Key Points
USA Rare Earth's cash pile could sustain operations for about seven years at today's cash burn rate.
But that figure doesn't take into account capital expenditures or acquisitions -- a potential concern.
USA Rare Earth (NASDAQ: USAR) has big ambitions -- and those ambitions aren't cheap. The rare-earth miner -- or would-be miner, since it's not mining yet -- burned roughly $56.7 million in second-quarter operating cash, up from about $19 million in the first quarter. That brings its 2026 cash burn to about $75 million, already more than four times the roughly $18 million it burned in all of 2025.
That's a lot of cash, but USAR, fortunately, isn't scrounging for loose change. It ended June with about $1.5 billion in cash and equivalents. If we were to divide that by its latest quarterly cash burn of $56.7 million, that would give USAR a cash runway of about 27 quarters, or nearly seven years.
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That isn't highly accurate, though. For one, it doesn't take into account capital expenditures (capex), which have already totaled about $108 million through the first six months of 2026. USAR is also building a large-scale rare-earth mine and two magnet factories, and potentially acquiring Serra Verde for $300 million in cash. The next few years are going to be costly, and its cash pile will likely dwindle much faster than seven years will pass.
Image source: Getty Images.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that USAR ends up acquiring Serra Verde for $300 million. That leaves it with about $1.2 billion. Let's also annualize its first-half capex ($108 million) to about $217 million annually. Combined, then, USAR would spend about $444 million annually. At that pace, USAR has about three years of capital on hand.
Luckily for USAR, it does have financing options. It has access to $277 million in federal funding and up to $1.3 billion in secured capacity. After adding that to its current funds, USAR could theoretically have access to more than $3 billion in capital, a considerable amount of breathing room for a mining company.
Steven Porrello has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.