In almost every country the state owns minerals in the ground; what miners buy with a licence is title to what they lawfully extract
Asked (summary):
In Russia, subsoil can only be state-owned while extracted minerals can be privately owned — how do other countries handle subsoil and mineral ownership? Provide a global overview.
This researched comparison holds 166 country/commodity/scope rows (not 166 sovereign states — federal, offshore and commodity-specific scopes create several rows for some countries). Of these, 135 rows are state or public ownership of minerals in situ, 12 are mixed systems where specified strategic minerals are public but others follow the land, 12 are private, severable mineral-right systems (chiefly US-related), and 7 are special models — Finland's finder right, Pakistan's provincial sharing, offshore sovereign-rights regimes, and one unregulated case. A separate set of 48 national rules covers who owns minerals once extracted. Research was current as of 2 October 2026.
Comparative overview of researched sources — not a universal legal census and not legal advice. Verify each country against the latest official text before any transaction.
Mineral ownership in situ, by researched country
Researched coverage only — grey countries were not in the rows. Where a country has several scope rows (federal land, offshore, specific commodities), the map shows the dominant regime; the table below keeps every variant. Hover or tap a country for its rule and source.
State / public ownership or custodianshipMixed: strategic minerals public, others may follow the landPrivate, severable mineral estates (US model)Special: finder right, provincial sharing, unregulatedNot in researched rows
Russia fits the dominant pattern: subsoil resources in situ are state property under federal legislation, while lawfully extracted precious metals and stones become the licence holder's property upon extraction unless the licence says otherwise. scielo.org.co · tandfonline.com
The United States is the outlier: landowners can own minerals to unlimited depth and mineral estates can be severed and sold separately from the surface — but federal, state and offshore lands follow public regimes, which is why 30+ US scope rows appear across three regime families. wikipedia-org.zproxy.org
Several European systems split the list: Sweden's Minerals Act minerals are "property of the nation" while unlisted minerals belong to the landowner, and the UK reserves petroleum, coal, gold and silver to the Crown while many ordinary minerals follow the land. practiceguides.chambers.com · legal500.com
Finland is unique in the rows: its Mining Act does not address mineral ownership at all, and the finder of a deposit gains a preferential right to extract it — ahead of the landowner. doi.org
State in the ground, private after lawful production
48 national rules on title to extracted or produced minerals, grouped by the moment title or disposal rights pass to the licence, lease or concession holder. Hover a bar for the countries behind it.
Eight representative systems
Five terms that do the legal work
Land / surface estate — title to the ground surface. It rarely carries the right to mine state-controlled minerals.
Subsoil — the physical stratum beneath the surface. Many codes regulate it separately from both land and minerals.
Minerals in situ — deposits still in the ground. This is what states typically own or hold sovereign control over.
Mineral right / licence / concession — a state-granted right to explore or extract. It usually does not convey ownership of the deposit itself, and a state-owned deposit does not make the surface land state-owned.
Title to severed or produced minerals — ownership of output once lawfully extracted, commonly passing at severance, the wellhead, a measurement or delivery point, or after royalties are fulfilled.
Every researched row
All 166 ownership-regime rows, including federal, offshore, commodity-specific and historical scope variants. Search by country, regime or rule text.
Country / scope
Region
Regime
Ownership rule (in situ)
Source
Method: researched comparison of mineral-ownership regimes, current as of 2 October 2026 — 166 country/commodity/scope rows (135 state/public, 12 mixed, 12 private/severable, 7 special) drawn from 115 distinct source URLs on 68 independent hosts; no single URL supplies more than 6 rows (3.6%). Counts are research-row shares, not country shares: federal, offshore and commodity scopes duplicate some countries. The map keys 109 matchable country labels to Natural Earth geometry; special-scope labels and five microstates absent from the 110m geometry (Mauritius, Seychelles, Malta, Tonga, Marshall Islands) are omitted from the map but kept in the table. A separate set of 48 rows classifies when title to extracted output passes. Some sources are older or secondary; legal basis and caveat columns were cut for space and each row keeps one source link.