Bismuth Price Today: SMM Data & History

• Bismuth price sits at $17,384.11 per tonne on SMM’s China-domestic benchmark
• Fastmarkets-equivalent Rotterdam ingots trade near $16.20 to $16.40 per pound
• China refines an estimated 88% of the world’s bismuth supply
• 2025 average bismuth prices hit $20 per pound, nearly four times 2024
• China’s February 2025 export controls remain the dominant price driver
• Weight and currency conversion tables included for procurement teams

The bismuth price stood at $17,384.11 per tonne on the SMM China-domestic benchmark on 3 August 2026, equivalent to roughly $7.89 per pound. Outside China, Fastmarkets-referenced ingot assessments put bismuth closer to $16.20-16.40 per pound in the US and Europe — roughly double the China-domestic figure. That gap is unusually wide even by minor-metals standards, and it traces directly back to Beijing’s export licensing regime rather than VAT or freight.

Current Bismuth Price

Bismuth is produced almost entirely as a byproduct of lead, tungsten, tin and zinc refining rather than mined directly, which makes supply structurally inflexible. China dominates both production and the domestic price benchmark, so CMN tracks bismuth using the same domestic/international dual-row approach applied to Aluminium, Cobalt and other China-heavy metals.

Unlike the VAT-driven gap seen on other dual-row pages, the bismuth price split here reflects genuine market segmentation: China’s export permit system restricts how much refined metal leaves the country, so ex-China buyers pay a structural premium for material outside Beijing’s control.

Bismuth Price Per Gram, Per Ounce and Per Pound

The table below converts the current bismuth price from the standard per-tonne benchmark into the units most commonly used by smaller buyers and industrial procurement teams.

Prices are indicative and updated monthly. For contract pricing, consult SMM or Fastmarkets directly.

Bismuth Price History

USGS data shows just how sharply the bismuth price has moved. Average monthly Rotterdam-warehouse prices went from $5.96 per pound in January 2025 to a record $34.22 per pound in March 2025, after China imposed export controls on bismuth on 4 February 2025 in response to US tariffs on Chinese goods. Prices eased to $17.50 per pound by October 2025 as the market adjusted, but the full-year 2025 average of $20 per pound was still nearly four times the 2024 average of $5.40 per pound — the highest annual average on record.

Bismuth Price in USD, EUR, GBP and Other Currencies

Critical minerals prices are benchmarked in USD on international exchanges and the Shanghai Metals Market, but sourced, processed, and traded across multiple currency zones. The table below converts the current bismuth benchmark into the currencies most relevant to the major producing, processing, and investment markets.

Exchange rates: Google Finance/XE, August 2026. CNY figures reflect the USD/CNY mid-market rate and do not represent the SMM domestic Chinese price, which incorporates VAT and may differ materially.

What Is Driving Bismuth Prices

China accounted for an estimated 88% of world bismuth refinery production in 2025 — 14,000 of an estimated 16,000-tonne global total, according to USGS. South Korea (1,000 tonnes, byproduct of zinc refining) and Japan (500 tonnes) are the only other producers of meaningful scale; the United States has produced no primary refined bismuth since 1997 and is 92% import-reliant.

Demand centres on pharmaceuticals (bismuth subsalicylate stomach remedies), lead-free brass for plumbing fixtures, low-melting-point fusible alloys, and pigments, with a growing role as a nontoxic lead substitute in ammunition, fishing weights and solders. None of these end-uses can easily substitute away from bismuth at scale, which is part of why the 2025 price spike proved durable rather than self-correcting.

The core driver remains China’s February 2025 export licensing regime. US bismuth metal imports from China fell 40% year on year to an estimated 460 tonnes in 2025, forcing buyers toward Republic of Korea and German supply and keeping the international bismuth price elevated well above the China-domestic figure.

Western Bismuth Supply Development

There is no meaningful non-China refining capacity being built at scale. Because bismuth is almost always a byproduct rather than a primary target metal, new supply depends on expansions in lead, tin, tungsten or zinc processing elsewhere — not on bismuth-specific investment decisions. The Tasna Mine in Bolivia, inactive since 1996, remains one of only two mines globally where bismuth was ever the primary product; Bolivia’s current 50 tonnes per year comes from other byproduct sources. In the US, secondary (scrap) recycling supplies an estimated 80 tonnes per year, covering up to 10% of apparent consumption, but this does not offset the country’s 92% net import reliance.

Bismuth Price Outlook

With China’s export licensing regime still in force and no material ex-China refining capacity in development, most market commentary expects the bismuth price to stay well above pre-2025 levels even as it continues retreating from March 2025’s record peak. The scale of the move — a near-fourfold jump in the 2025 annual average versus 2024 — has already prompted buyers to test Korean and German supply chains, a shift USGS data suggests is only partly reversing 2025’s import disruption from China.

Bismuth vs Antimony

Bismuth and antimony have moved together through 2025 and into 2026 for the same underlying reason: both sit inside China’s 2023-25 wave of critical-minerals export controls, and China dominates refining of each. Antimony’s price shock came slightly earlier and from outright export bans rather than licensing, while bismuth’s has been driven more by tariff-response licensing — but both illustrate the same structural risk for CMN’s readers: byproduct metals with concentrated Chinese refining are exposed to policy risk that primary-mined metals are not. See CMN’s antimony price page for the parallel benchmark.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Prices are subject to change without notice. For production and supply chain context, see CMN’s China critical minerals hub.