Apply for a mineral lease for fossicking

If you want to conduct commercial fossicking, you will need a mineral lease for fossicking (MLF).

Summary

An MLF gives you the right to occupy the title area.

It also gives you exclusive rights to conduct all the following activities in the title area:

• conduct commercial fossicking in the title area
• use only hand-held tools to facilitate fossicking
• remove fossicked material from the title area.

A mineral lease for fossicking is subject to the following conditions:

• all activities are restricted to the natural surface of the land
• the topsoil must not be disturbed to more than a maximum depth of 1 metre
• no processing may be conducted in the title area
• no blasting may be conducted in the title area
• no infrastructure may be constructed in the title area.

Area covered by an MLF

Up to 20 hectares.

Lease term

Up to 5 years.

How to apply

To apply, follow the steps below:

Step 1. Fill in the form and prepare supporting material

Use this form to apply for a mineral lease for fossicking.

Mineral lease for fossicking (approved form 50) PDF (830.6 KB)
Mineral lease for fossicking (approved form 50) DOCX (128.9 KB)

Read about the required supporting materials.

Step 2.  Submit your application and pay the fee

To find out how much you must pay, read about rents, fees and other costs.

You must include the application fee when submitting your application.

After you apply

Find out how your application is assessed.

Process

Find out the grant process of an MLF over:

• Aboriginal freehold land PDF (1.2 MB)
• freehold land PDF (1.2 MB)
• native title affected land PDF (1.1 MB).

Tell the land owner/manager

You must notify landowners when you apply for a mineral title and there are specific processes you must follow.

When you apply for any mineral title, you must tell each landowner affected by the application. You must do this within 14 days of submitting the application to the department.

Read more about notifying the landowner.

After you get a lease

Once you have been granted a lease, you must:

• also apply for an environmental (mining) licence to carry out activities that are defined as substantial disturbance
• meet the conditions of your lease.

How to renew

You may apply to renew all or part of a mineral lease for fossicking before the end of its term.

You can renew an MLF more than once.

Find out how to renew a mineral title.

Contact

If you have any questions, contact the mining titles team.