The solder metal: a small market, mined in a handful of places, and priced for tight supply.
Tin is a small market by industrial standards: about 290,000 tonnes a year are mined, against roughly 23 million tonnes of copper. Its largest use is solder for electronics, with the rest going into tinplate (the tin-coated steel used for food cans), chemicals, bronze and other alloys, and some battery alloys. It is valued for a low melting point, corrosion resistance and low toxicity. Much of the world's tin comes from alluvial and small-scale operations, which makes supply continuity and traceability recurring issues for buyers; tin is one of the "3TG" minerals covered by conflict-minerals due-diligence rules in the United States and the European Union.
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Designations are indicative equivalents. Always confirm the exact standard, edition and temper or form on the purchase order and the mill certificate.
China and Indonesia together mine about 46% of the world's tin, and the top five countries about three quarters. The market is sensitive to small changes: between 2024 and 2025 Burma's output fell about 40% (20,000 t to 12,000 t) and Bolivia's about 29% (21,200 t to 15,000 t), while Indonesia's rose about 11% (55,000 t to 61,000 t). Source: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026.
USGS puts world tin reserves at more than 6 million tonnes, or roughly 20 years of supply at current mining rates. Indonesia holds the most (1.4 Mt), followed by China (1.2 Mt), Brazil and Burma (0.7 Mt each), Australia (0.57 Mt), Russia (0.46 Mt) and Bolivia (0.4 Mt); Peru holds 0.15 Mt and Congo (Kinshasa) 0.09 Mt. Peru and the Congo mine far more than their reserve share would suggest, which is a reminder that reserve figures are a snapshot: they depend on price and on how much exploration has been done, and a 20-year figure should not be read as a deadline.
Tin concentrate (cassiterite, typically sold at around 40-70% tin) is smelted and refined into metal close to where it is mined or in a few specialist smelting centres. Major producers include Yunnan Tin in China, PT Timah in Indonesia, Minsur in Peru and Malaysia Smelting Corporation, with Metallo in Belgium as a leading recycling-based refiner. Because smelting capacity is concentrated and feedstock is thin, a mine disruption in one country can quickly tighten the refined market. Refined tin is traded as ingot, with the LME's 99.85% minimum as the reference grade.
Tin recycling is well established. In the United States USGS estimates about 17,000 t of tin was recovered from old and new scrap in 2025, with about 10,000 t from old scrap (22% of apparent consumption) coming from detinning plants, which strip tin from tinplate scrap, and from secondary non-ferrous processors that recover it from solder dross and bronze. Because solder is used in tiny quantities in millions of electronic products, much of that tin is hard to recover, and recovery from end-of-life electronics is a growth area.
Indonesia is the market's anchor: the second-largest miner (61,000 t, up about 11% in 2025) and the holder of the largest reserves (1.4 Mt). Burma (Myanmar) shows the other side, with output down about 40% in a year. The practical consequence for buyers is that tin supply swings with the policies and security conditions of a few jurisdictions. Due diligence on origin is also a commercial requirement: the US Dodd-Frank Act (section 1502) and the EU Conflict Minerals Regulation both oblige many companies that use tin to trace their supply chain, so smelters and buyers increasingly ask for smelter-level origin documentation.
Tin trades on the LME, but it is a thin market and prices can move sharply on small volume changes. USGS reports the LME cash price averaged about 1,500 cents per pound (roughly $33,000 per tonne) in 2025, 10% higher than in 2024. Physical tin is usually sold at LME plus or minus a premium that reflects brand, form and region, so a quote should always state which of those is being quoted.
Concentrate is sold to smelters at a percentage of the LME tin price, less treatment charges, and quality is judged on tin content and on penalty elements. Solder makers, tinplate mills and chemical producers buy refined ingot, and they care about impurity limits (lead, arsenic, antimony and others) because those affect solder performance and food-contact compliance. Trade policy matters here as well: US tariffs of up to 50% on steel products from June 2025 apply to several kinds of tinplate.
For tin, specify the alloy composition and impurity limits, not just the metal, and ask for origin documentation up front. Because the market is thin and supply is concentrated, agree how price will be set (LME average, fixed date or fixed price) and what happens to delivery if a source is disrupted.
Talk to a SpecialistProduction and reserve figures are USGS estimates for 2025 unless stated. Figures are rounded and change with each annual revision.