Michigan Concealed Carry Permit

NO Michigan serialization or self-manufacture requirement is in force as of 2026-09-15, and there is no public act number to cite because no such act has ever been enacted. Verified directly against the Michigan Legislature's section index for 1927 PA 372 (the pistol-licensing and concealed-pistol act), which the site states is 'MCL Complete Through PA 91 of 2026': the act runs 28.421, 28.421a, 28.421b, 28.422, 28.422a, 28.422b, 28.423, 28.424, 28.425 through 28.425o, 28.425v-28.425x, 28.426, 28.426a, 28.427-28.429d, 28.430-28.433, 28.434, 28.434a and 28.435. There is no section 28.434c. That matters because Senate Bill 331 of 2025 - the serialization bill - would have added 'sec. 14c' to 1927 PA 372, i.e. MCL 28.434c, and that section does not exist. SB 331 (with its tie-barred sentencing-guidelines companion SB 332) would have barred manufacturing, assembling, purchasing, selling or transferring any firearm or firearm component lacking a serial number, capped unlicensed manufacture at five firearms a year, required notification to the Michigan State Police within 10 days of producing a firearm, and given existing owners an 18-month window to serialize. Its last recorded action is 6/25/2025: PASSED the Senate (Roll Call #175, yeas 19, nays 17), received in the House, read a first time, and 'referred to Committee on Government Operations'. There has been no further action through 2026-09-15, so it is a PENDING BILL, NOT LAW. Any description of a Michigan serialization requirement as merely 'pending' must therefore not be rendered as an obligation binding anyone today: building a firearm for one's own personal use remains lawful under Michigan law, unserialized, with no state registration of a self-made firearm. Michigan likewise has no 'ghost gun' / untraceable-firearm offense. A full-text search of Firearms Laws of Michigan (Legislative Service Bureau, April 2025 edition, the state's own official compilation of every Michigan firearms statute under MCL 28.425a) returns zero occurrences of 'untraceable', 'unserialized', 'homemade', 'self-manufactured', 'undetectable', 'unfinished frame' or 'ghost', and each of its 14 'serial number' hits concerns disposal notices for seized firearms or restoration of an altered serial, never a duty to serialize. MCL 750.230 reaches only ALTERING a firearm that already bears identifying marks: a person who 'wilfully alter[s], remove[s], or obliterate[s] the name of the maker, model, manufacturer's number, or other mark of identity of a pistol or other firearm' commits a felony (up to 2 years / $1,000). That section's presumption from mere possession was held unconstitutional in People v Moore, 402 Mich 538 (1978), and the section has not been amended since 1976 PA 32. MCL 28.421 defines 'pistol' but contains no definition of 'unfinished frame or receiver' or of 'firearm component'. Independent limits still apply: Michigan bans machine guns, silencers, short-barreled rifles/shotguns and similar items (MCL 750.224, 750.224b) regardless of who made them, and federal law separately prohibits undetectable firearms (18 USC 922(p)) and manufacturing for sale or distribution without a federal license. IMPORTANT CAVEAT: MCL 28.422(1)(a) states that, except as otherwise provided, 'a person shall not... [p]urchase, carry, possess, or transport a pistol in this state without first having obtained a license for the pistol as prescribed in this section.' On its face that possession-license requirement is not limited to purchased pistols, but the entire licensing and pistol entry database mechanism in MCL 28.422 and 28.422a is transaction-based (the seller fills out and returns the license/record copy), neither statute provides any procedure for a pistol with no seller, and the text of MCL 28.422 mentions no manufacturing, making, assembling or serial numbers at all. Michigan CPL holders and federally licensed dealers are exempt from the section 2 license requirement entirely under MCL 28.422a(1). No MSP guidance on self-manufactured pistols was located - see uncertainties.

No Michigan statute addresses self-manufacture; see MCL 750.230 (marks of identity), MCL 28.422 / 28.422a (pistol licensing and pistol entry database), MCL 750.224 and 750.224b (prohibited weapons)

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What we could not confirm

• Michigan publishes no enumerated list of recognized out-of-state permits. The 48-jurisdiction 'honors' array is DERIVED from Michigan's universal rule (MSP Reciprocity page + MCL 28.432a(h)), not transcribed from an official Michigan list. Vermont is excluded because it issues no permit; the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories are excluded because MCL 28.432a(h) says 'another state' and Michigan has issued no guidance on whether DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, or the U.S. Virgin Islands count. A DC-permit holder's status in Michigan is genuinely unsettled and should not be relied on.
• Michigan's recognition of non-resident permits: the plain text of MCL 28.432a(h) ('a resident of another state who is licensed by that state') excludes permits issued by a state other than the holder's state of residence, and the House Fiscal Agency analysis echoes this. I found no MSP or Attorney General statement expressly confirming that a non-resident permit is refused recognition, so this reading is textual rather than officially confirmed.
• Whether MCL 28.422(1)(a)'s requirement of a 'license for the pistol' to possess a pistol applies to a pistol the possessor built themselves. Michigan's licensing and pistol-entry-database machinery (MCL 28.422(4)-(6), 28.422a(2)-(3)) is entirely transaction-based and provides no path for a firearm with no seller, and CPL holders are exempt from section 2 altogether under MCL 28.422a(1)(a). No MSP guidance, Attorney General opinion, or case law on self-manufactured pistols was located. Treat 'no state registration required for a self-made pistol' as unconfirmed rather than settled.
• Michigan does not maintain a statewide registry of certified CPL instructors, so instructorRegistryUrl is null. Instructors are certified by the state or by a state or national firearms training organization, and MCL 28.425b(18) merely permits (does not require) a county clerk to publish and distribute a list of qualified instructors. Availability of such a list varies county by county.
• The listed validityYears of 4.5 is an approximation of a variable term: MCL 28.425l(1) makes a CPL valid until the licensee's date of birth falling not less than 4 nor more than 5 years after issuance or renewal, so the actual term depends on the holder's birthday.
• Fingerprint-service pricing at 'other entities' beyond the $15.00 statutory fee in MCL 28.425b(9) was not independently verified.
• Senate Bills 331 and 332 of 2025 (serial numbers on all firearm components; a five-a-year cap on unlicensed manufacture; a 10-day notification duty; an 18-month window to serialize existing firearms) passed the Michigan Senate on 25 June 2025 but have sat in the House Committee on Government Operations with no recorded action since that date. They are not law and carry no public act number. If they are enacted they would add MCL 28.434c, so checking whether section 28.434c appears in the Legislature's section index for 1927 PA 372 is the fastest way to re-verify this. Michigan's regular session runs into December 2026, so this classification can change without notice and should be re-checked before the article is refreshed.
• The Legislative Service Bureau's official compilation Firearms Laws of Michigan, relied on here for the negative finding that Michigan has no untraceable-firearm offense, is still the April 2025 edition and states on its own title page that it is supplemented only 'through Act 2 of the 2025 Regular Session'. It is therefore roughly 89 public acts behind the Michigan Compiled Laws, which the Legislature's own site reports as complete through PA 91 of 2026. The negative finding was independently confirmed against the live MCL section index for 1927 PA 372 and against each section's own amendment history rather than resting on that compilation alone.