Tin is one of the smallest of the major metals. The world mined about 290,000 tonnes in 2025, against 22 million tonnes of copper and nearly two billion tonnes of steel. Yet just over half of it becomes solder, the metal joining almost every electronic connection on Earth. A thin, concentrated market that quietly holds your devices together, now at a record price. Where tin goes, and who controls it. 2025 (USGS) · Compiled June 2026
Tin mined 2025
290 kt
about 0.29 Mt, a thin market
Solder share of all tin
51%
just over half goes to solder
Top 2 producers' share
46%
China and Indonesia combined
World reserves
6.0 Mt
more than 6 million tonnes
Where the World's Tin Is Mined (2025)
Colour intensity shows each country's share of tin mine production. Hover a country for its tonnage. The mines cluster in a few places: China and Indonesia together are nearly half, and the next ring runs through the Andes, central Africa and Southeast Asia.
Lower shareHigher share
2025 Tin Mine Production by Country (kt)
China and Indonesia lead, then Peru, Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. No single country dominates the way one does for some metals, but the top five still hold about three quarters of supply.
Where the Reserves Sit (thousand tonnes)
The picture shifts when you look at what is left in the ground. Indonesia and China hold the largest reserves, but Brazil, Myanmar, Australia and Russia carry far more than their current mining suggests. Reserves total more than 6 million tonnes.
About 290,000 tonnes a year, made tangible.
Big tonnages mean nothing until you anchor them to things you know. Tin is a small metal doing an outsized job. Here is its scale in seconds, in steel, in space and in copper. Verify-and-cite figures in the footer.
9 kg
every second
The world mines only about 9 kg of tin a second, roughly the weight of a full kettle.
34 m
cube holds a year
All the tin mined in a year would fit in a cube about 34 metres on a side, roughly an 11-storey building.
76x
more copper than tin
For every tonne of tin, the world mines about 76 tonnes of copper. Tin is a tiny slice of the metals economy.
81 min
of steel equals a year
The world pours as much steel every 81 minutes as it mines tin in an entire year.
One of the Smallest Major Metals (annual world output, Mt, log scale)
This is the surprise about tin: it is one of the smallest of the big industrial metals. On a log scale, steel and aluminium tower over it, copper is roughly 76 times bigger, and tin sits at the bottom. A market this thin is easy to knock off balance, which is why a single mine closure can move the price.
Where Tin Goes
Just over half of all tin becomes solder. Tin chemicals (PVC stabilisers, catalysts) and tinplate for food cans follow, then a tail of lead-acid batteries, bronze and other alloys. No other use comes close to solder.
Solder Is the Whole Story
Put it another way: one application, solder, is bigger than every other use of tin combined. When you read that electronics run the modern world, this is the metal quietly holding those electronics together.
The Invisible Joint
Almost nobody lists tin among the critical metals, yet open any device and tin is what holds it together. Just over half of all tin is solder, the alloy that joins components to circuit boards. After the world phased out lead under RoHS, those joints became mostly tin, with a little silver and copper. So every phone, laptop, car control unit and AI server depends on tin at thousands of tiny points. The rest of tin does quieter work: tinplate keeps food cans from rusting, tin chemicals stabilise the PVC in pipes and window frames, and tin alloys make bronze and bearing metals. It is not a flashy material. It is a connective one, and that is exactly why a thin, concentrated supply matters.
Top 2 mine share
46%
China and Indonesia combined
Conflict-mineral status
3TG
tin, tantalum, tungsten, gold
Record price Jan 2026
$53.5k
per tonne, an all-time high
Refined market size
~370 kt
small enough to move fast
How Concentrated Tin Supply Is (% of 2025 mine output)
China and Indonesia alone are about 46% of mine production, and the top five countries hold roughly three quarters. In a market this size, a disruption at one source (an audit in Myanmar, a crackdown in Indonesia) ripples straight through to price.
The Price Set a Record (LME tin, USD per tonne, annual average)
Tin dipped in 2023, then climbed back as supply tightened and electronics demand held. The annual average reached about $33,000 a tonne in 2025, and in January 2026 the spot price set a nominal all-time high near $53,500.
The Supply-and-Risk Story
Tin's risk is not that the world runs out. Reserves top 6 million tonnes. The risk is that it is a thin, concentrated market with a conscience problem. China and Indonesia mine nearly half of it, and China smelts a large share of the rest. Two of the swing suppliers, Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, sit in conflict-affected regions, which is why tin is one of the four 3TG conflict minerals (tin, tantalum, tungsten, gold) that companies must trace under the US Dodd-Frank rule and the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation. Layer on rising demand from electronics, electric vehicles and AI servers, which use several times more tin than ordinary hardware, and a market of only about 370,000 tonnes a year starts to look fragile. That fragility showed up in early 2026 as the price hit a record.
Why It Matters
Tin almost never makes the headlines about critical metals, and that is the point. It is the connective metal. Just over half of it is solder, the alloy that joins almost every electronic connection on Earth, so phones, cars, grids and AI servers all rest on it at thousands of tiny points. Yet the world mines only about 290,000 tonnes a year, one of the smallest of the major metals, roughly a seventy-sixth of copper. That combination, tiny market, total dependence, is what makes tin interesting. Supply is concentrated in a few countries, two of the swing suppliers sit in conflict-affected regions, which is why tin is one of the 3TG conflict minerals, and demand from electronics and electrification keeps climbing. In early 2026 a thin market met firm demand and the price hit a record. So the tin question is not whether we run out. It is how a metal most people never think about quietly became something the digital world cannot work without.