A kinetic study of the aminolysis of [methyl(thiomethyl)carbene]pentacarbonyl chromium(0), (CO) 5 Cr@C(CH 3 )(SCH 3 ) (Cr-S) and [methyl(thiomethyl)carbene]-pentacarbonyltungsten(0), (CO) 5 W@C(CH 3 )(SCH 3 ) (W-S), with primary aliphatic amines namely aminoacetonitrile (AA), glycylethyl ester (GEE) and glycinamide (GA) in 50% MeCN-50% H 2 O (v/v) at 25°C is reported. The second-order rate constant (k A , M À1 s À1 ) increases with amine concentration, leveling off at higher amine concentration. The general base catalysis was confirmed from the dependence of k A on [AA] f , [NMM] f (N-methylmorpholine) and also on [OH À ] for the M-S-AA reaction. The mechanism proposed is very similar to those for ester reactions, proceeding in a step-wise fashion. b nuc (k 1 ) for the reactions of primary amines was found to be 0.31 ± 0.02 and 0.29 ± 0.02 for Cr-S and W-S, respectively, which are of the same order as that for the reaction of Cr-SR, but lower than Cr-OR reactions with b nuc (k 1 ) = 0.60. The reactivity of W-S was found to be higher than Cr-S. All these observations have been explained successfully.