Method for manufacturing granular metallic iron

A process for the production of granular metallic iron which comprises charging a raw material mixture into a heating and reducing furnace, reducing the raw material mixture under heating to form metallic iron and by-product slag, aggregating the metallic iron into granular one while separating the slag from the metallic iron, and solidifying the resulting metallic iron by cooling, wherein the raw material mixture contains Fe, Ca, Mg, Si and an alkali metal as the essential constituent elements in such amounts as to give slag which contains CaO, MgO, SiO and at least one alkali metal oxide selected from among LiO, NaO and KO and which satisfies at least one relationship of LiO content 0.03%, NaO content 0.10%, and KO content 0.10% and has a basicity of 1.3 to 2.3. The process enables the production of high-quality granular metallic iron with high productivity.