The $20 Permit That Isn't: Why 'Best Value' Carry Rankings Are Built on a Lie

There is a genre of article that appears every few months: The Best Out-of- State Concealed Carry Permits, Ranked. Idaho is always near the top — $20, five years, recognized in thirty-five states. It is the cheapest, longest, most-recognized document in the country in one lucky package.

It is also wrong, and the way it is wrong is a perfect case study in why ranking lists fail on this subject at all.

The state that sells two things at one price

Thirty states issue carry permits to non-residents. Most publish a single fee, and most online tables store a single fee, a single term and a single recognition count per state. The data model matches neither the law nor the states’ own application materials — and Idaho is the demonstration.

Idaho issues two licenses. The standard license (§ 18-3302) and the enhanced license (§ 18-3302K) carry the same statutory fee — $20 originally, $15 renewal — for five years. That is why the state looks flat-rate in a table. Idaho’s own application guidance says the enhanced license is the one required if you want broader out-of-state reciprocity. The 35-jurisdiction inbound count in the current matrix is the number other states attach to the class they actually honor. A reader told “buy the $20 Idaho permit and get 35 states” can buy the wrong document, and the state’s own materials say so.

The closer is not that the $20 license is “none of those things at once.” The standard license is $20 and does last five years. It is not the 35-state document. The enhanced license is all three — plus course tuition the statute leaves to the instructor.

The other buried conditions

North Dakota shows the second failure mode: preconditions. North Dakota issues a non-resident permit, which sounds like universal availability. In fact the state conditions that permit on already holding a permit from a state North Dakota recognizes. That inverts the purpose of the non-resident market, which is precisely the person who holds no permit at all — the constitutional-carry resident of Vermont who wants a travel document. North Dakota tells that person no.

And the third buried detail applies across the market: non-resident issuance is not the same product as resident issuance. States that issue to non-residents routinely add steps — fingerprints not required of residents, extra background checks, photo requirements. The fee table is silent on all of it.

The structured permitTypes field in our file currently holds tiers for only Idaho, South Dakota and Tennessee. Other states that issue more than one class still flatten to one row. That is a data limit, not a reason to rank the flattened number.

Why the honest article is the better article

Anyone can build the “best value” table. It exists dozens of times, all with the same wrong Idaho row, because it is what a single database column can produce. The more honest piece is why the ranking cannot be built:

• The data store one fee per state; states sell tiers.
• The data store one recognition count per state; recognition depends on the exact class of document and the direction of travel.
• The data omit conditions that disqualify the exact reader the list is for (North Dakota).
• The data omit costs the statute never sets (Idaho’s enhanced course tuition).

The practical version for a traveler: decide which states you actually drive through, look up each one’s recognition rule in your direction of travel, and only then compare the specific document classes that will work there. That is what the reciprocity matrix and the state guides exist for — and it is why we publish the raw grid instead of a top-ten list.

Idaho really does sell a license that is $20, lasts five years, and is honored in 35 other jurisdictions. The license that is all three at once is the enhanced one. Any “best carry permit” list that prints a single Idaho number is selling the same confusion, and the state’s own application page is the source that exposes it.