Oregon Concealed Carry Permit

Oregon has no statute that criminalizes the act of building a firearm for personal use as such, but HB 2005 (2023), Or. Laws 2023 ch. 229, made it effectively impossible to build and keep an unserialized one. Text read verbatim on 2026-09-15. ORS 166.266(1): 'A person may not knowingly possess, offer for sale, sell or transfer a firearm unless the firearm has been imprinted with a serial number by a federally licensed firearm manufacturer, importer or dealer, or a gunsmith with a federal firearms license, in accordance with federal law.' Critically, a private builder may NOT self-apply a serial number -- the imprinting must be done by an FFL. Exceptions in ORS 166.266(2): antique firearms; firearms manufactured prior to October 22, 1968; firearms rendered permanently inoperable; sale, offer or transfer to, or possession by, a person licensed as a manufacturer, importer or dealer under 18 U.S.C. 923; and a gunsmith taking possession solely to imprint the serial number. Penalties escalate under ORS 166.266(3): Class B violation for a first offense, Class A misdemeanor with one prior conviction under ORS 166.265, 166.266 or 166.267, and Class B felony with two or more such priors; the firearm is forfeited under ORS 166.266(4). ORS 166.267(1) separately bars importing, offering for sale, selling or transferring an unfinished frame or receiver unless the person is an FFL dealer under 18 U.S.C. 923, the manufacturer's name and an individual serial number are conspicuously placed on it per 18 U.S.C. 923(i) and 27 C.F.R. 478.92, and 18 U.S.C. 923(g) records are kept; penalties are Class B violation, then Class A misdemeanor with one prior, then Class B felony with two or more. ORS 166.267(2) bars knowing POSSESSION of an unserialized unfinished frame or receiver unless the person is a federally licensed gun manufacturer and the part is an unfinished part within a manufacturing process that includes serialization; penalties are Class B violation, Class A misdemeanor with one prior, and Class C felony with two or more -- so the 80% receiver supply chain is closed. ORS 166.265 makes manufacturing, importing, offering for sale, selling or transferring an undetectable firearm a Class B felony and knowing possession a Class A misdemeanor (Class B felony with one or more priors), with forfeiture. Bottom line: you may assemble a firearm for personal use, but to possess it lawfully it must bear a serial number imprinted by an FFL manufacturer, importer, dealer or FFL gunsmith. There is no state firearm registration and no requirement to register a self-made firearm with any Oregon agency -- the requirement is serialization, not registration.

ORS 166.266; ORS 166.267; ORS 166.265

Federal law, gunsmithing schools, and tools →

What we could not confirm

• MEASURE 114 IS NOT IN EFFECT TODAY, AND CANNOT OPERATE BEFORE 1 JANUARY 2028. This resolves the prior pass's open question. Two independent reasons, both from primary sources. (a) By statute: Oregon Laws 2026, chapter 120 (HB 4145), sections 1 and 2, effective on passage and approved by the Governor on 7 April 2026, amended sections 10 and 13 of chapter 1, Oregon Laws 2023 to strike 'March 15, 2026' and substitute 'January 1, 2028' -- so the permit-to-purchase provisions (ORS 166.503, 166.505 and 166.508 and the amendments to ORS 166.412, 166.435, 166.436 and 166.438) apply only to firearm transfers conducted on or after 1 January 2028, and the large-capacity magazine provisions of ORS 166.355 apply only to conduct on or after 1 January 2028. (b) By court order: the Harney County Circuit Court permanently enjoined the measure in Arnold v. Kotek (Case No. 22CV41008); the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed on 12 March 2025 (Appellate Case No. A183242); the Oregon Supreme Court heard oral argument on 6 November 2025 and, as of this verification on 15 September 2026, has NOT issued an opinion -- the Oregon Judicial Department's published Supreme Court opinion list runs through 3 September 2026 and contains no Arnold v. Kotek decision, and Or. Laws 2026 ch. 120 sec. 3 (7 April 2026) still speaks of 'proceedings pending before the Oregon Supreme Court concerning the constitutionality of Ballot Measure 114 (2022).' None of this touches any carry field in this record: Measure 114 governs ACQUIRING a firearm and magazine capacity, not carrying, and the CHL is a separate license with its own statutes. A Supreme Court ruling could arrive at any time; if it upholds the measure, the 1 January 2028 operative date still applies, and if it strikes the measure down the dates become moot.
• The official ORS chapter 166 web page is the 2025 Edition and still PRINTS the superseded date 'March 15, 2026' in the notes following ORS 166.355 and ORS 166.438. Its banner warns that 'Uncodified sections printed in this chapter were amended or repealed by the Legislative Assembly during its 2026 regular session' and links to Oregon Laws 2026 chapter 120, which is the controlling text. A reader who consults only the ORS page will see a stale Measure 114 date.
• Anyone reading press coverage of HB 4145 should use the enacted chapter, not the reporting. The House-passed version described in February 2026 news coverage would also have raised the Measure 114 permit-to-purchase fee from $65 to $150 and the renewal from $50 to $110, extended the decision window from 30 to 60 days, and set a separate 2027 magazine date. None of that survived into Oregon Laws 2026 chapter 120 as enacted, which contains only four sections: the two date changes to 1 January 2028, the non-mootness declaration, and the emergency clause. Those figures also have nothing to do with CHL fees, which are set separately by ORS 166.291(5)(a).
• No statewide application URL exists. Oregon has 36 county sheriffs, each with its own page, portal, appointment process and payment rules; several use third-party online vendors (Benton County moved to one on 12 August 2024). The officialApplicationUrl field points to the Oregon State Police page that directs applicants to their county sheriff, because there is no better statewide target.
• instructorRegistryUrl is null because Oregon publishes no state-certified CHL instructor list. ORS 166.291(1)(f) defers to NRA certification or law-enforcement-agency certification rather than a state credential, so there is no central registry and acceptance is county-by-county. Josephine County rejects American Firearms Training certificates; Lane County points applicants to the Oregon State Shooting Association's CHL certificate course at oregonchl.org, which is a private shooting-sports organization rather than a government registry.
• ORS 166.377(1) and (3), as amended by SB 243 (2025), let university, community college and school district boards switch off the CHL affirmative defense on school grounds, and let cities, counties and ORS 198.010 districts switch it off for buildings they use for official meetings -- making possession there a Class A misdemeanor under ORS 166.370(1)(b) instead of a defense. Each adopting body must post signs at normal points of entry and publish a list on its website, but I could not enumerate which local governments have actually adopted such policies. CHL holders must check each jurisdiction's own website.
• Nonresident CHLs are discretionary and county-dependent, so nonResidentPermitAvailable: true overstates how easy this is. ORS 166.291(8) says only that 'The county sheriff MAY waive the residency requirement in subsection (1)(c) of this section for a resident of a contiguous state who has a compelling business interest or other legitimate demonstrated need' -- there is no entitlement. Note this is subsection (8); the prior pass cited ORS 166.291(2), which is actually the relief-from-disabilities provision. Practice varies sharply: Washington County will consider applicants from WA, ID, NV or CA who explain in writing a compelling need correlating specifically to Washington County and how often they visit, and requires that explanation again at each renewal; Lane County 'does not border any other States and consequently does not issue to Out of State Residents'; Josephine County states 'Until further notice, we will no longer be able to accept out-of-state applications,' renewing existing out-of-state licenses only. I did not survey all 36 counties.
• Open carry is governed by a patchwork of local ordinances. ORS 166.250(3) establishes that firearms carried openly in belt holsters are not 'concealed' for purposes of the state offense, but Portland, Multnomah County, Salem, Beaverton, Tigard, Oregon City and Independence are commonly cited as restricting loaded firearms in public, with CHL holders exempt. I did not verify each of those ordinances against the municipality's own code in this pass.
• On home manufacture, no Oregon statute expressly says 'you may build a firearm for personal use.' selfManufactureAllowed is true because no provision criminalizes the act of building itself -- the prohibition in ORS 166.266(1) attaches to POSSESSION, sale or transfer of a firearm lacking an FFL-imprinted serial number. This is an inference from the absence of a prohibition, not from affirmative statutory permission, and the practical effect is that a home-built firearm must be taken to an FFL gunsmith for serialization before it can lawfully be possessed.
• The federal challenge to Measure 114, Oregon Firearms Federation v. Kotek (D. Or., appealed to the Ninth Circuit after Judge Immergut upheld the measure), was not checked against the Ninth Circuit docket in this pass. It is not load-bearing for this record: the 1 January 2028 operative date in Oregon Laws 2026 chapter 120 controls regardless of how the federal appeal comes out, and neither case concerns the CHL or carry.
• County fee pages can lag the statute in either direction, so the $115 / $75 figures are what ORS 166.291(5)(a) REQUIRES, not a guarantee of what a given counter will charge. Josephine County currently advertises a $50 renewal. Confirm the amount and the accepted payment methods with your own county sheriff before your appointment.