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Missouri Concealed Carry Permit

Missouri allows permitless carry for non-prohibited adults 19+. A CCW is still available and is what other states recognize.

Permitless carry is legal in Missouri

A non-prohibited adult aged 19 or older may carry a concealed handgun without a permit (since 2017). CONFIRMED against the text now in force (effective 8/28/2026, as amended by A.L. 2026 S.B. 1421), read on the Missouri Revisor site on 2026-09-15 and diffed against the prior 8/28/2023 version. RSMo 571.030.1(1) makes it unlawful use of weapons only to carry 'concealed upon or about his or her person a knife, a firearm, a blackjack or any other weapon readily capable of lethal use INTO ANY AREA WHERE FIREARMS ARE RESTRICTED UNDER SECTION 571.107.' Since S.B. 656 (2016) took effect 1/1/2017 there is no general prohibition on carrying a concealed firearm without a permit anywhere else in Missouri, so a non-prohibited adult may carry concealed with no permit, no training and no fee. S.B. 1421 (2026) made exactly three changes to this section, none of which touch permitless carry: (a) the opening exception in subsection 1 now reads 'except as otherwise provided by sections 571.101 to 571.121 AND SECTIONS 571.205 TO 571.230', (b) subsection 4 now exempts holders of a permit issued under 'sections 571.101 to 571.121 OR SECTIONS 571.205 TO 571.230', and (c) the attorney general and any assistant attorney general were added to the official-duty exemption list in subsection 2(10). Changes (a) and (b) close a real gap: Missouri's 10-year, 25-year and lifetime permits (RSMo 571.205 to 571.230) now expressly carry the same subsection 4 exemptions as the standard five-year permit, which the pre-2026 text arguably did not give them. IMPORTANT CAVEATS FOR PERMITLESS CARRIERS: (1) The carrier must not be prohibited from possessing a firearm under RSMo 571.070 (felony conviction, fugitive from justice, habitually in an intoxicated or drugged condition, or currently adjudged mentally incompetent) or under 18 U.S.C. 922(g). (2) Permitless carriers are NOT exempt from RSMo 571.030.1(8) (carrying into any church or place of worship, into any election precinct on any election day, or into any building owned or occupied by any agency of the federal government, state government, or a political subdivision) or 571.030.1(10) (any school, school bus, or school-sponsored function). RSMo 571.030.4 exempts ONLY holders of a Missouri permit under 571.101-571.121 or 571.205-571.230, a pre-8/28/2013 endorsement, or an out-of-state permit or endorsement from subdivisions (1), (8) and (10). So for a permitless carrier those two categories of place remain criminal offenses (subdivision (8) is a class B misdemeanor; subdivision (10) is a class A misdemeanor if the firearm is unloaded and a class E felony if loaded, per RSMo 571.030.8), while for a permit holder entering a 571.107 location is handled non-criminally under RSMo 571.107.2 (removal, then escalating civil penalties). This is the single biggest practical reason Missourians still get permits. (3) Age: RSMo 571.030.1(1) contains no age element at all. Nineteen (or eighteen for a member of, or person honorably discharged from, the U.S. Armed Forces) is the threshold that appears in the RSMo 571.030.3 motor-vehicle transport sentence and in the permit qualification statutes (571.101.2, 571.205.3), and is the age generally applied to permitless carry. See uncertainties.

Getting the permit anyway is still worth it for most people: other states recognize the permit, not your residency, so without one you generally cannot carry across state lines.

RSMo 571.030.1(1) (permitless carry since A.L. 2016 S.B. 656, effective Jan. 1, 2017; section last amended by A.L. 2026 S.B. 1421, effective Aug. 28, 2026, which left subdivision 1(1) word-for-word unchanged); see also RSMo 571.030.3 and 571.030.4

There are 9 details on this page we could not confirm from a primary source. Read what they are before relying on this.

Requirements at a glance

Permit name Concealed Carry Permit
Issuing authority County sheriff of the county in which the applicant resides (or the sheriff of any city not within a county, i.e. the City of St. Louis). There is no statewide issuing agency.
System shall-issue
Minimum age 19 — RSMo 571.101.2(1) and 571.205: applicant must be at least nineteen years of age, OR at least eighteen years of age and a member of the United States Armed Forces or honorably discharged from the Armed Forces. Applicant must also be a citizen or permanent resident of the United States. Note that federal law separately bars handgun purchase from a licensed dealer before age 21.
Training required Yes — 8 hours, live fire required
State fee $100 initial / $50 renewal — the state's own charge, not the total
Valid for 5 years
Processing time STANDARD FIVE-YEAR PERMIT (RSMo 571.101.5): the sheriff must conduct a National Instant Criminal Background Check System inquiry within three working days of a properly completed application, and must issue the permit within three working days of receiving a report that shows no disqualifying information. If the NICS report and the FBI national criminal history record check are not completed within forty-five calendar days and nothing disqualifying has otherwise come to the sheriff's attention, the sheriff SHALL issue a provisional permit, valid until the permit is issued or denied. EXTENDED AND LIFETIME PERMITS (RSMo 571.205.6): the same three-working-day inquiry and three-working-day issuance deadlines apply, and the same forty-five-day provisional permit rule applies, but the check is a name-based NICS inquiry and no biometric data may be collected. In practice most counties finish well inside forty-five days; Boone County says it tries to complete renewal applications within seven days and warns that new applications take several days.
Fingerprints Required
Non-resident permit Not 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 fee, standard five-year permit varies — capped at $100 by RSMo 571.101.11 and set county by county - Boone County charges $95 new and $50 to renew
Extended and lifetime permits varies — capped by RSMo 571.205.12 at $200 for ten years, $250 for twenty-five years, $500 for life, and $50 to renew an extended permit - none of these are honored outside Missouri
Fingerprinting (standard permit only) varies — the Highway Patrol charges $14 per request for a fingerprint check under RSMo 571.101, which the sheriff's fee is required to cover; extended and lifetime permits take no fingerprints at all (RSMo 571.205.6(1))
Card processing surcharge varies — RSMo 571.101.11 lets the sheriff add the card-processing charge - Boone County adds 2.5% with a $2.00 minimum
Late renewal varies — $10 per month for up to six months after expiration, after which the permit is cancelled; waived for deployed, active-duty or injured military until two months after their return
Replacement or name change varies — up to $10 processing fee under RSMo 571.210 for a lost or destroyed permit or a corrected permit after a name change

RSMo 571.101.11 and .12 cap rather than set the fee and the county sheriff decides the rest, so Missouri has 115 answers to what a permit costs - 114 counties plus the City of St. Louis. The longer terms are priced roughly proportionally, $500 for life against $100 for five years, which is unusual, since most states that offer a lifetime option charge a premium for it; the catch is that only the five-year permit is recognized outside Missouri. The eight-hour course under RSMo 571.111.2 is mandatory for the standard route and includes live fire, but RSMo 571.111.3 allows a shorter course after a one-hour regular or online NRA-instructor course, so the low end of the training range can be lower than a full-day class implies. And none of this is needed simply to carry: Missouri allows permitless concealed carry, so the whole cost is optional unless you want the RSMo 571.030.1(8) and (10) exemptions or out-of-state recognition.

RSMo 571.101.11 and 571.101.12 set CAPS, not fixed prices: for the standard five-year permit the sheriff of each county 'shall charge a nonrefundable fee not to exceed one hundred dollars' for processing an application and 'not to exceed fifty dollars' for processing a renewal, paid into the county treasury to the credit of the sheriff's revolving fund. The initial fee is required to include the cost of reimbursing the Missouri State Highway Patrol for fingerprinting and criminal background checks, and RSMo 571.101.11 separately authorizes a surcharge equal to the card-processing charge on any credit-card, debit-card or other electronic payment. (The baseline cited 'RSMo 571.101.9' for fees; subsection 9 is the sheriff's recordkeeping duty.) Actual amounts are set county by county and are often lower than the cap - Boone County charges $95.00 for a new five-year permit and $50.00 to renew, plus a card-processing fee of 2.5% with a $2.00 minimum, plus a $10.00-per-month late fee for renewing after expiration (waived for military personnel who were deployed, on active duty, or injured, until two months after their return). EXTENDED AND LIFETIME PERMITS are issued by the same county sheriff under RSMo 571.205 to 571.230, and RSMo 571.205.12 caps their fees at $200 for a new ten-year extended permit, $250 for a new twenty-five-year extended permit, $50 for a renewal of an extended permit, and $500 for a lifetime permit. RSMo 571.210 allows a processing fee of up to $10 for a replacement permit after loss or destruction and up to $10 for a corrected permit after a name change. Unlike the five-year permit, the extended and lifetime permits involve no fingerprinting - RSMo 571.205.6(1) provides that 'no biometric data shall be collected from the applicant' - so no Highway Patrol fingerprint cost is folded into those fees.

How to apply

  1. FIRST, CHECK WHETHER YOU NEED A PERMIT AT ALL. Missouri has permitless concealed carry: under RSMo 571.030.1(1) a person who is not prohibited from possessing a firearm may carry a concealed firearm in Missouri with no permit, no training and no fee, everywhere except the places listed in RSMo 571.107. A permit is still worth having, because RSMo 571.030.4 exempts only permit holders (and holders of out-of-state permits) from the criminal offenses in RSMo 571.030.1(8) - churches and places of worship, election precincts on election day, and buildings owned or occupied by a federal, state or local government agency - and RSMo 571.030.1(10), schools, school buses and school-sponsored activities.
  2. Decide which permit you want. The standard permit under RSMo 571.101 to 571.121 is valid five years, costs up to $100, requires fingerprints, and is the only Missouri permit other states recognize. The extended and lifetime permits under RSMo 571.205 to 571.230 - ten years for up to $200, twenty-five years for up to $250, lifetime for up to $500 - are valid only within Missouri and are not honored outside the state.
  3. Complete firearms safety training meeting RSMo 571.111 and get the instructor's signed certificate of course completion. The standard route is a course of at least eight hours including the twenty-round live-fire practice and the twenty-round live-fire test (at least fifteen rounds on the silhouette). Under RSMo 571.111.3 you may instead present proof of a regular or online NRA-instructor firearm safety course of at least one hour and then complete the remaining requirements, including live fire, in a course not restricted by a period of hours. Training taken in another state counts if both the course and the instructor meet Missouri's requirements, and the certificate does not expire. The Missouri Sheriffs' Association publishes both certificate forms.
  4. Apply in person to the sheriff of the Missouri county in which you reside, or to the sheriff of the City of St. Louis if you live there; some counties, including Boone, also offer an online application. There is no statewide portal and no statewide issuing agency. Use the Missouri Attorney General's police and sheriffs contact directory to find your county sheriff's office.
  5. Submit the written application, signed under oath and under penalty of perjury (the Missouri Sheriffs' Association publishes the statewide Conceal and Carry Permit Application form), together with your firearms safety training certificate or affidavit, a government-issued photo ID, and proof of your current address. If you are a naturalized citizen bring naturalization papers or a U.S. passport; if you are a permanent resident bring your permanent resident card with its alien or admission number.
  6. FOR THE STANDARD FIVE-YEAR PERMIT ONLY: be fingerprinted (RSMo 571.101.5(1)). No other biometric data may be collected. The prints go to the Missouri State Highway Patrol for the state check and on to the FBI for the national criminal history check; the Highway Patrol's fingerprint fee for a permit under RSMo 571.101 is $14.00 per request and is meant to be covered by the sheriff's fee. FOR AN EXTENDED OR LIFETIME PERMIT: no fingerprints are taken - RSMo 571.205.6(1) provides that 'no biometric data shall be collected from the applicant' and the sheriff runs a name-based NICS inquiry instead.
  7. Pay the sheriff's non-refundable fee - up to $100 for a new five-year permit and up to $50 to renew it, or up to $200, $250 and $500 for the ten-year, twenty-five-year and lifetime permits. Your county may charge less (Boone County: $95 new, $50 renewal) and may add the card-processing charge on top (Boone County: 2.5%, $2.00 minimum).
  8. The sheriff runs the background check within three working days and must issue the permit within three working days of a clear report. If the checks are still pending at forty-five calendar days and nothing disqualifying has surfaced, the sheriff must issue a provisional permit that you sign in the sheriff's presence and that is valid until the permit is issued or denied.
  9. Carry the permit together with a valid government-issued photo ID whenever you carry a concealed firearm, and display both on the request of any peace officer (RSMo 571.121; RSMo 571.230 for extended and lifetime permits).
  10. Renew before expiration by re-applying to the sheriff and paying the renewal fee - up to $50 for either a five-year or an extended permit. The eight-hour course need not be repeated; for an extended permit you need only display your current permit in lieu of training (RSMo 571.210.6). A late fee of $10 per month applies for up to six months after expiration, after which the permit is cancelled and you must apply as a new applicant.
  11. If a sheriff denies your application or refuses to act on it, you may appeal within thirty days of written notice to the small claims court, using the form supplied free by the clerk (RSMo 571.114 for standard permits; RSMo 571.220 for extended and lifetime permits), with a right to trial de novo.

Apply on the official Missouri site

What disqualifies you

Where to get the required training

Missouri does not publish a central list of certified instructors. Confirm directly with County sheriff of the county in which the applicant resides (or the sheriff of any city not within a county, i.e. the City of St. Louis). There is no statewide issuing agency. that a course will be accepted before you pay for it.

Training providers in Missouri

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 Missouri →

Reciprocity

Carrying into Missouri

Missouri recognizes permits from 48 other jurisdictions.

Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Wyoming

34 jurisdictions honor a Missouri permit

Derived from what each of those states officially publishes.

Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Wyoming

Official Missouri reciprocity page Full reciprocity matrix →

Building your own in Missouri

Build for personal use
Allowed
Serial number required
No

Missouri law is silent on building a firearm for personal use, and silence means it is permitted. RSMo 571.020 - the only Missouri statute restricting the manufacture of weapons - reaches only specific categories: explosive weapons, gas guns, armor-piercing and exploding projectiles, knuckles, and items regulated under the National Firearms Act (machine guns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, silencers, switchblades). It contains nothing about ordinary handguns or rifles built for personal use. There is NO Missouri statute requiring a serial number on a self-made firearm, no state registration of firearms of any kind, and no state regulation of unfinished frames or receivers or of so-called 'ghost guns'. RSMo 571.045 (defacing a firearm, a class A misdemeanor) and RSMo 571.050 (possessing a defaced firearm) prohibit only altering or destroying identifying marks on a firearm that already has them - they do not impose an affirmative duty to serialize a firearm that never had a serial number. This is now confirmed from the definition itself: RSMo 571.010(5) defines 'deface' as 'to alter or destroy the manufacturer's or importer's serial number or any other distinguishing number or identification mark', which presupposes a mark that already exists. Missouri also broadly preempts local firearm ordinances, so cities and counties cannot impose their own serialization rules. SEPARATE FEDERAL LAW STILL APPLIES: a non-licensee may generally make a firearm for personal use without a serial number under federal law, but may not manufacture for sale or distribution without an FFL, may not make an NFA item without ATF approval, and may not make a firearm that is undetectable or otherwise prohibited. ATF's 2022 frame-and-receiver rule means commercially sold 'buy-build-shoot' kits and readily convertible frames/receivers are themselves firearms that must be serialized by the seller.

No Missouri statute prohibits it; see RSMo Chapter 571 generally, and RSMo 571.020, 571.045, 571.050

Federal law, gunsmithing schools, and tools →

Statutes

What we could not confirm

  • MINIMUM AGE FOR PERMITLESS CARRY IS INFERRED, NOT STATED. RSMo 571.030.1(1), in the version now in force, contains no age element at all - it simply is not an offense to carry concealed outside a RSMo 571.107 location. The 'nineteen years of age or older, or eighteen and a member of or honorably discharged from the Armed Forces' language appears in the RSMo 571.030.3 motor-vehicle transport sentence and in the permit qualification statutes (RSMo 571.101.2, 571.205.3), not in the carry provision. I could not locate any Missouri statute setting an explicit minimum age for carrying a concealed handgun on the person without a permit. The 19 reported here is the safe, commonly applied floor, but its statutory basis for on-person carry outside a vehicle is inferential. A person between 18 and 19 who is not in the Armed Forces should not rely on this record: federal law separately bars handgun purchase from a licensed dealer before 21, and RSMo 571.060 restricts transfers to anyone under 18.
  • DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND U.S. TERRITORIES ARE EXCLUDED ON A TEXTUAL READING. RSMo 571.030.4 recognizes a permit 'issued by another state or political subdivision of another state', and the Missouri Attorney General describes the rule as recognition of permits 'from every state that issues them'. DC is a federal district and Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa are territories, so I excluded them from the honors list. I found no Missouri agency statement or opinion addressing them directly, so this is a reading of the text rather than a confirmed official position. In practice the point is nearly moot: a DC or territorial licensee who is 19 or older and not prohibited may carry concealed in Missouri under Missouri's own permitless carry regardless of recognition - the only difference is that without recognized permit status they remain subject to RSMo 571.030.1(8) and (10).
  • VERMONT is omitted from the honors list solely because Vermont issues no concealed carry permit for Missouri to recognize, not because Missouri excludes it. The honors array therefore has 48 entries: the 49 states other than Missouri, less Vermont.
  • NO STATEWIDE ISSUING AGENCY AND NO STATEWIDE APPLICATION PORTAL. Missouri permits are issued exclusively by the 114 county sheriffs plus the sheriff of the City of St. Louis, and there is no state agency an applicant can apply to. The statewide sources that do exist are narrower than a portal: the Attorney General publishes a concealed carry reciprocity page and a searchable police-and-sheriff contact directory, and the Missouri Sheriffs' Association publishes the application form, the two training-certificate forms and a statement of the fee caps. The Missouri Department of Public Safety and Highway Patrol sites carry no general CCW permit content beyond the fingerprint-fee schedule and a narrow separated-law-enforcement-officer permit. Consequently the exact fee, the accepted forms, whether an online application exists, and the turnaround time all differ by county, and an applicant must check their own sheriff's page. officialApplicationUrl points to the Missouri Sheriffs' Association's statewide forms page rather than to any one county.
  • FEES ARE STATUTORY CAPS, NOT FIXED AMOUNTS. The $100 initial and $50 renewal figures are the maximums a sheriff may charge under RSMo 571.101.11 and .12, and the $200 / $250 / $500 extended and lifetime figures are the maximums under RSMo 571.205.12. Real charges vary by county - Boone County charges $95 for a new five-year permit - so any single number for 'the Missouri fee' is approximate, and card surcharges are extra.
  • WHETHER ANY COUNTY STILL FINGERPRINTS EXTENDED AND LIFETIME APPLICANTS IS UNRESOLVED. RSMo 571.205.6(1) is explicit that for a lifetime or extended permit 'no biometric data shall be collected from the applicant' and the sheriff runs a name-based NICS inquiry. But RSMo 571.205.6(2) then refers to 'the response from the Federal Bureau of Investigation national criminal history record check prescribed by subdivision (1) of this subsection', and subdivision (1) prescribes no such check - an apparent drafting artifact carried over from RSMo 571.101. Boone County tells applicants to consult its CCW staff before applying for an extended or lifetime permit, which suggests county practice varies. fingerprintsRequired is reported as true because it describes the standard five-year permit, which is the permit this record is primarily about and the only one recognized outside Missouri; do not read it as applying to the extended or lifetime permits.
  • MISSOURI IS SHALL-ISSUE BUT NOT WHOLLY MINISTERIAL. RSMo 571.101.2(7) lets a sheriff refuse a permit to an applicant who 'has engaged in a pattern of behavior, documented in public or closed records, that causes the sheriff to have a reasonable belief that the applicant presents a danger to himself or others.' The Missouri Sheriffs' Association still describes the state as having 'a shall-issue policy', and denials are appealable to small claims court under RSMo 571.114 with a right to trial de novo, so permitSystem is reported as shall-issue. I found no data on how often this ground is invoked.
  • THE STATEWIDE APPLICATION AND CERTIFICATE FORMS ARE HOSTED OFF-SITE AND ARE NOT RECENTLY DATED. The Missouri Sheriffs' Association's Permits page links its Conceal and Carry Permit Application and its one-hour-training certificate to mosheriffsunited.com under a 2021 upload path, and its main certificate of course completion to a 2015 path. All three returned HTTP 200 when fetched on 2026-09-15, but a county sheriff may require its own current form instead, and the association's page itself carries a 2023 modification stamp.
  • RSMo 571.111.3 MAKES 'EIGHT HOURS' AN INCOMPLETE ANSWER. training.hours is reported as 8 because that is the standard statutory course, but the subsection 3 route - a regular or online NRA-instructor course of at least one hour, followed by the remaining requirements including live fire 'in a course, not restricted by a period of hours' - is a lawful alternative with its own published certificate form. A reader comparing states on training hours should treat Missouri's 8 as the default rather than a floor.

Sources