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Mining License Fee Calculator

Budget the real cost of holding a mining licence — application fee plus annual holding fees over your term — across 8 African jurisdictions, with the granting authority shown.

Licence details
Fees are planning-grade defaults you can edit. A fee we could not verify is left blank for you to enter — it is never costed at zero.
Estimated licence cost
Application fee
Annual fee
Total over term
How this is calculated
Total = application fee + (annual fee × years). Where a country charges by area, the annual fee is first multiplied by the area you enter (per km², per hectare or per cadastral unit), and any statutory minimum is applied afterwards — Botswana's prospecting minimum and Kenya's KShs 500,000/yr floor work this way. Royalties are separate and are handled by the Mining Royalty Calculator.
Frequently asked questions
How is the mining licence cost calculated?

It adds the one-off application fee to the annual holding fee multiplied by the number of years you plan to hold the licence. Where a country charges by area — per square kilometre, per hectare or per cadastral unit — the annual fee is multiplied by the area you enter first, and any statutory minimum is applied after that. Both fees are editable, so you can override them with the figure on your own invoice.

Which countries and licence types are covered?

Eight jurisdictions: Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, Kenya, South Africa and Namibia, across reconnaissance, prospecting or exploration, small-scale and full mining licences. The licence list changes with the country you pick, because each country grants a different set.

Why are Zimbabwe and DR Congo missing?

Both are deliberately excluded rather than guessed. Zimbabwe's published fee schedule is reported superseded by a large increase we could not verify, and the DR Congo's per-carré surface rights are re-set by the cadastre each year and the amounts could not be confirmed. A confidently wrong fee is worse than an absent one, so they are recorded as known gaps instead.

Are these the exact fees I will be charged?

No. They are planning-grade defaults with the granting authority shown, and fee schedules change by statutory instrument without much notice. Some entries are marked lower confidence where the official schedule could not be read directly. Always confirm with the cadastre or ministry before budgeting, and note that a missing fee is never treated as zero — the tool asks you to enter it.