• Zimbabwe delivered 3,324.6kg of gold in April 2026, a 16.5% recovery from March’s 2,854.0kg, after the suspension of the RBZ’s 90:10 payment framework helped restore delivery confidence among artisanal and small-scale miners
• Cumulative deliveries for January to April stood at 12,636.5kg, only 1.3% ahead of the same period in 2025, leaving the sector needing an average of about 4,670kg per month from May to December to reach the 50-tonne annual target
• Large-scale miners delivered a stronger April performance, rising 22.6% year on year, although ASM deliveries remained 27.9% below April 2025, confirming that Zimbabwe’s 2026 gold target depends heavily on sustained recovery in small-scale output

Harare- Zimbabwe’s gold sector delivered 3,324.6 kilograms in April 2026, a 16.5% recovery from the 2,854.0 kilograms recorded in March, driven by a sharp rebound in artisanal and small-scale mining output that partially reversed the damage inflicted by one of the most consequential policy miscalculations in the sector’s recent history. The April figures are encouraging in isolation, but read against the full trajectory of the 2026 season, the monthly breakdown by mining category, and the demands of a 50-tonne annual target that represents a 7% increase on a record 2025 performance, they present a picture that is more complicated than the headline recovery suggests.

The cumulative total of gold delivered to Fidelity Gold Refinery, Zimbabwe’s sole licensed gold buyer and exporter, for the four months from January to April 2026 stands at 12,636.5 kilograms. That figure is 1.3% ahead of the 12,471.6 kilograms delivered over the same four-month period in 2025, a year that closed with a record 46,729.1 kilograms. A simple annualisation of the January to April 2026 run rate yields approximately 37.9 tonnes, which falls well short of the 50-tonne target.

Reaching 50 tonnes from this base would require the remaining eight months of 2026 to average approximately 4,670.4 kilograms per month, roughly 47.8% above the four-month average of 3,159.1 kilograms. That gap is bridgeable, given that the drier winter months historically produce the highest gold output, but it requires a clean run through the second half of the year, and the first four months have not been clean. 

Table 1: Zimbabwe Gold Deliveries to Fidelity Gold Refinery — January to April 2026

Source: Fidelity Gold Refinery (FGR). March shaded to indicate ZiG policy disruption month. April 2025 included as year-on-year reference

The 2026 season opened with January’s seasonal post-holiday slowdown, during which total deliveries of 3,044.97 kilograms fell 3.9% year on year against January 2025’s 3,168.7 kilograms. That decline was expected and consistent with established seasonal patterns. February more than compensated, with total deliveries surging to 3,412.95 kilograms, a 31.5% year-on-year increase against February 2025’s 2,596.1 kilograms and the strongest monthly performance of the year to date. 

Then came March, and with it the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s 90:10 payment framework. Implemented in late February 2026, the directive required small-scale miners to surrender 10% of their gold proceeds in Zimbabwe Gold, the local currency, while retaining 90% in US dollars. RBZ Governor John Mushayavanhu framed it as a measure to eliminate regulatory arbitrage, citing a worrying trend of large-scale producers channelling gold through small-scale mechanisms to benefit from the 100% foreign currency retention that the ASM sector had previously enjoyed. The rationale was regulatory, but the execution was disastrous.

ASM deliveries in March 2026 collapsed to 1,748.7 kilograms, a 30.8% decline from 2,525.65 kilograms in February and a 6.2% fall against March 2025’s 1,865.0 kilograms. The RBZ suspended the 10% ZiG retention requirement on 24 March, acknowledging implementation challenges and the fact that many small-scale miners are not banked and cannot practically receive or deploy ZiG payments, but the damage was done.

For the weeks the policy was operational, delayed ZiG payments and the inability to use local currency to purchase imported inputs including diesel, explosives, and equipment spares priced exclusively in US dollars forced significant numbers of ASM operators to scale back deliveries or route their gold through informal channels. Total March deliveries fell to 2,854.0 kilograms, a 16.4% month-on-month decline from February.

Table 2: April 2026 Gold Deliveries by Sector — Year-on-Year Comparison

Source: Fidelity Gold Refinery (FGR). Green indicates year-on-year improvement; red indicates year-on-year decline.

The April rebound confirms that the March disruption was policy-driven rather than structural. ASM deliveries recovered to 2,110.66 kilograms in April, a 20.7% increase from March’s disrupted 1,748.7 kilograms, as the suspension of the ZiG retention requirement restored the payment certainty that small-scale miners require to bring gold to formal channels. Large-scale miners delivered 1,213.94 kilograms in April, up 9.8% from 1,105.31 kilograms in March, extending a steady upward trajectory that has been one of the quietly encouraging developments in Zimbabwe’s mining sector this year.

The year-on-year comparisons for April, however, reveal a structural challenge that the month-on-month recovery does not resolve. Total April 2026 deliveries of 3,324.59 kilograms were 6.1% below April 2025’s 3,542.17 kilograms. The entire shortfall is attributable to the ASM sector. ASM deliveries in April 2025 were 2,926.11 kilograms, in April 2026 they were 2,110.66 kilograms, a year-on-year decline of 27.9%. Large-scale miners, by contrast, delivered 1,213.94 kilograms in April 2026 versus 990.07 kilograms in April 2025, a 22.6% year-on-year increase and the second consecutive month of meaningful large-scale growth. The two sectors are moving in opposite directions.

Zimbabwe’s gold sector in 2026 is operating in the most favourable global price environment in the commodity’s history. The average gold price across the first four months of 2026 stood at approximately USD 4,860.06 per ounce, with the year opening at a high of USD 5,400.25 per ounce in January and moderating to the USD 4,400 range by May. The year-on-year price appreciation of approximately 49% means that Zimbabwe’s gold export earnings in the first four months of 2026 have substantially exceeded the equivalent period of 2025 in revenue terms, even as volume performance has been mixed. 

This dynamic creates a risk of complacency. When gold prices are this high, a sector can deliver declining volumes and still report record earnings. The price tailwind is real and material, but it is not controllable by Harare and it will not persist indefinitely. The gold price supercycle anchored by geopolitical instability, sustained central bank purchases, and global currency uncertainty is a market condition, not a policy achievement. When it moderates, the volume performance of the sector will matter more than it currently does to the earnings line. At the current ASM trajectory, that is a concern worth naming.

Table 3: Zimbabwe 2026 Gold Target Tracking

Source: Fidelity Gold Refinery, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. Run rate annualisation based on Jan–Apr 2026 average.

The government and Fidelity Gold Refinery set a target of 50 tonnes for 2026, a 7% increase on the record 46,729.1 kilograms delivered in 2025. The four-month cumulative figure of 12,636.5 kilograms, while 1.3% ahead of the equivalent 2025 period, is not on a trajectory that reaches 50 tonnes without a meaningful acceleration in the second half of the year. The annualised run rate from January to April implies approximately 37.9 tonnes, a shortfall of roughly 12.1 tonnes against the full-year target.

Closing that gap is not impossible. The May to August period historically accounts for the highest monthly gold deliveries as dry season conditions improve access to alluvial deposits for ASM operators and as large-scale mines reach peak output. In 2025, the sector delivered approximately 30 tonnes in the eight months from May to December, averaging 3,750 kilograms per month. Reaching 50 tonnes in 2026 from the current base would require those eight months to average approximately 4,670 kilograms per month, a 24.5% increase on 2025’s second-half average.

That is a stretch target, not an impossible one, but it requires three things to go right simultaneously: ASM deliveries recovering sustainably above year-ago levels, large-scale production maintaining its upward trajectory, and no further policy disruptions of the kind that cost the sector an estimated 700 to 800 kilograms in March.

What the 2026 Data Tells Us About the Sector’s Structural Health

The April 2026 data, taken alongside the full four-month picture, communicates several things about Zimbabwe’s gold sector that a single month’s headline number does not capture. The large-scale mining segment is in genuine recovery, posting year-on-year gains for the second consecutive month after a prolonged period of underperformance driven by capital constraints, power supply disruptions, and operational difficulties at several major producers. The commissioning of new processing capacity and the ramp-up of operations at key formal mining assets have been visible contributors to that improvement.

The ASM sector is showing year-on-year weakness that a single-month ZiG policy disruption does not fully explain. April’s 27.9% year-on-year decline in ASM deliveries against April 2025 suggests that the extraordinary ASM volumes of 2025, during which the sector delivered 34,875.1 kilograms nearly matching the entire industry’s 2024 total of 36,486.75 kilograms, may have represented a high-water mark driven by unusually favourable conditions that are not fully replicating in 2026. The 2025 ASM surge was in part a catch-up from the drought-affected 2024 season. A reversion toward more normal ASM output levels in 2026 is not surprising. But it is consequential for a sector target set on the assumption of continued ASM momentum.

The broader picture of Zimbabwe’s gold sector in 2026 is of a formally produced commodity with a record price tailwind, a recovering large-scale mining component, and an artisanal sector that is structurally important but operationally fragile and acutely sensitive to policy signals from the central bank. The March ZiG episode demonstrated more clearly than any policy paper could that the ASM sector’s willingness to deliver gold to formal channels rests on a single condition: certainty of full US dollar payment. Remove that certainty, even temporarily, and delivery volumes fall immediately and substantially. Restore it, and they recover, though not necessarily to prior levels and not without a lag.

That dependency is both the sector’s greatest strength and its most significant policy vulnerability. April’s rebound is welcome. Sustaining it through the remainder of 2026 is the challenge.

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