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Kentucky Concealed Carry Permit

Kentucky allows permitless carry for non-prohibited adults 21+. A CCDW is still available and is what other states recognize.

Permitless carry is legal in Kentucky

A non-prohibited adult aged 21 or older may carry a concealed handgun without a permit (since 2019). YES — permitless ("constitutional") carry is in effect. KRS 237.109(1): "Persons age twenty-one (21) or older, and otherwise able to lawfully possess a firearm, may carry concealed firearms or other concealed deadly weapons without a license in the same locations as persons with valid licenses issued under KRS 237.110." Created by 2019 Ky. Acts ch. 10, sec. 1 (SB 150), effective June 27, 2019. The statute page served by the Legislative Research Commission on 2026-08-10 still shows "Effective: June 27, 2019" with no later amendment, and the LRC database is current through the 2026 session. KSP's own Permitless Carry page confirms: "Any person over 21, who is eligible to lawfully possess a firearm, under state and federal law may carry concealed deadly weapons." Not limited to Kentucky residents — out-of-state visitors who are 21+ and not prohibited may also carry concealed in Kentucky without any permit. Important limits: (a) permitless carry does NOT extend below 21 — an 18-20 year old must obtain the new provisional license (KRS 237.118) to carry concealed; (b) KRS 237.109(2) does not override federal law; (c) the off-limits places in KRS 237.110(16) (police stations, jails, courthouses, government meetings, bars, K-12 schools, child-care facilities, secure airport areas, federally prohibited places) apply equally to permitless carriers. A CCDW license is still useful for interstate reciprocity and as a NICS alternative at licensed dealers.

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.

KRS 237.109

There are 8 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 License to Carry a Concealed Deadly Weapon (CCDW)
Issuing authority Department of Kentucky State Police (applications submitted through the sheriff of the applicant's county of residence, or electronically to KSP)
System shall-issue
Minimum age 21 — 21 for the standard CCDW license (KRS 237.110(4)(c)) and for permitless carry (KRS 237.109). NEW as of 2026: KRS 237.118, created by 2026 Ky. Acts ch. 173 (HB 312), requires KSP to issue a PROVISIONAL license to applicants 18 or older but under 21 who otherwise meet every KRS 237.110(3) and (4) criterion (including the training requirement). The provisional license is valid statewide, is readily distinguishable from a standard license, and remains valid until the holder turns 21; the holder then applies to switch to a standard license without retaking the firearms training. HB 312 was vetoed by Gov. Beshear on 4/3/2026 and the veto was overridden on 4/14/2026 (House 81-18, Senate 28-9). It carried no emergency clause, so it took effect 90 days after sine die adjournment — widely reported as July 15, 2026 (see uncertainties). HB 312 did NOT amend KRS 237.109, so permitless carry remains 21+. Federal law separately still bars anyone under 21 from buying a handgun from a licensed dealer, which HB 312 cannot change. A separate 2026 bill, SB 75, which would have lowered the concealed-carry age outright from 21 to 18, died in committee.
Training required Yes — up to 8 hours, live fire required
State fee $60 initial / $60 renewal — the state's own charge, not the total
Valid for 5 years
Processing time Statutory deadline (KRS 237.110(9)): KSP must either issue the license or deny it within 60 days of receiving a complete PAPER application, or within 15 business days of receiving a complete ELECTRONIC application. The sheriff must forward a paper application to KSP within 5 working days. KSP's CCDW home page says actual processing time varies with circumstances such as the background check; DOCJT states the background check takes roughly three to six weeks. Note: KSP's FAQ page still recites a "within 90 days" figure, which appears to be stale text predating the current statutory deadlines.
Fingerprints Not 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.

State fee $60
Training course $75–$250 (private instructor)
Electronic filing $70 — filing directly with the State Police costs $70; the $60 is for a paper application to the sheriff
Realistic total $135–$310

KRS 237.110(7) itemises the $60 exactly: $20 retained by the sheriff, $20 to the Kentucky State Police, and $10 each to the Administrative Office of the Courts for two separate background checks. No fingerprints are required. Training is required for the licence but not for permitless carry, and since 1 July 2025 two pathways qualify, so the course — up to eight hours, with live fire — is the only figure in this total that anyone has to shop for.

KRS 237.110(7): paper application filed with the county sheriff = $60 ($20 retained by the sheriff, $20 to KSP, $10 to AOC for youth-leader background checks, $10 to AOC for concealed-weapon background checks). Electronic application filed directly with KSP = $70 ($30 KSP, $20 to the sheriff of the applicant's county, $10 + $10 to AOC). Renewal fees are the same as initial fees ($60 paper / $70 electronic). Late renewal adds a $15 penalty (KRS 237.110(14)(c)). Duplicate/replacement license: $15 paper request, $25 electronic (KRS 237.110(12)). Currently certified Kentucky peace officers authorized to carry under KRS 527.020, and qualifying retired peace officers, are exempt from application and renewal fees. KSP's application page describes the $60 paper fee as $20 to the county sheriff plus $40 payable to the Kentucky State Treasurer. The fee for switching a provisional license to a standard license is set by KSP rather than by statute (KRS 237.118(6)(c)3.).

How to apply

  1. Confirm eligibility: 21 or older (or 18-20 for a provisional license under KRS 237.118), a U.S. citizen resident of Kentucky, a lawfully admitted non-citizen resident of Kentucky who may buy a firearm federally, or an active-duty service member assigned to a military posting in Kentucky; and not disqualified under KRS 237.110(4) or 18 U.S.C. 922(g)/(n).
  2. Complete the firearms training: either a course taught by an instructor certified by a national organization such as the NRA, USCCA, or NSSF, or a DOCJT-offered or DOCJT-approved course (max 8 hours, includes range firing of up to 20 rounds with at least 11 hits on a full-size silhouette). DOCJT publishes a county-by-county list of roughly 1,700 active CCDW instructors and trainers. Peace officers, corrections officers, and qualifying military members may claim a training exemption instead.
  3. Obtain the certificate of completion from the instructor, and obtain and read the DOCJT concealed carry deadly weapons legal handout — a signed statement that you read and understood it must accompany the application.
  4. Choose a filing route. PAPER: obtain and submit the application at the sheriff's office in your county of residence (county of military posting for qualifying service members) with a $60 fee. ELECTRONIC: submit through the KSP CCDW portal at https://kspportal.ky.gov/CCDW/Public/Login.aspx with a $70 fee.
  5. Submit with the application: a recent color photograph meeting KSP specifications; a copy of the training certificate or the training-exemption documentation (DD 2586, DD 214, CG 3029, DA 88-R, DA 5704-R, OPNAV 3591-1, AF 522, or honorable-discharge proof plus notarized affidavit); and, for lawfully admitted non-citizens, the KSP 131 citizenship affidavit plus I-551 or other proof of lawful admission and federal purchase eligibility. The application is executed under oath — a materially false answer is prosecutable under KRS 523.030.
  6. KSP runs a state records check, a federal NICS check, and (for non-citizens) a federal Immigration Alien Query. No fingerprinting step is required by statute or listed by KSP.
  7. KSP issues or denies within 60 days (paper) or 15 business days (electronic). A denial letter must state the grounds; you may submit additional documentation within 30 days (KSP responds within 20 days) and may seek de novo District Court review within 90 days.
  8. Collect the license (paper applicants are notified when it is available at the sheriff's office). Carry the license whenever carrying concealed and display it on a law enforcement officer's request — failure is a $25 noncriminal violation.
  9. Renew within 5 years. KSP mails a renewal notice at least 120 days before expiration; renew through the sheriff or the KSP portal for the same fee. Renewing after expiration adds a $15 late fee, and no license may be renewed 6 months or more after expiration — at that point it is permanently expired and you must reapply from scratch.
  10. Report a permanent address change, or a lost/stolen/destroyed license, to KSP within 30 days ($25 noncriminal violation for failure); a duplicate costs $15 paper or $25 electronic.

Apply on the official Kentucky site

What disqualifies you

Where to get the required training

Kentucky 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 Kentucky

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 Kentucky →

Reciprocity

Carrying into Kentucky

Kentucky recognizes permits from 49 other jurisdictions.

Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, 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, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Wyoming

34 jurisdictions honor a Kentucky permit

Derived from what each of those states officially publishes.

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

Official Kentucky reciprocity page Full reciprocity matrix →

Building your own in Kentucky

Build for personal use
Allowed
Serial number required
No

Kentucky law contains NO prohibition on building a firearm for personal use, and NO state requirement to serialize or register a self-made firearm. A full review of KRS Chapter 527 (the criminal weapons chapter) on 2026-08-10 shows its offenses are: definitions (.010), carrying concealed (.020), defacing a firearm (.030), possession by a convicted felon (.040), possession of a defaced firearm (.050), forfeiture (.060), weapon on school property (.070), restricted ammunition (.080), fraudulent firearm transaction (.090), possession of a handgun by a minor (.100), providing a handgun to a juvenile (.110), and weapons of mass destruction (.200-.210). There is no section on manufacture, homemade or 3D-printed firearms, or unfinished frames/receivers. KRS 527.030 makes it a Class A misdemeanor to intentionally deface a firearm, and KRS 527.010 defines "deface" as to remove, deface, cover, alter, or destroy the MANUFACTURER'S serial number or other distinguishing mark — that prohibits erasing a serial number that already exists; it does not require a privately made firearm to bear one in the first place. KRS 65.870(1) bars every city, county, urban-county, consolidated/unified local government, special district, and local agency from occupying "any part of the field of regulation of the manufacture, sale, purchase, taxation, transfer, ownership, possession, carrying, storage, or transportation of firearms, ammunition, components of firearms, components of ammunition, firearms accessories," declares any such local ordinance null and void, strips sovereign immunity, and awards attorney and expert fees to a prevailing challenger — so no Kentucky city or county may impose a local ghost-gun or serialization ordinance. KRS 237.152 separately bars government lists or registries of privately owned firearms or their owners. A 2019 bill (HB 77) that would have criminalized additively manufactured/3D-printed firearms was introduced but never became law. CAVEAT: this conclusion rests on the ABSENCE of a state prohibition, not on an affirmative authorizing statute, and federal law still governs independently — the National Firearms Act, the Undetectable Firearms Act, the federal bar on manufacturing for sale or distribution without an FFL, ATF Final Rule 2021R-05F on frames/receivers, and the prohibition on a prohibited person making or possessing any firearm all continue to apply.

No Kentucky statute prohibits personal manufacture; see KRS Chapter 527 (no manufacturing offense), KRS 527.010 & 527.030 (defacing only), KRS 65.870 (state preemption of the field of firearm manufacture regulation), KRS 237.152 (no firearm registries)

Federal law, gunsmithing schools, and tools →

Statutes

What we could not confirm

  • EXACT EFFECTIVE DATE OF KRS 237.118 (the 18-20 provisional license). The enrolled Act (2026 Ky. Acts ch. 173) contains no emergency clause and no stated effective date, so under the Kentucky Constitution it took effect 90 days after sine die adjournment of the 2026 regular session. News coverage uniformly reports July 15, 2026, and the statute is already codified in the LRC's Chapter 237 index, so it is in force as of today (2026-08-10). I could not, however, retrieve an official LRC page stating the effective date verbatim, and KSP's public CCDW pages had not yet been updated to describe the provisional license when checked on 2026-08-10.
  • WHETHER LIVE FIRE IS REQUIRED UNDER THE NATIONAL-ORGANIZATION TRAINING PATHWAY. KRS 237.110(4)(i) as amended in 2025 requires live-fire range work explicitly only for the DOCJT-offered or DOCJT-approved course (20 rounds max, 11 hits minimum). For the alternative pathway, the statute's live-fire language describes what the certifying national organization's INSTRUCTOR-certification program must include, not what the applicant class must include. I set liveFireRequired to true because live fire is required on the DOCJT track and is standard practice on the NRA/USCCA/NSSF track, but the statutory text does not clearly compel applicant live fire under the national-organization route.
  • MINIMUM TRAINING HOURS. The statute caps the DOCJT course at "not more than eight (8) hours" and sets no floor, and sets no hour requirement at all for the national-organization pathway. There is therefore no statutory minimum number of hours; "up to 8" is the accurate characterization. News coverage of HB 312 described an "eight-hour" course for 18-20 year olds, but the Act text only cross-references KRS 237.110(4) and imposes no separate hour figure.
  • RECOGNITION OF DC AND U.S. TERRITORY PERMITS. KRS 237.110(20)(a) recognizes a license "issued by another state of the United States." The District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa are not states, and neither the statute nor KSP's reciprocity page addresses inbound recognition of their licenses. I therefore excluded DC and the territories from the honors array rather than guess. In practice the question rarely matters, because KRS 237.109 lets any non-prohibited person 21 or older carry concealed in Kentucky without any permit.
  • FINGERPRINTS. I set fingerprintsRequired to false because KRS 237.110(8) enumerates the required submissions (application, photograph, training certificate or exemption document, non-citizen affidavit) and does not include fingerprints, KRS 237.110(3) describes the background check as state records plus NICS plus Immigration Alien Query, and no KSP page mentions fingerprinting. I did not find an affirmative official statement that fingerprints are NOT required, and I did not review KSP's administrative regulations (500 KAR chapter) for any supplemental requirement.
  • KSP FAQ INCONSISTENCY ON PROCESSING TIME. The KSP FAQ page still says KSP will "either issue a license or send a denial notice within 90 days," which conflicts with the current KRS 237.110(9) deadlines of 60 days (paper) and 15 business days (electronic). I reported the statutory deadlines and treated the FAQ figure as stale, but I could not get KSP to confirm which governs in practice.
  • INSTRUCTOR REGISTRY URL. DOCJT publishes a county-organized PDF list of roughly 1,700 active CCDW instructors and trainers (the copy live on 2026-08-10 was CCDW-Instructors-Trainers_260723.pdf, dated 2026-07-23), but the PDF filename changes with each revision and the file is served via a redirect to Squarespace CDN storage. I gave the stable DOCJT CCDW landing page rather than a direct PDF link that will break.
  • HOME MANUFACTURE IS AN ABSENCE-OF-LAW CONCLUSION. Kentucky has no statute affirmatively authorizing personal firearm manufacture; the conclusion that it is lawful rests on the absence of any prohibition in KRS Chapters 237 and 527 plus the local-preemption statute KRS 65.870. I reviewed the complete Chapter 527 and Chapter 237 section indexes and found no manufacturing, homemade-firearm, or serialization provision, but I did not full-text search every other KRS chapter, and I did not review Kentucky administrative regulations or case law. Federal law (NFA, Undetectable Firearms Act, ATF Rule 2021R-05F, the prohibition on unlicensed manufacture for sale, and the bar on prohibited persons making firearms) applies independently and is not reflected in the selfManufactureAllowed flag.

Sources