A mining company runs dozens of obligations on different clocks at once: licence terms, grant-fee instalments, output reports, environmental monitoring, resource-tax finalisation and specialists’ work permits. A quarterly and annual compliance checklist is the only way to turn those scattered deadlines into a system — before one forgotten date becomes a penalty record or, worse, a ground for licence revocation.
Quarterly: items that must never slip
Each quarter, a mining company should reconcile four obligation streams: actual output against licensed reserves and resource-tax declarations; grant-fee payments against tax notices and the approval decision under Decree 193/2025/ND-CP; periodic environmental monitoring results under the environmental licence; and occupational safety status with equipment inspections. Quarterly reconciliation catches output discrepancies early — the single most common reason mines face assessed resource tax and back-charged grant fees when inspectors arrive late in the licence cycle.
Annually: audit the whole licence lifecycle
The annual review covers long-cycle duties: remaining terms of exploration and exploitation licences with extension planning; mine land lease terms and compensation progress for areas about to be mined; resource-tax finalisation and reconciliation of the rehabilitation deposit against the approved plan; the annual mineral-activities report to regulators; and expiry of foreign specialists’ work permits and exemption confirmations under Decree 219/2025/ND-CP. It is also the moment to audit mineral sale contracts so every counterparty carries lawful origin documents.
Can repeated small breaches cost the licence
Yes. The Law on Geology and Minerals 54/2024/QH15 provides for licence revocation in cases of serious violation, or where an operator, already sanctioned, keeps breaching core duties such as mining outside boundaries, failing to pay grant fees, or skipping rehabilitation. In practice the road to revocation is rarely one big violation; it is a chain of small findings across inspections that the company never fully cured. Every penalty record should therefore be closed with documented remediation evidence, not merely by paying the fine.
Should you hire lawyers for periodic review
For a mid-sized mine and above, one independent legal review a year is usually far cheaper than a single suspension of operations. The value of outside review is the cross-checking angle: counsel compares licences against actual workings, contracts against origin documents, and reports against tax figures — blind spots that a familiar in-house team tends to miss. Smaller operators can start with quarterly internal checklists and commission deep reviews in event years: licence extension, a transfer, or ahead of an announced inspection.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which licences must a mining company re-check every year?
At minimum the exploration and exploitation licences with their extension dates, the environmental licence, the mine land lease, water-use and explosives permits where applicable, and foreign specialists’ work permits and exemption confirmations. Attached to each are grant-fee, rehabilitation-deposit and resource-tax finalisation duties.
Is a periodic external legal review worth it for a mine?
For mid-sized and larger mines, yes: an annual independent review cross-checks licences against field reality, origin documents and tax figures before state inspectors find the gaps. The review fee is usually far below the cost of one suspension or a multi-year back-assessment.
Can repeated minor violations lead to licence revocation?
They can. The Law on Geology and Minerals 54/2024/QH15 allows revocation for serious violations or where a sanctioned operator continues breaching core duties. A chain of small, uncured findings across inspections is the most common real-world path to revocation.
This article has been quality-reviewed by the FLAW AI Legal Council