The Circular stipulating the collection rates, collection and payment regime, management and use of fees for appraisal and assessment of mineral reserves and fees for issuance of mineral operation licenses

On 05/02/2024, the Ministry of Finance issued Circular No. 10/2024/TT-BTC regulating the collection rates, collection and payment regime, management and use of fees for appraisal and assessment of mineral reserves and fees for issuance of mineral operation licenses.

Accordingly, the Circular applies to fee and charge payers; organizations involved in the collection of fees and charges; other organizations and individuals involved in the collection, payment, management and use of mineral reserve appraisal fees and mineral operation licensing fees.

Specifically, the persons pay fees and charges as follows

- The person paying the fee as prescribed in this Circular is an organization or individual that is granted a mineral operation license by a competent state agency according to the provisions of the law on minerals.

- Fee payers as prescribed in this Circular are organizations and individuals who submit applications for approval of mineral reserves to the competent state management agency for appraisal and approval of mineral exploration reports according to the provisions of the law on minerals.

Organize the collection of fees and charges

- The organization collecting fees as prescribed in this Circular is the state agency competent to issue mineral operation licenses in accordance with the law on minerals.

- The fee collection organization as prescribed in this Circular is the competent state agency to appraise and approve mineral exploration report reserves according to the provisions of the law on minerals.

Fees and charges:

- Fees for granting mineral operation licenses for exploration activities:

+ Exploration area is less than 100 hectares, the fee is 4,000,000 VND/1 license.

+ Exploration area is from 100 hectares to 50,000 hectares, the fee is 10,000,000 VND/1 license.

+ Exploration area is over 50,000 hectares, the fee is 15,000,000 VND/1 license.

- Fees for granting mineral operation licenses for mining activities:

+ Streambed sand and gravel mining license: With exploitation capacity of less than 5,000 m3/year: 1,000,000 VND/license; With exploitation capacity from 5,000 m3 to 10,000 m3/year: 10,000,000 VND/license; With exploitation capacity of over 10,000 m3/year: 15,000,000 VND/license.

+ License to exploit minerals as common construction materials with an area of less than 10 hectares and mining capacity of less than 100,000 m3/year: 15,000,000 VND/license;

+ License to exploit rare minerals: 80,000,000 VND/license;

+ License to exploit special and toxic minerals: 100,000,000 VND/license...

Management and use of fees

- The fee collection organization is allowed to leave 70% of the collected fee amount to cover costs for service provision and fee collection activities as prescribed in Clause 4, Article 1 of Decree No. 82/2023/ND-CP dated November 28, 2023 of the Government amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No. 120/2016/ND-CP dated August 23, 2016 of the Government detailing and guiding the implementation of a number of articles of the Law on Fees and Charges; pay 30% of collected fees to the state budget.

- In case the fee collection organization is a state agency that is not eligible to allocate operating costs from the fee collection source as prescribed in Clause 3, Article 1 of Decree No. 82/2023/ND-CP, all collected fees shall be paid to State budget. The source of costs to cover appraisal and fee collection activities is arranged by the state budget in the estimates of the collection organization according to the regime and state budget expenditure norms according to the provisions of law.

The Circular takes effect from March 21, 2024 and replaces Circular No. 191/2016/TT-BTC dated November 8, 2016, Circular No. 91/2021/TT-BTC dated October 21, 2021 by the Minister of Finance.