Based on data from the Sistema Cadastro Mineiro (Brazil’s national mining registry system), we compared mining applications filed between January and August of each of the last five years. After peaking at 9,648 applications in 2023, the numbers declined for two consecutive years, falling to 8,475 in 2024 and 7,548 in 2025, before rising again in 2026 to 7,761 applications, still 19.6% below the 2023 peak.
The License Application declined every single year over the past five years, without exception: from 1,368 in 2022 to 888 in 2026, a 35% drop. There is no reversal in sight, which may suggest a structural shift of interest toward other forms of mining title, rather than a cyclical fluctuation.
The Small-Scale Mining Application fell even more sharply in the national total, from 781 to 337, a 57% drop over five years. Mato Grosso and Pará together account for between 33% and 63% of all Small-Scale Mining Applications nationwide each year, and that concentration is rising, from 42.6% in 2022 to 63.2% in 2026. Formal small-scale mining applications have shrunk across Brazil as a whole, but appear increasingly confined to these two states.
The Extraction Registration Application breaks the downward pattern: 2026 recorded the highest national volume in the series, 559, after fluctuating between 358 and 478 over the previous four years. Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina account for 40% to 62% of the national total in all five years, with a jump beginning in 2025, from a 40-46% range to around 60%. The 2026 growth in this category reflects concentrated demand for construction aggregates in the South, not a nationwide expansion.
The Exploration Application, the most numerous category every year, does not follow a linear trend: it ranges between 5,771 in 2025 and 7,365 in 2023, with 2026’s 5,977 applications representing a recovery from the previous year, though still below 2022-2024 levels.
The mining sector today files fewer formal license and small-scale mining applications than it did five years ago, while demand for construction aggregate extraction in the South has reached a series high. Exploration remains by far the most-used entry point, with no defined growth trend, but the rest of the pipeline shows an increasingly regionalized sector: small-scale mining driven by two states, aggregates driven by another two.
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