The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of artisanal and small-scale gold mining participationrnon the livelihood of the rural HHs in Tigray National Region State, Ethiopia. The study employed mixedrnresearch approaches. Primary data were collected using structured questionnaire from 160 participantrnand 218 non-participant households, 50 KIIs, 15 FGDs and field observation. Purposive sampling wasrnused to select the study woredas, tabias and members of KIIs and FGDs whereas simple random samplingrnwas applied to draw the survey respondents in the study area. Data were analyzed using multiplerntechniques. Descriptive analysis and independent sample t-test was used to compare mean differencernbetween participant and non-participant households. The Heckman two stage models was employed tornanalyze the gold supply to the formal market agents. The food security status of sample households wasrnmeasured using HFIAS, HFCS, FEI and PSM. On the other hand, Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)rnand PSM were used to analyze the poverty status of households in the study area. STATA version 14 hasrnbeen used to run the probit and logistic regression outcomes. Finally, Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI)rnwas used to assess the vulnerability of livelihood assets in the study area. The results of the study revealedrnthat gold mining is an avenue of generating income for rural households in the study area. The issue ofrngovernance in the ASM sector has been found defective. The regression outcome indicates that six variablesrnwere found determinant factors affecting gold supply to the formal market and these were distance to thernnearest market place, distance to the mining sites, limited access to transportation, poor governance of thernASM sector, and perception of miners and lack of access to credit service. Results from HFIAS, HFCS andrnFEI indicate that participant households had better food security status than the non-participantrnhouseholds. The results from NNM, KM and RM on the income and food security have shown thatrnhouseholds who had been involving in gold mining participation increased their annual income byrn23,584.86 ETB and food security by a factor of 0.60. The regression results also demonstrates that sex ofrnhousehold head, livestock ownership, off farm income of the households and lack of credit service werernfound the determinants of householdsâ€™ food security in the study area. With regard to the poverty status ofrnhouseholds, in education and health dimensions, participant and non-participant households were foundrnMPI poor whereas in the third dimension (living standard), the non-participant households were foundrnmore MPI poor than their counterparts. Besides, results from NNM, KM and RM also indicate that the totalrnannual income and expenditure of participant households were found higher than the non-participantrnhouseholds in the study area. Finally, results from LVI exhibits that of all the assets, the participant andrnnon-participant households were found extremely vulnerable in terms of natural capital by 0.76 and 0.71rnrespectively. The study recommends that mining policies, laws and regulations shall be framed based onrnthe local context. Regulating the black market of gold requires extra commitment from the government andrnhence, there should be effective coordination between federal and regional governments. Miners shall berntrained on how to extract miners and protect its adverse effects. There must be a separate tier from federalrnto local levels that specifically focuses on the ASM sector by allocating human and material resources tornimprove the overall performance of the sector.