, Canada and Mali, and those mines raised supply in 2024 and 2025 even as prices fell. Some higher-cost producers cut output or delayed expansions in 2025, the USGS notes, while large capacity additions continued elsewhere.

Where new lithium supply is coming from

The USGS lists brine projects in development or exploration in Argentina, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, China and the United States, and hard-rock projects in many more countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Congo (Kinshasa), Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States and Zimbabwe. Lithium-clay projects are being studied in Mexico and the United States.

Water is a constraint in several of these places. The IEA found that over half of lithium production came from areas with high water stress (IEA, 2021), which is one reason direct lithium extraction from brine is being tested.

Early exploration increasingly starts from satellite data. The USGS has published spectral mapping of lithium-rich playas in the Basin and Range of the western United States, and similar methods help map pegmatite and alteration signatures in Africa. Farmonaut screens licence areas this way so teams can rank targets before field sampling; the results are exploration targets, not resource estimates. For an overview of how that works, see our page on satellite-based mineral detection.

▶ How satellite data is used to look for lithium pegmatites in Nigeria · 10:49

How to use the USGS lithium tables in a project review

1. Pick the right edition. For a finished year use the revised figure from the following edition (2023 from MCS 2025, 2024 from MCS 2026). Label estimates as estimates.
2. Keep units consistent. Convert company LCE or SC6 figures to lithium content before comparing them with USGS country totals.
3. Check the share against the right total. The world total excludes US output, so shares are of reported production only.
4. Compare reserves with output. A reserves-to-production ratio shows whether a country’s growth depends on new discoveries.
5. Read the notes. Revisions, new entrants (Mali in 2024) and removals (Namibia in 2025) are explained in the text under the table.
6. Cross-check with a second source. National surveys such as Natural Resources Canada or Geoscience Australia may differ slightly from the USGS; quote both and name the source.

Our summary of the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2024 lithium chapter covers that edition in more detail, and the same reading method works for other metals, such as our gold production by country page. If you want a target screen for your own licence area, use the mining query form or contact us.

Frequently asked questions

What was world lithium production according to the USGS?

For 2023, about 204,000 metric tons of contained lithium, excluding the United States, based on the revised figures in MCS 2025. For 2024 the figure is 222,000 tons (MCS 2026). The earlier estimate in MCS 2024 was 180,000 tons.

Which country produces the most lithium?

Australia: 91,700 tons in 2023, 82,700 tons in 2024 and an estimated 92,000 tons in 2025, mostly from spodumene mines in Western Australia (USGS).

What are the top 5 lithium producing countries?

In 2024: Australia, Chile, China, Zimbabwe and Argentina. In the 2025 estimates, China moved ahead of Chile into second place (USGS, 2026).

Why is US lithium production not shown in the USGS table?

US output is withheld (“W”) to avoid disclosing company data, because commercial-scale US production comes from a single continental brine operation in Nevada.

Are the USGS figures in lithium or lithium carbonate?

Lithium content. Multiply by about 5.323 to get lithium carbonate equivalent, so 222,000 tons of lithium in 2024 is about 1.18 million tons LCE.

How much lithium was produced?

In 2024, about 222,000 tons of lithium content, excluding the United States, according to MCS 2026; the 2025 estimate is about 290,000 tons. MCS 2025 had estimated 240,000 tons before the revision.

What share of world lithium does Australia produce?

About 37% in 2024 and an estimated 32% in 2025, down from about 51% in 2022, as Chile, China, Zimbabwe, Argentina and Brazil grew faster.

Which country has the largest lithium reserves?

Chile, with 9.2 million tons, followed by Australia with 8.4 million tons (USGS, 2026). Argentina has the largest measured and indicated resources at 28 million tons.

How much lithium does the world consume?

An estimated 263,000 tons in 2025, up 20% from 220,000 tons in 2024, with batteries taking 88% (USGS, 2026).

Where does the US import lithium from?

Chile (54%) and Argentina (43%) supplied almost all US lithium imports from 2021 to 2024, with 3% from other countries (USGS, 2026).

Where can I download the USGS lithium tables?

Each year’s lithium chapter is a two-page PDF on the USGS publications site, at pubs.usgs.gov under the Mineral Commodity Summaries periodical for that year. The sources list on this page links each edition used here.

More from Farmonaut: farm equipment manufacturing top 7 canadian trends 2026.