Sweden Riksdag repeals 2018 uranium mining moratorium; uranium reclassified as concession mineral effective 1 January 2026

Mechanism

The 2018 moratorium — inserted into the Environmental Code under the red-green Löfven government — barred all uranium mining and the recovery of uranium as a by-product of other mining (e.g., from copper or rare-earth concentrates), even where uranium was geologically co-located. The 5 November 2025 Riksdag decision reverses this on two legal axes simultaneously:

1. Environmental Code (Miljöbalken) — the uranium-mining ban is removed. 2. Minerals Act (Minerallagen) — uranium is reclassified as a koncessionsmineral ("concession mineral"), the same category as iron, copper, gold, REEs and lithium. Entry into this category brings uranium under Sweden's standard mining-rights framework administered by Bergsstaten (the Mining Inspectorate): exploration permits (undersökningstillstånd) and mining concessions (bearbetningskoncession) become available for uranium ores via the ordinary procedure.

Concession-mineral status also embeds uranium into the existing royalty and landowner-compensation regime under the Minerals Act, rather than requiring a bespoke uranium regime — making the regulatory path predictable for international miners and finance providers.

The minister's stated rationale was supply-security: that Sweden cannot remain dependent on Russian, Kazakh and Nigerien uranium supply chains when it also operates a substantial domestic reactor fleet (~30% of electricity generation). The 1 January 2026 entry-into-force gives Bergsstaten ~8 weeks to publish updated guidance on uranium-specific application requirements.

Downstream implications

• First Sweden entry in the IPTM register — Sweden had been a

structural gap given its position as the EU's leading mining nation.

• Material to the EU nuclear-fuel-cycle independence story. Combined

with the 2024 US Russian uranium import ban (2024-05-13-us-prohibiting-russian-uranium-imports-act), the Niger uranium-licence shocks (2024-06-21-niger-imouraren-uranium-licence-revocation, 2025-06-19-niger-somair-uranium-mine-nationalisation), and Russia's retaliatory uranium-export curbs (2024-11-14-russia-resolution-1544-uranium-export-ban-us), this is the most material upstream supply-side response in Western Europe to date.

• Companies likely to apply for early exploration permits include

Aura Energy (Häggån project), District Metals (Viken — historically the largest known undeveloped uranium-vanadium deposit in Europe), and Boreal Metals.

• Co-recovery from other mining is the more immediate near-term

supply lever: uranium-bearing iron-ore tailings and shale-hosted polymetallic deposits become legally extractable.

• No immediate effect on global U3O8 prices — Swedish production

cannot scale before the late 2020s. The signal effect on EU fuel-cycle policy and on Cameco/Orano-led conversion-enrichment contracting is the more immediate channel.

Open questions

• Will municipalities retain a kommunalt veto (municipal veto) over

uranium mining specifically, or will the standard concession-mineral veto regime apply? Press coverage is ambiguous.

• Timing of Bergsstaten's updated guidance and the first exploration

permit applications under the new regime.

• Whether the Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU) will publish an updated

uranium-resource inventory in 2026 — the existing 27%-of-EU-reserves figure rests on legacy estimates.

• Will the upcoming EU Nuclear Common Industrial Agenda treat Swedish

uranium as a designated strategic project under the CRMA strategic- project framework?