The minerals beneath everything
Seventeen elements run the modern world — every EV motor, wind turbine, MRI and fighter jet. This section tracks what they actually cost, what our machines actually need, and what getting them out of the ground actually takes.
Three ways in
The price tracker
Every traded rare-earth product, priced per kilogram — live SMM quotes where they exist, clearly dated references where they don't. See prices ↓
🧲The project calculator
How much neodymium does a million EVs actually take? Slide the scale of a project and watch the tonnage — and the bill — move. Open the calculator →
🔬The deep dive
Tap a mineral and read its whole dossier: ore grades, radioactive waste, the separation gauntlet, labor, logistics, and why one country runs the table. Explore the dossiers →
📜The long view
The SMESC essay: a proposal for an American strategic minerals compact and a 25-year stockpile — with the independent assessment underneath it. Read the essay →
Rare earth prices, honestly labeled
First, the truth about "live" rare-earth prices: there is no exchange and no ticker. These metals trade over-the-counter, in negotiated contracts, and the numbers below are quotes and assessments from price-reporting agencies — chiefly SMM (Shanghai Metals Market), whose weekly reviews are the freshest free source in the world. Where a live quote exists, this page fetches it. Where it doesn't, you get the last verified published price with its date on it. Nothing here is interpolated, and one element — thulium — shows no price at all, because nobody publishes one we can stand behind.
| Element · product | Price (USD/kg) | Change | Ex-China price, where published | Source · as of |
|---|
Bases matter: FOB China is an export quote at a Chinese port; China domestic prices are converted from yuan at ¥7.12 = US$1 and are not prices a foreign buyer can necessarily transact at — for the seven elements under Chinese export licensing (samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, yttrium), they mostly can't. That's what the ex-China column is for. Prices are per kilogram of product unless noted.
One element, two planets
In September 2026, a kilogram of dysprosium oxide cost about $198 inside China — and about $3,250 delivered in North America. Terbium oxide: ≈ $895 at home, $7,500 across the Pacific, with small lots reported above $12,000. Same white powder, same purity. The gap is the April 2025 export-licensing regime, a processing monopoly built over thirty years, and the fact that the West largely stopped separating these elements itself. The deep dive explains how we got here →
Three things to understand before the numbers
Cerium is more common in Earth's crust than copper. "Rare" refers to how thinly these elements are spread — a rich ore is 5–8% rare earths; the ionic clays that supply the heavy elements run at 0.05–0.3%. You don't find rare earths. You process mountains to concentrate them.
Ore comes with all 17 elements in fixed ratios, but the market mostly wants 4 of them (Nd, Pr, Dy, Tb). Mining for magnets floods the world with unwanted lanthanum and cerium — which is why La costs ~$1/kg while Tb costs ~$1,200. Every mine is forced to sell the whole periodic row.
China's broad October 2025 export-control package — covering more elements, processing equipment and technology — was suspended for one year. The suspension expires November 10, 2026. The narrower April 2025 licensing regime on seven heavy rare earths never lifted at all. Watch this date.
Where these numbers come from
Primary source: SMM (Shanghai Metals Market) weekly reviews — the Ex-China review for FOB export quotes in USD, and the domestic review for yuan prices inside China. This page's tracker is served by a small API that re-fetches those reviews and refreshes the quotes it can verify; anything it can't refresh keeps its last verified value and date. Ex-China transaction prices for dysprosium and terbium are S&P Global assessments reported by Rare Earth Exchanges (Sep–Oct 2026). Long-tail elements (Sm, Eu, Yb, Lu, Sc) use SMM's published USD spot table, dated Oct 10, 2025, and are labeled as dated references — those markets are too thin for a weekly quote. Project intensities on the calculator come from MDPI/JRC magnet-content reviews, Edison Group and US DoD figures, each cited on that page. Global production context: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries (world mine production ≈ 390,000 t REO, 2024; China ≈ 70% of mining; separation and magnet-making shares ≈ 90% per IEA/CSIS estimates).