District of Columbia Concealed Carry Permit

Allowed, and only with a serial number plus MPD registration — verified section by section from raw downloads today. (1) D.C. Code § 7-2504.01(a) requires a dealer's license to engage in the business of manufacturing firearms, but expressly provides that "[n]othing in this section shall preclude persons not otherwise prohibited from possessing firearms from making their own firearms solely for personal use (not for sale or distribution)" in accordance with D.C. firearms law, MPD's rules, and any applicable federal law or regulation. (2) D.C. Code § 7-2505.04(b-1), added by the Omnibus Firearm and Ghost Gun Clarification Amendment Act of 2022 (D.C. Law 24-347, effective April 21, 2023), states affirmatively that "[n]otwithstanding any other provision of this section, a person may lawfully: (1) Self-manufacture a pistol; and (2) Possess and own a pistol that the person self-manufactured pursuant to paragraph (1) of this subsection and registered pursuant to § 7-2502.02" — that subsection also lifts the California-roster "unsafe pistol" bar for a self-made pistol. (3) Every firearm possessed in the District must be registered (§ 7-2502.01), and § 7-2502.06(c) gives a self-manufacturer 5 business days after completing manufacture to file the registration application. (4) A "ghost gun" is unregisterable (§ 7-2502.02(a)(8)), and § 7-2501.01(9B)(A)(iii) defines ghost gun to include any "[f]irearm, including a frame or receiver, that lacks a unique serial number engraved or cast on it by a licensed manufacturer or importer in accordance with federal law, assigned by the agency of a State and permanently engraved or cast on the firearm, or otherwise placed on the firearm in compliance with § 7-2502.02." Serialization is therefore what separates a registrable self-made gun from an unregisterable ghost gun. (5) § 7-2502.02(c) supplies two serialization routes: under (c)(1)(B), a unique serial number engraved, cast, or otherwise permanently affixed in a manner that meets or exceeds the requirements imposed on licensed importers and licensed manufacturers under 18 U.S.C. § 923(i) and its regulations; or under (c)(2), a D.C.-format serial applied BEFORE the frame or receiver is finished, which "shall consist of the first and last name of the self-manufacturer, followed by the designation 'DC' and then a set of 2 to 5 numbers," must not duplicate any serial number the self-manufacturer placed on another firearm, and must be confirmed with MPD as not already registered to another firearm before it is engraved, cast, stamped (impressed) or placed on the frame or receiver. (6) Machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, short-barreled rifles, assault weapons and .50 BMG rifles remain unregisterable regardless of who made them (§ 7-2502.02(a)(1)-(3) and (6)-(7)), and a self-made pistol still needs one of the § 7-2502.02(a)(4)(C) routes — self-defense within the person's home or place of business, or as part of a CCL application — plus § 7-2502.03 eligibility. CORRECTION to the prior record: D.C. law no longer contains the term "unfinished frame or receiver." D.C. Law 24-347 § 2(a) rewrote the § 7-2501.01 ghost-gun definition without it, and § 2(h) struck the phrase "ghost gun, unfinished frame or receiver, or ammunition" from § 7-2505.01 and inserted "ghost gun, or ammunition" in its place; the word "unfinished" appears nowhere in §§ 7-2501.01, 7-2502.01, 7-2502.02, 7-2502.03, 7-2504.01 or 7-2505.02 as they read today. Possessing an unfinished frame or receiver is therefore not itself banned as a ghost gun — indeed § 7-2502.02(c)(2)(A) presupposes a lawfully held unfinished frame, since it requires the D.C. serial to be applied "prior to finishing the frame or receiver." What is prohibited is completing, possessing, or attempting to register a firearm that lacks a compliant serial number.

D.C. Code § 7-2504.01(a)(1); D.C. Code § 7-2505.04(b-1); D.C. Code § 7-2502.02(a)(8) and (c); D.C. Code § 7-2502.06(c); D.C. Code § 7-2501.01(9A-i), (9B) and (10A) (definitions of "frame" or "receiver", "ghost gun" and "manufacture")

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What we could not confirm

• permitSystem remains a judgment call, but the evidence for "shall-issue" is now first-hand rather than second-hand. On the books, D.C. Code § 22-4506(a) still says the Chief "may" issue to an applicant who shows "good reason to fear injury to his or her person or property or has any other proper reason for carrying a pistol," and that good-reason language survives in 24 DCMR §§ 2332.1(g), 2333, 2334, 2337.2(g), 2338.2(l)-(m) and 2345.4-2345.5 — the Council and MPD never scrubbed it from the text. I read MPD's own FAQ page in full today, which the baseline researcher could not (they got HTTP 403 and relied on search indexing): "Q: Do I need to explain why I am applying for a concealed carry license? A: No. Pursuant to decisions of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Wrenn v. District of Columbia and Grace v. District of Columbia, applicants do not need to provide a 'good reason' to obtain a concealed carry license." D.C. did not appeal Wrenn. So D.C. operates as shall-issue in practice, subject to a suitability determination under 24 DCMR § 2335.1 that is broader than in most shall-issue States, and the residual statutory and regulatory good-reason text is unenforceable but unrepealed. A reader should expect to see that stale language on the forms and in the regulations.
• MPD does issue this license and it is a real, recognisable credential — stated plainly here because other records in this dataset turn on it. MPD's Firearms Registration Branch at 441 4th Street NW, Room 550 South issues the "concealed carry license (CCL)" under D.C. Code § 22-4506 and § 7-2509.02 and 24 DCMR §§ 2332-2347; applications run through the MPD Firearms Portal at firearms.mpdc.dc.gov; MPD publishes a certified-instructor roster that was refreshed on 9/15/2026 and a combined application form last revised November 2025; and MPD's CCL Restrictions page directs that "[l]icensees must have their DC concealed carry license and their firearm registration on their person whenever they are carrying concealed." The District also issues a separate firearm registration certificate, which is a distinct document with its own $13 fee and its own application step; the $75 fee is the license fee alone.
• The renewal fee is still not separately itemised anywhere official. The official codified text of 24 DCMR § 2331 lists one "License to carry a pistol - $75.00" line, and MPD's Fees & Payment page lists one "Concealed Carry License: $75" line; neither states a distinct renewal fee, and 24 DCMR § 2337.4 speaks only of the fees accompanying an application. The $75 renewal figure in this record is an inference from that single line item. Confirm with MPD's Firearms Registration Branch at (202) 727-4275 before relying on it. I also could not find any official source for the previously recorded claim that fingerprints are not retaken at renewal when prints are already on file, so that claim has been removed rather than restated.
• Processing time is not officially published. There is no statutory or regulatory decision deadline — 24 DCMR § 2338.1 says only that the Chief shall conduct an investigation "within a reasonable period of time after receipt of a completed application." A "90 days" figure circulates on non-official sites; I found no MPD, DCMR or D.C. Code source for it and have not stated it as fact. MPD does say the process takes only one in-person appointment and that walk-ins are accepted, and it recommends filing a renewal 45 days early.
• Non-resident licensing rests on regulations whose text is stale. 24 DCMR §§ 2345.4 and 2345.5, in their official current text, still require a non-resident to show good reason to fear injury "from a cause that will likely be present in the District and is not a cause that is likely to be present only in another jurisdiction," and that any other proper reason "exists in the District." That is the same good-reason element Wrenn invalidated, and MPD's FAQ says no good reason is required; but I found no MPD page stating the current non-resident standard post-Wrenn. Non-residents can and do apply through the Firearms Portal, and 24 DCMR § 2332.1(f)(2)-(3) plus D.C. Code § 22-4506(b) give them routes to the residency nexus. A non-resident should confirm current practice directly with MPD before relying on this.
• The official DCMR site is not readable without simulating its application, so the DCMR URLs cited here need one extra click. dcregs.dc.gov is an ASP.NET WebForms application that serves rule text only through __doPostBack form submissions rather than at fetchable URLs. I obtained the official codified text of 24 DCMR §§ 2331, 2332, 2335, 2336, 2337, 2338 and 2345, and of the May 9, 2025 Notice of Final Rulemaking, by replaying those postbacks with each page's own VIEWSTATE and reading the returned Word documents. The SectionList URLs cited here load and show each section's title, authority, source and effective date, but a reader must click "View text" to see the rule itself. The unofficial mirror the prior record cited, dcrules.elaws.us, now returns HTTP 503 for every 24 DCMR section, and its own banner dated its content to September 13, 2017; all seven of those URLs have been replaced.
• Two regulations the prior record relied on had been amended after that mirror's snapshot, and the prior record's text of them was stale. 24 DCMR §§ 2335 and 2337 were amended by Final Rulemaking published at 72 DCR 005751, effective May 9, 2025 (Notice ID N140904), adopted by the Chief on April 25, 2025 after the Council's 45-day review period expired on March 12, 2025 with no action. Section 2335.1(d) no longer speaks of a "propensity for violence or instability" — that phrase now survives only as an investigation factor in § 2338.2(j) — and § 2335.1 no longer contains the "intra-family offenses, stalking, or threats" item the prior record listed; current § 2335.1 runs (a) through (e) only. The disqualifiers array has been rewritten to the current text. The same rulemaking also rewrote the registration disqualifiers in 24 DCMR § 2309, which the CCL incorporates by reference; I read the rulemaking notice in full but did not separately pull § 2309's codified text, so the § 7-2502.03 / § 2309 disqualifier entry in this record is summarised from the statute and the notice rather than from § 2309's own codified text.
• District law is subject to congressional review and to appropriations riders, so this record could be overtaken by federal action rather than by anything the D.C. Council or MPD does. Under the Home Rule Act every D.C. act must lie before Congress for a review period before taking effect, and Congress can and does legislate directly for the District. I checked both channels today. H.R. 8297, the District of Columbia Firearm Freedom Act (119th Congress), would repeal the license requirement and let any non-prohibited person 21 or over carry a concealed handgun in the District without a D.C. license; Congress.gov shows it introduced April 15, 2026, referred to the House Committees on Oversight and Government Reform and on the Judiciary, with no cosponsors and a status of "Introduced" — it is not law. I also read Division E, Title VIII (General Provisions — District of Columbia, §§ 801-821) of the enrolled Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 (Public Law 119-75, signed February 3, 2026) and found no firearms or concealed-carry rider; the D.C. riders there concern needle exchange, abortion funding, budget reporting and similar matters. If such a rider or a bill like H.R. 8297 were enacted, permitlessCarry.allowed for D.C. would change even though no D.C.-government source would show it. One caveat on the citation rather than the substance: the congress.gov URL for H.R. 8297 served HTTP 200 and I read its full action history earlier today, but on a later re-check within the same session it returned HTTP 403 to my automated requests, as did the bill's base URL — congress.gov rate-limits scripted traffic. The page is reachable in a normal browser; anyone re-verifying by script should expect the 403 and should not read it as the bill having been withdrawn.
• I confirmed, by reading each section's own amendment-history line at code.dccouncil.gov rather than by keyword-searching bill titles, that no D.C. Code section this record relies on has been amended since the baseline was researched. The most recent amendments are D.C. Law 25-199, effective July 26, 2024 (§§ 22-4506, 7-2509.02 and 7-2509.03 — which moved licensing appeals from the Concealed Pistol Licensing Review Board to the Office of Administrative Hearings and renumbered subsections, so pre-2024 subsection citations circulating elsewhere are off by a letter), and D.C. Law 24-347, effective April 21, 2023 (§§ 7-2501.01, 7-2502.01, 7-2502.02, 7-2502.03, 7-2502.06, 7-2504.01, 7-2505.04, 7-2509.07 and 22-4504.02). Subchapter IX still contains exactly §§ 7-2509.01 through 7-2509.11. code.dccouncil.gov prints no "current through" date on its section pages, so I cannot state the codification cut-off date and relied on the per-section history lines instead.
• Sensitive-place restrictions are extensive and are not enumerated field-by-field in this record. D.C. Code § 7-2509.07(a) alone covers buildings and offices occupied by the District government; the buildings and grounds, including adjacent parking lots, of childcare facilities, preschools, schools and colleges; hospitals and offices where medical or mental-health services are the primary service; penal and secure juvenile facilities and halfway houses; polling places while voting is occurring; public transportation vehicles including the Metrorail system and its stations; most premises licensed to serve alcohol; stadiums and arenas; public gatherings and special events; the National Mall and Tidal Basin memorials and any area where firearms are prohibited under federal law including U.S. Capitol buildings and grounds; the White House Complex and grounds; the U.S. Naval Observatory; dignitary-protection routes; and demonstration routes on public space. § 7-2509.07(b) presumes carry prohibited on private residential property and in places of religious worship absent permission, and presumed permitted on other private property absent conspicuous signage. MPD adds that carry must be concealed and holstered, that off-body carry in a purse or satchel is not permitted, and that the licensee must keep both the license and the firearm registration on their person. Much of central Washington is federal property governed by separate federal law that a D.C. license does not override.
• A web-search summary fabricated statutory text on the field that feeds the published self-manufacture article, and it would have confirmed the baseline's error had I trusted it. Asked about the D.C. ghost-gun definition, a search returned a confident description of a "frame or receiver" definition covering parts "not yet a component part of a firearm" that may "without the expenditure of substantial time and effort be readily made into an operable frame or receiver" — language that appears nowhere in the current D.C. Code and that matches either the pre-2023 statute or a litigation brief. I discarded it in favour of raw downloads of §§ 7-2501.01 and 7-2502.02 and of the enrolled text of D.C. Law 24-347. Anyone re-checking the homeManufacture fields should read those sections' bytes rather than any summary.
• I fetched the D.C. Office of the Attorney General's October 2017 concealed-carry FAQ PDF and confirmed it still returns HTTP 200 at the cited URL, but I did not render its text on this pass; the Wrenn point it corroborates is now taken directly from MPD's own FAQ page instead, so nothing in this record depends on the PDF.