Perth Mint: Australia’s State Mint and Gold Refinery
Perth Mint is the state mint of Western Australia and also runs its own gold refinery. Its legal name is Gold Corporation, and it is wholly owned by the state. It is known for the Kangaroo and Nugget gold coins.
A short history
The Perth Mint opened on 20 June 1899 as the third and last Australian branch of the British Royal Mint, two years before the Commonwealth of Australia was founded.
On 1 July 1970 the mint passed into the ownership of the state of Western Australia. In 1987 Gold Corporation was founded; since then it has run the Perth Mint and struck and sold bullion coins with legal tender status.
Ownership and sites
Gold Corporation is a state-owned enterprise wholly owned by the Government of Western Australia. Besides the historic mint in Perth, it runs a refinery at Perth Airport. According to the LBMA, this refinery has been on the Good Delivery List for gold since 24 January 2003.
This sets the Perth Mint apart from pure mints: it can refine raw gold from mines itself and then turn it into coins and bars.
Its legal basis is still a state law of its own: the Perth Mint Act of 1970 governed the transfer to Western Australia, and the Gold Banking Corporation Act of 1987 created Gold Corporation. The company is therefore not a listed group but a state enterprise run on commercial lines.
Products
The Australian Nugget gold coin series was launched in 1987 by the then Prime Minister Bob Hawke. Today the gold Kangaroo is the best-known investment product. According to the June 2026 sales update, gold Kangaroos and minted gold bars were in particularly high demand that month.
The Perth Mint also strikes collector coins and bars. In 2011 it struck a coin made of 1,012 kg of gold with 99.99% fineness and a face value of one million Australian dollars.
The reverse of this giant coin shows a red kangaroo. It is a showpiece and not an investment product, but it shows the quantities its own refinery can process.
Reviews in recent years
In 2023 the Australian TV programme ‘Four Corners’ reported that in 2018 a number of the Perth Mint’s 1 kg bars had not met the Shanghai Gold Exchange specifications for trace elements. The Perth Mint confirmed that some bars missed this specification. An LBMA review found no breaches of its zero-tolerance rules.
In 2022 the Australian financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC had identified shortcomings in anti-money laundering controls. In November 2023 AUSTRAC accepted an enforceable undertaking from Gold Corporation to remedy them, without a fine. On 22 July 2025 AUSTRAC declared the undertaking fulfilled.
The Perth Mint had already started the remediation programme in March 2021; it was due to be completed by 30 April 2025 and was overseen by an independent external auditor. The refinery remained on the LBMA gold list throughout this period.
What sets the Perth Mint apart from European mints?
The Perth Mint is one of the few state mints with its own LBMA-listed refinery. Of the large mints in this section, the only other one is the Royal Canadian Mint. The Austrian Mint, the Royal Mint and the United States Mint, by contrast, are not on the current LBMA gold list.
Its own refinery allows the Perth Mint to process raw gold from Australian mines directly. Before the airport refinery was listed in 2003, the former Australian branches of the Royal Mint were already on the LBMA list; they are now on the Former List.
