Venezuela mining registry: SIGDME 2.0 user guide released

Venezuela’s mining ministry has released the official user guide for SIGDME 2.0, the online system used to apply for the Single Mining Registry (Registro Único Minero, or RUM) and to issue and validate mineral transport permits (guías de transporte minero). The state news agency AVN reported it on Saturday, October 17, 2026. A day earlier, on October 16, Minister Héctor Silva met in Caracas with the state’s private partners in mining, where the ministry unveiled a monitoring room for the sector called SIGAM.

What is known

• What SIGDME 2.0 is: the Integrated Management System for Ecological Mining Development. The ministry’s website presents it as the place to handle transport permits, the Single Mining Registry and authorization from SAREN, Venezuela’s registry and notary service. The portal, at sigdme2-0.desarrollominero.gob.ve, asks users to create an account with an email and password.
• What the guide covers: according to AVN, it walks users step by step through the requirements and procedures to log in, register and file applications. AVN adds that the system is linked to SAREN authorization to give legal certainty to the documents submitted.
• Who must register: Venezuela’s Organic Mining Law, published in Official Gazette Extraordinary No. 7,020 on April 16, 2026, covers the registry in Articles 88 to 90. Under those articles, individuals and companies, public or private, that carry out mining activities must register; the ministry issues an electronic certificate; anyone working in mining must carry a copy and show it on request; and shops and jewelers must display their registration code on their storefront. The ministry can revoke a registration on several grounds, including national security, breach of contract and money laundering.
• The certificate is valid for three years, under the ministry’s Resolution No. 0010 (Official Gazette No. 41,396, May 14, 2018), which created the registry inside SIGDME. The same resolution says that without registration no one can apply to the ministry for any authorization, partnership, joint venture or contract.
• SIGAM: at the October 16 meeting, Douglas Muñoz, head of the ministry’s information technology office, presented SIGAM, described as a situation room to monitor mining across the country. According to the report published by Con El Mazo Dando, Muñoz said it would bring transparency, traceability and control.
• Help for companies: Leonardo Valderrama, legal counsel for the state-run Corporación Venezolana de Minería (CVM), offered companies help reviewing their paperwork and getting into compliance, according to the ministry. Silva stressed “the strategic role of small-scale mining,” in the words of the official statement (in Spanish).
• Who attended: Vice Ministers Jesús Mieres, Alejandro Martínez and Leonel Lacera, and Misael Luna Parica, head of the National Mining Inspection Service (Senafim), according to the ministry.

What is not known

• Where to download the guide. AVN says it is on the ministry’s digital platform, but on October 19 neither the ministry’s homepage nor the SIGDME 2.0 login page showed a link to it. It may only be visible after logging in.
• Whether there is a deadline to register or update records in the new system, and whether accounts from the old SIGDME carry over to 2.0. Neither the ministry nor AVN says.
• What it costs. The Organic Mining Law allows the ministry to set registry fees, but no amounts have been published.
• Whether the 2018 Resolution 0010 still applies after the April 2026 law, or whether it will be replaced by the implementing regulations the law calls for. We found no new rule published.
• Which companies attended the October 16 meeting or which agreements were reviewed. The official statement gives no names or figures.
• Whether SIGAM will be public. For now it is presented as an internal ministry tool.

Why it matters

Since April 2026, Venezuela’s Organic Mining Law has required everyone in the mining business, from operators to jewelry stores, to hold a Single Mining Registry certificate. SIGDME 2.0 is the gateway to that certificate and to moving minerals with valid transport permits. For U.S. and other foreign companies weighing projects under the new law and the Treasury’s Venezuela licenses, the registry is one of the first local requirements they will run into.

For the other permits needed to work in Venezuelan mining, see our guide to licenses and permits in Venezuelan mining. To see where each of the country’s minerals is found, read Venezuela Minerals: List, Locations and the Most Valuable.