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Minnesota Concealed Carry Permit

Minnesota requires a Permit to Carry a Pistol to carry. It is shall-issue, the minimum age is 18, and training is required.

Requirements at a glance

Permit name Permit to Carry a Pistol
Issuing authority County sheriff (sheriff of the county where the applicant resides; nonresidents may apply to any Minnesota sheriff). The Department of Public Safety / Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) administers the program statewide and publishes the uniform application form.
System shall-issue
Minimum age 18 — CRITICAL NUANCE, NOW RESOLVED ON THE ADMINISTRATIVE SIDE. The statute as printed still says 21: Minn. Stat. § 624.714, subd. 2(b)(2) requires that an applicant 'is at least 21 years old and a citizen or a permanent resident of the United States,' and the Revisor's page still prints that text (flagged '[See Note.]'). The Revisor carries this official NOTE on the section: 'That portion of subdivision 2, paragraph (b), clause (2), prohibiting the issuance of a permit to carry a firearm to persons ages 18 to 20 years was found to be unconstitutional in violation of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution in Worth v. Jacobson, 108 4th 677 (8th Cir. 2024), cert. denied, 145 S.Ct. 1924 (2025).' The Eighth Circuit (No. 23-2248, filed July 16, 2024) held: 'The Carry Ban, § 624.714 subd. 2(b)(2), violates the Second Amendment as applied to Minnesota through the Fourteenth Amendment, and, thus, is unconstitutional.' As of this verification the BCA's own Permit to Carry FAQ states the administrative position directly: 'On April 21, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in the case of Worth v. Jacobson. By declining to hear the case, the court let stand a ruling of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals that affirmed a district court ruling that Minnesota's permit to carry law was invalid as applied to adults younger than 21. Sheriffs in Minnesota will now be issuing permits to carry to otherwise-qualified applicants 18 to 20 years of age.' The same FAQ lists the requirements beginning 'Must be at least 18 years of age.' Two county sheriffs confirm the practice in writing: Anoka County ('You must be at least 18 years old') and Dakota County ('Permit to Carry applicants must be at least 18 years old'). The operative minimum age for a Minnesota permit to carry is therefore 18. Caution: the BCA's superseded news release of Aug. 22, 2024, titled 'BCA: You must be 21 to get a pistol permit,' is still live on the DPS site with no correction or update banner; it reflected the pre-cert-denial posture and should be disregarded in favour of the FAQ. Separately, federal law still bars anyone under 21 from buying a handgun or handgun ammunition from a federally licensed dealer, which the BCA application form restates on its RESTRICTIONS page.
Training required Yes, live fire required
State fee $100 initial / $75 renewal — the state's own charge, not the total
Valid for 5 years
Processing time 30 days. Minn. Stat. § 624.714, subd. 6: the sheriff 'must, within 30 days after the date of receipt of the application packet' either issue the permit or deny it in writing with the reason. Emergency permits are available and are valid for 30 days.
Fingerprints Not required
Non-resident permit Available

What it actually costs

The state fee is rarely the whole bill. Fingerprinting is usually charged by a private vendor, training is bought from an instructor, and several states add photographs, notarisation or other requirements on top.

Training course $75–$250 (private instructor)
Sheriff's processing fee (new permit) varies — capped at actual cost or $100, whichever is less — Anoka and Dakota charge the full $100, Scott charges $80
Sheriff's processing fee (renewal) varies — capped at actual cost or $75, whichever is less — Anoka and Dakota charge $75, Scott charges $45
Late renewal surcharge varies — $10 extra if you renew after expiration but within 30 days; from day 31 you must apply as a new applicant
Replacement or updated permit card varies — $10 after an address change, legal-name change, or loss/destruction of the card

Minnesota's $100 is a ceiling, not a price: § 624.714, subd. 3(f) lets the sheriff charge 'the actual and reasonable direct cost of processing the application or $100, whichever is less', of which $10 goes to the commissioner. Counties land anywhere under it — Scott at $80, Anoka and Dakota at the full $100. No fingerprints are required, which would otherwise make this one of the cleanest states to total — the obstacle is that the one government charge is bounded rather than fixed, so a range built from it would be a range of caps rather than of costs. The training-cost range below is a market estimate, not an official figure.

These are STATUTORY CAPS, not flat fees — the actual cost varies by county. Minn. Stat. § 624.714, subd. 3(f): the sheriff 'may charge a new application processing fee in an amount not to exceed the actual and reasonable direct cost of processing the application or $100, whichever is less. Of this amount, $10 must be submitted to the commissioner and deposited into the general fund.' Renewal is capped the same way at $75, of which $5 goes to the commissioner. The BCA FAQ restates both caps and adds: 'An additional $10 fee will be charged for those applying for a renewal after the expiration date on the previous permit, but within 30 days of that expiration date.' Replacement permit card, or an updated card after an address or legal-name change: $10 (§ 624.714, subd. 7a(b)). Observed county pricing spans the whole range: Anoka County charges the full cap ($100 new / $75 renewal / $85 late / $100 if 31+ days late, and $10 for active-duty US military); Dakota County charges $100 new / $75 renewal / $10 replacement; Scott County charges $80 new / $45 renewal / $60 late. Check your own county sheriff for the exact amount.

How to apply

  1. A permit IS required in Minnesota — there is no permitless carry. Before anything else, check whether you even need one: Minn. Stat. § 624.714, subd. 9 exempts carrying a pistol at your own home, business or land you possess, between home and business, from the point of purchase to home/business or to a repair shop, in the woods or fields or on the waters for hunting or target shooting in a safe area, and transporting it unloaded in a closed and fastened case, gun box or securely tied package. Everything else in public needs a Permit to Carry.
  2. Confirm you are eligible. Per the BCA you must be at least 18 years of age (the printed statute still says 21, but that bar was held unconstitutional as to 18-to-20-year-olds in Worth v. Jacobson and the BCA states that sheriffs 'will now be issuing permits to carry to otherwise-qualified applicants 18 to 20 years of age'), a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, not prohibited from possessing a firearm, and not listed in the criminal gang investigative data system.
  3. Complete a firearms safety/training course from an instructor certified by a DPS-approved organization, within the 12 months before you apply or renew, and obtain the instructor's signed certificate of completion (§ 624.714, subd. 2a). The course must cover pistol fundamentals, a successful live shooting qualification exercise (DPS requires at least 25 rounds at multiple distances), the legal aspects of carry and the use of deadly force, and the psychological and physical effects of a critical incident. Nonresidents do not have to take the class inside Minnesota, but the organization behind the instructor must be DPS-approved; military service does not substitute for the class.
  4. Download and complete the Minnesota Uniform Firearm Application – Permit to Carry a Pistol (BCA form, Rev. 6-26-2025), type or print only, including your required personal data and every Minnesota and non-Minnesota residence (township/city, county, state, not street addresses) for the past 5 years. Check the renewal box instead if this is a renewal. Copies are also available at county sheriffs' offices.
  5. Sign the Data Practices Advisory, and sign the 'Authorization for Release of Direct Care and Treatment Data for Background Checks' (the civil-commitment consent — renamed from Human Services when 2025 Minn. Laws ch. 38, art. 3, §§ 83-84 substituted the Direct Care and Treatment executive board for the commissioner of human services, effective 1 July 2025). Refusing consent means the background check cannot be completed and the application will not be processed.
  6. Read the RESTRICTIONS pages and sign the statement that, to the best of your knowledge and belief, you are not prohibited by law from possessing a firearm.
  7. Assemble the application packet, which § 624.714, subd. 3(c) makes the complete and exclusive list: the signed and dated application; an accurate photocopy of the training certificate; and an accurate photocopy of your current driver's license, state identification card, or the photo page of your passport (a lawful permanent resident presents an I-551 or I-151 card). If you are otherwise ineligible because of a conviction that has been pardoned, expunged, sealed or set aside, also include a copy of the relevant court order. A sheriff may not ask you for anything else.
  8. Submit the packet IN PERSON to the sheriff of the county where you live — nonresidents may submit to any Minnesota sheriff's office, and there is no mail-in option for anyone — and pay the county's fee (capped at $100 for a new permit; observed county prices run from about $80 to the full $100). The sheriff must give you a signed receipt showing the date of submission; the receipt is not a permit.
  9. The sheriff runs state and federal background checks and must issue or deny in writing, with the reason, within 30 days of receiving the packet (§ 624.714, subd. 6). A denial may be appealed to district court. If you are in an emergency situation posing an immediate risk to you or someone in your household, ask the sheriff about an emergency permit, which is valid for 30 days.
  10. Once issued, carry the permit card together with a driver's license, state ID or other government photo ID whenever you carry, and display both on a peace officer's request; you must also tell an officer, on request, whether you are currently carrying.
  11. Notify the issuing sheriff within 30 days of a change of permanent address, a change of your LEGAL NAME (added by 2025 Minn. Laws ch. 35, art. 5, § 22), or the loss or destruction of the card. Failure to notify is a petty misdemeanor with a first-offense fine capped at $25, and a firearm carried in violation is not subject to forfeiture. A replacement or updated card costs $10; a notarized statement is required only where the card was lost or destroyed, not for an address or legal-name change.
  12. Renew no earlier than the 90 days before expiration, in person, at the sheriff's office in the county where you then live (out-of-state holders may use any Minnesota sheriff), with fresh training completed within the prior year. You may still renew up to 30 days after expiration by paying an extra $10 late fee, but the expired permit is not valid in the meantime and you may not carry until the new card is issued. From 31 days after expiration you can no longer renew and must apply for a new permit.

Apply on the official Minnesota site

What disqualifies you

Where to get the required training

Minnesota publishes an official list of certified instructors. That list is authoritative — a certificate from an instructor who is not on it may not be accepted. View the official instructor list

Training providers in Minnesota

Businesses in our directory that offer firearms training. These are not state-verified as certified permit instructors — check against the official list above, or ask the provider directly.

All firearms training in Minnesota →

Reciprocity

Carrying into Minnesota

Minnesota recognizes permits from 33 other jurisdictions.

Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia

29 jurisdictions honor a Minnesota permit

Derived from what each of those states officially publishes.

Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, West Virginia

Official Minnesota reciprocity page Full reciprocity matrix →

Building your own in Minnesota

Build for personal use
Allowed
Serial number required
Yes

Building a firearm for personal use is not itself prohibited by Minnesota statute. There is no Minnesota law criminalizing self-manufacture, no state manufacturing license for personal (non-transfer) making, no statute on 'unfinished frames or receivers,' 3D-printed firearms, or 'untraceable firearms,' and no state firearm registration system. Re-confirmed on 15 Sept 2026 against the full section list of Minn. Stat. ch. 624 (dangerous weapons) — no such section exists — and the definitions in § 624.712, which define no such terms. BUT THE SERIAL-NUMBER RULE IS THE TRAP, AND IT IS A FELONY-LEVEL OFFENSE. Minn. Stat. § 609.667 ('FIREARMS; REMOVAL OR ALTERATION OF SERIAL NUMBER') provides in full: 'Whoever commits any of the following acts may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than five years or to payment of a fine of not more than $10,000, or both: (1) obliterates, removes, changes, or alters the serial number or other identification of a firearm; (2) receives or possesses a firearm, the serial number or other identification of which has been obliterated, removed, changed, or altered; or (3) receives or possesses a firearm that is not identified by a serial number.' Clause (3) means mere POSSESSION of an unserialized firearm — including one you built yourself — is punishable by up to five years. So while Minnesota permits you to build a firearm, the finished firearm must bear a serial number. The section adds: 'As used in this section, "serial number or other identification" means the serial number and other information required under United States Code, title 26, section 5842, for the identification of firearms.' § 609.667 is UNCHANGED: its entire amendment history is still the single entry '1994 c 636 art 3 s 22', so clause (3) is not a recent addition and nothing in the 2025 or 2026 sessions touched it. Because Minnesota provides no state mechanism for assigning a serial number, a private maker must self-mark the firearm. DO NOT CONFUSE § 609.667 WITH § 609.67: the 2026 binary-trigger litigation concerned § 609.67 (machine guns, trigger activators and machine gun conversion kits), a different section that says nothing about serial numbers or self-manufacture, so it leaves this analysis untouched. For completeness on that neighbouring section: in Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus v. Walz, No. A25-1507 (Minn. Ct. App. May 26, 2026) (nonprecedential), the court of appeals affirmed a Ramsey County judgment (File No. 62-CV-25-1083) holding that 2024 Minn. Laws ch. 127, art. 36, § 2 violated the Single-Subject Clause of the Minnesota Constitution, severing that provision and leaving the state 'enjoin[ed] ... from enforcing the binary-trigger ban.' The severed provision is § 609.67, subd. 1(d)(3) — 'a device that allows a firearm to shoot one shot on the pull of the trigger and a second shot on the release of the trigger without requiring a subsequent pull of the trigger' — i.e. the binary trigger. Clause (d)(2), added earlier by 2023 c 52 art 4 s 15 and reaching 'a device that allows a semiautomatic firearm to shoot more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger or by harnessing the recoil of energy of the semiautomatic firearm to which it is affixed so that the trigger resets and continues firing without additional physical manipulation of the trigger' — the language that reaches forced-reset triggers — was not challenged and remains in force, as does (d)(1). Possession of a trigger activator still carries up to 20 years and a $35,000 fine under subd. 2(a). The Revisor still prints clause (d)(3) with no editorial note about the injunction, so the statute site alone will mislead you here. Two honest caveats on the serial-number question, both flagged in uncertainties: (a) the cross-reference to 26 U.S.C. § 5842 is the National Firearms Act identification provision, and I found no official Minnesota guidance or published construction resolving how clause (3) applies to privately made NON-NFA firearms; (b) the antiques/ornaments exemption at Minn. Stat. § 624.715 sits in chapter 624 and does not on its face reach § 609.667. Anyone contemplating this should get Minnesota-licensed legal advice rather than rely on a summary.

Minn. Stat. § 609.667

Federal law, gunsmithing schools, and tools →

Statutes

What we could not confirm

  • The BCA reciprocity page still carries no 'last updated' or effective date. DPS says it reviews other states' laws annually, but I could not determine when the current 33-state list was last revised — the only date markers are the 8/1/24 conditions on Colorado and Massachusetts. I read the list verbatim on 15 Sept 2026 and it was identical to the August 2026 reading, but it should be re-checked immediately before travel.
  • Fee figures are statutory maximums ($100 new / $75 renewal), not the amount any given county actually charges. Counties set their own fee up to the cap based on actual processing cost, and observed county fees range from $80 (Scott) to the full $100 (Anoka, Dakota). There is no official statewide table of per-county fees, so the only reliable figure is the one your own county sheriff publishes.
  • Training hours — Minnesota sets no statutory minimum number of hours, only required content, so training.hours is left blank rather than guessed. The one concrete quantity DPS publishes is a live-fire minimum of 25 rounds at multiple distances, which is a round count and not a duration. Course length varies by provider.
  • Minnesota publishes no official registry of individual certified instructors. The URL given (portal.dps.mn.gov/bca/firearms) is the official BCA search tool linked from both BCA firearms pages, but it lists ORGANIZATIONS approved to certify instructors, not the instructors themselves — the BCA FAQ says to contact those organizations for instructor information. That portal also sits behind a bot-detection gate that refused my automated request (it redirected to validate.perfdrive.com rather than returning a 404), so I confirmed the URL from the BCA's own hyperlinks rather than by rendering the tool itself.
  • HOME MANUFACTURE — the key legal question is still unresolved by any official source I could find. Minn. Stat. § 609.667(3) criminalizes possessing 'a firearm that is not identified by a serial number,' but the section defines that term by cross-reference to 26 U.S.C. § 5842, the National Firearms Act identification provision. I found no Minnesota Attorney General opinion, BCA guidance, or published construction resolving how clause (3) applies to a privately made non-NFA firearm, nor whether the § 624.715 antiques exemption (which sits in chapter 624, not chapter 609) has any bearing. Given that a wrong answer here is five-year felony exposure, this should be treated as genuinely unsettled and verified with Minnesota counsel.
  • Fingerprints — recorded as 'not required' because neither Minn. Stat. § 624.714 nor the BCA uniform application form (which I extracted and read in full at Rev. 6-26-2025) requires a fingerprint card; subd. 3(c) declares its three-item packet to be 'the complete and exclusive set of items an applicant is required to submit', subd. 3(g) forbids a sheriff from asking for anything more, and the BCA FAQ, the eLicense entry and the Anoka, Dakota and Scott county sheriff pages all mention no fingerprints. I still did not find an affirmative official statement that fingerprints are never taken.
  • The Revisor publishes the '2025 Minnesota Statutes' edition — current through the 2025 session, with 2026 Regular Session changes flagged separately per section rather than merged into the text. I confirmed via the Revisor's Table 2 per-section amendment index and the section's own Recent History panel that no 2026 law touched § 624.714 (the only 2026 amendment anywhere nearby is 2026 c 88 art 1 s 223, which amends § 624.7192 on emergency seizure of firearms), but the consolidated text I quote is formally the 2025 edition.
  • The binary-trigger ruling is a NONPRECEDENTIAL Minnesota Court of Appeals opinion (No. A25-1507, May 26, 2026), carrying the standard legend that it is nonprecedential except as provided by Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c). The state is enjoined from enforcing § 609.67, subd. 1(d)(3) and the deadline to seek further review has passed, so the injunction is what is actually in force; but the Revisor still prints clause (d)(3) with no editorial note, and a reader consulting the statute alone would be misled. Note this is § 609.67 and NOT § 609.667, so it does not disturb the serial-number analysis in homeManufacture; and clause (d)(2), the language that reaches forced-reset triggers, was not challenged and remains in force.

Sources