President Yoweri Museveni assented to the Mining and Minerals Act, 2022 in October 2022, and the substantive rollout - regulations, guidelines and licence conversions - is running through 2023. The Act repeals and replaces the Mining Act, 2003 and introduces a tiered licence architecture that distinguishes artisanal, small-scale, medium-scale and large-scale operations.
For the first time in Ugandan statute, artisanal miners are formally recognised and offered a dedicated licence class, granting them access to designated areas, cooperatives and, critically, legal standing to sell into a formal supply chain. Government officials have described this as the single most important step toward pulling an estimated 90 percent of the country's gold output out of unregulated circulation.
The Act also introduces mandatory community development agreements for medium and large-scale licences, a stronger consultative role for district local governments, and reserved shareholding provisions for the State and, in some categories, for Ugandan citizens.
Implementation challenges remain, particularly around capacity at the Directorate of Geological Survey and Mines. But industry associations, civil society groups and reform-minded operators broadly agree that the 2022 Act, if enforced consistently, provides the clearest legislative platform Uganda has ever had to formalise mining and to make it work for host communities.