Introducing the Rare Earth Market & Sourcing Tracker: Prices, Export Controls and Key Dates in One Place

If you buy neodymium or samarium cobalt magnets, you’ve probably spent part of the last eighteen months piecing the market together from news alerts, supplier emails and trade-law bulletins. Prices jumped, export licences appeared, tariffs changed, and a truce with a deadline started driving planning conversations.

To give our customers one place to check where things stand, we’ve launched the Rare Earth Market & Sourcing Tracker. It shows rare earth prices, the status of every export control and tariff that affects magnets, the dates coming up, and what each of those means for the parts you buy. We’ll update it at least monthly, and whenever policy changes.

Where the market stands right now

Here’s a snapshot from the tracker as of September 24, 2026:

• NdPr oxide is at ¥738,000 per tonne on the Shanghai Metals Market (SMM) China benchmark. That’s up 79% since January 2025, and 13% below February’s peak of ¥850,000. NdPr is the main feedstock for every NdFeB magnet, so it sets the baseline cost of standard grades.
• Dysprosium oxide is down 14% over the same period, at ¥1.435 million per tonne. That doesn’t mean heavy rare earths are easier to get. China’s export licensing keeps much of that supply inside China, which weighs on the domestic price while overseas buyers pay more and wait longer.
• The U.S.–China trade truce now runs to January 10, 2027, according to the U.S. Treasury’s announcement on September 23. China had not confirmed the extension as of September 24.
• China’s April 2025 licensing for seven heavy rare earths is still in force. It covers dysprosium, terbium and samarium, and magnets that contain them. The truce never suspended it.
• China’s rare earth exports fell 18% year on year in August, to 4,735 tonnes, with reports of Chinese suppliers declining U.S. orders.

What’s on the tracker

We built the tracker around the questions procurement and engineering teams actually ask us.

Prices, with the reasons they moved. NdPr, dysprosium and terbium oxide prices are charted over time, and each major policy event is marked right on the timeline, from China’s April 2025 licensing to the September truce extension. You can see what moved the market, not just that it moved.

Every control and tariff, with its status. One table lists what’s in force, what’s suspended and what’s been extended, with a plain-English note on what each means for magnet buyers. It includes China’s heavy rare earth licensing, its suspended October 2025 expansion, the June 2026 export ban on MP Materials and USA Rare Earth, the 25% Section 301 duty on Chinese permanent magnets in effect since January 1, 2026, and the Department of Defense’s $110/kg NdPr price floor.

Dates to watch. November 10 is when China’s own suspension of its October 2025 controls lapses unless Beijing extends it. January 10, 2027 is when the extended truce expires. Both are on the tracker, along with the leaders’ meetings in between.

Which magnets are exposed. Supply risk follows heavy rare earth content, not the word “neodymium.” A table maps each grade family, from standard N-grades through SH, UH, EH, AH and SmCo, to its level of export-licence exposure.

What to do now. Six practical steps, each linked to the tool or page that helps you do it.

Three ways to use it

Before a quarterly supply review. Open the tracker, note the current prices and the next policy date, and check the grade table against your bill of materials. Parts in SH, UH, EH, AH or SmCo are the ones worth a closer look.

Before you commit to a high-temperature grade. If a new design calls for SH or above, check whether it really needs to. Our temperature derating and demagnetization calculators show how a magnet behaves at your actual operating point. A grade that avoids heavy rare earths avoids the licence question entirely. Change grades only with engineering sign-off.

When you’re building next year’s budget. The truce deadline and China’s November decision are the biggest swing factors for 2027 costs. The tracker keeps both in view, and our OEM team can lock fixed-rate pricing for up to a year so those swings stay off your P&L.

How we source the data

Prices come from Shanghai Metals Market spot quotes, plotted on the dates they were published rather than as estimated monthly averages. Dollar figures are a guide to the Chinese benchmark, with VAT removed, not a quote. Prices paid outside China are typically higher, especially for export-licensed heavy rare earths. Every event, policy row and news brief links to its source, so you can check anything we’ve summarized.

The tracker is a planning tool, not legal or trade-compliance advice. For licence or duty questions on a specific shipment, check with your compliance team or customs broker.

Where Radial Magnets fits in

The tracker explains the market. We can help with your side of it. We keep more than 10 million magnets in U.S. stock on both coasts, which covers near-term needs without waiting on an export licence or a new import. We can supply country-of-origin and compliance documentation for every part, and our engineers can help you decide whether a high-temperature grade is really needed.

Open the Rare Earth Market & Sourcing Tracker, bookmark it, and check back each month.

Related Resources

• Rare Earth Market & Sourcing Tracker
• Rare-Earth Magnet Supply Bottlenecks: What Buyers Should Expect Through the Rest of 2026
• Magnet Tariffs, Duties and Country of Origin
• NdFeB Temperature Classes Explained
• Compliance Document Center
• Search U.S. Magnet Inventory

Radial Magnets supplies NdFeB, SmCo, ferrite and alnico magnets from U.S. inventory and custom production, including true radially magnetized rings. Talk to our OEM team or request a quote.