GUNMAPUSA Search

Maine Concealed Carry Permit

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

Permitless carry is legal in Maine

A non-prohibited adult aged 21 or older may carry a concealed handgun without a permit (since 2015). Maine has permitless ("constitutional") carry, effective October 15, 2015 (P.L. 2015, ch. 327 / LD 652). 25 M.R.S. 2001-A(2)(A-1) exempts from the concealed-carry prohibition "A handgun carried by a person who is 21 years of age or older and is not otherwise prohibited from carrying a firearm or is 18 years of age or older and under 21 years of age and is on active duty in the Armed Forces of the United States or the National Guard or is an honorably discharged veteran of the Armed Forces of the United States or the National Guard and is not otherwise prohibited from carrying a firearm." So: 21+ non-prohibited adults need no permit; 18-20 year olds need either qualifying military status OR a permit. IMPORTANT: a person carrying concealed WITHOUT a permit has a statutory duty under 25 M.R.S. 2003-A to immediately inform any law enforcement officer of that fact on first contact during a routine stop, detention or arrest. Permitless carry does not override location restrictions (courthouses, schools, liquor establishments, state capitol area, state parks, etc.) or federal/state prohibited-person law. A permit is still useful for reciprocity in other states.

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.

25 M.R.S. 2001-A(2)(A-1)

There are 10 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 Handgun Permit
Issuing authority Dual system. The Maine State Police, Weapons and Professional Licensing Unit is the issuing authority for the unorganized territories and for roughly 360 municipalities that have no full-time chief of police, and for all nonresident applications. In municipalities with their own police department, the municipal chief of police (or, by assignment under 25 M.R.S. 2002-A / 2002-B, an adjacent chief or the county sheriff) is the issuing authority.
System shall-issue
Minimum age 18 — The minimum age to APPLY for a Maine Concealed Handgun Permit is 18 (25 M.R.S. 2003(1)(A): applicant "Is 18 years of age or older"). This is distinct from permitless carry, which requires 21 (or 18-20 with active-duty or honorably-discharged military status). An 18-20 year old with no military service can therefore carry concealed only by obtaining a permit.
Training required Yes
State fee $50 initial / $35 renewal — the state's own charge, not the total
Valid for 4 years
Processing time By statute (25 M.R.S. 2003), the issuing authority must issue or deny within 30 days for an applicant who has been a Maine resident for 5 years or more, and within 60 days for a nonresident or for a resident of less than 5 years.
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.

State fee $50
Training course $75–$250 (private instructor)
Non-resident permit $80 — the same $80 for an original and a renewal
Realistic total $125–$300

25 M.R.S. 2003(1)(E)(4), as amended effective 24 September 2025, sets $50 for a resident original and $35 for a renewal. No fingerprints are required. The statute asks only that an applicant 'demonstrate to the issuing authority a knowledge of handgun safety,' with no hour count and no express live fire, and a course completed within the previous five years satisfies it — so a recent certificate makes the $50 the entire cost.

Resident: $50 original, $35 renewal. Nonresident: $80 for BOTH original and renewal. Fee schedule set by 25 M.R.S. 2003(1)(E)(4) as amended effective September 24, 2025 (Maine State Police Weapons and Professional Licensing Unit memo dated August 13, 2025). A legacy credit exists for persons who paid $60 for a permit or renewal in 1991 or 1992 ($30 credit if paid for an original, $45 if paid for a renewal), valid until fully used. If the wrong fee is submitted the application is placed on hold until corrected. Municipal issuing authorities charge the same statutory schedule.

How to apply

  1. Determine your issuing authority: check the Maine State Police 'Issuing Authority - State Police' town list. If your town is on it (or you are a nonresident), apply to the Maine State Police Weapons and Professional Licensing Unit; if not, apply to your municipal police department or town office.
  2. Download the correct form from the Maine State Police page: 'Resident New/Renewal Concealed Handguns Permit Application' or 'Non-Resident New/Renewal Concealed Handguns Permit Application' (post-September 24, 2025 versions; earlier versions are obsolete).
  3. Complete the written application in full, including the personal and criminal-history questions.
  4. Obtain and attach proof of knowledge of handgun safety: a certificate for a qualifying handgun safety course completed within the last 5 years, or documentation of military basic firearms training, or arrange a personal demonstration to the issuing authority.
  5. Submit the application fee with the application: $50 resident original, $35 resident renewal, $80 nonresident original or renewal.
  6. Submit fingerprints only if the issuing authority requests them to resolve a question of identity.
  7. Submit the packet to the issuing authority (Maine State Police WPLU, 164 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333; offices at 45 Commerce Drive, Suite 1; (207) 624-7210; [email protected]) or to your municipal issuing authority.
  8. Await decision: 30 days if a Maine resident 5+ years, 60 days if nonresident or resident under 5 years.
  9. Carry the permit in your immediate possession whenever carrying concealed under it (25 M.R.S. 2003(11)); renew within the 4-year term, or within 6 months after expiration at the renewal rate. After 6 months a new original application and fee are required.

Apply on the official Maine site

What disqualifies you

Where to get the required training

Maine does not publish a central list of certified instructors. Confirm directly with Dual system. The Maine State Police, Weapons and Professional Licensing Unit is the issuing authority for the unorganized territories and for roughly 360 municipalities that have no full-time chief of police, and for all nonresident applications. In municipalities with their own police department, the municipal chief of police (or, by assignment under 25 M.R.S. 2002-A / 2002-B, an adjacent chief or the county sheriff) is the issuing authority. that a course will be accepted before you pay for it.

Training providers in Maine

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 Maine →

Reciprocity

Carrying into Maine

Maine recognizes permits from 23 other jurisdictions.

Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming

28 jurisdictions honor a Maine permit

Derived from what each of those states officially publishes.

Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming

Official Maine reciprocity page Full reciprocity matrix →

Building your own in Maine

Build for personal use
Allowed
Serial number required
No

Maine has NO state statute prohibiting or regulating the manufacture of a firearm by a non-prohibited person for that person's own use, and NO state law requiring a serial number on a self-made firearm. I reviewed the full section index of Title 25 ch. 252 (2001-A through 2006, concealed weapons), Title 25 ch. 252-A (2011-2017: state preemption, safety brochure, CLEO certification, registry prohibition, gun shop project, waiting period, hold agreements), and Title 17-A ch. 43 (1051-1059: machine guns, armor-piercing ammunition, liquor establishments, courthouses, correctional facilities). None addresses self-manufacture, unfinished frames or receivers, 'ghost guns,' untraceable firearms, or serialization. Maine has no firearm registration: 25 M.R.S. 2014 provides that 'a government agency of this State or a political subdivision of this State may not keep or cause to be kept a comprehensive registry of privately owned firearms and the owners of those firearms within its jurisdiction.' 25 M.R.S. 2011 preempts municipal firearm regulation. FEDERAL LAW STILL CONTROLS AND IS THE BINDING CONSTRAINT: a prohibited person may not manufacture or possess any firearm; manufacturing for sale or distribution requires an FFL (18 U.S.C. 922(a)(1)(A)); NFA items require ATF approval; the Undetectable Firearms Act and 18 U.S.C. 922(r) apply; and ATF Final Rule 2021R-05F treats certain readily-completable frames/receivers sold commercially as firearms requiring serialization by the licensee. A privately made firearm built for personal use need not be serialized under federal law, but a licensed dealer who later takes it in must serialize it. This field reflects Maine state law only.

No Maine statute on point; see 25 M.R.S. ch. 252, 25 M.R.S. ch. 252-A (esp. 25 M.R.S. 2014 and 2011), and 17-A M.R.S. ch. 43

Federal law, gunsmithing schools, and tools →

Statutes

What we could not confirm

  • fingerprintsRequired is set to false based on 25 M.R.S. 2003, which requires fingerprints only 'if it becomes necessary to resolve any questions as to identity.' I could not parse the resident or non-resident application PDFs (both returned unreadable binary), so I could not confirm whether the Maine State Police nonetheless requires a fingerprint card in practice for NONRESIDENT applications. Read this field as 'not routinely required by statute' rather than 'never required.'
  • training.liveFireRequired is null: neither 25 M.R.S. 2003(1)(E)(5) nor the Maine State Police page specifies whether the qualifying handgun safety course must include live fire. The statute is silent; course content is left to the certifying agency or instructor. I could not confirm either way from a primary source.
  • training.hours is empty because Maine's statute prescribes no hour count. Individual approved courses set their own length. Do not report a specific hour figure for Maine.
  • The Maine State Police reciprocity page publishes no 'last updated' date, so I cannot verify how current the 23-state list is as of 2026-08-10, only that it was retrieved live from the official page on that date. Because Maine's recognition is mutual and depends on other states' recognition of Maine permits, the list can change without a statutory amendment.
  • I could not read the Concealed Handguns Booklet PDF or the FAQ PDF (both returned unreadable binary through the fetch tool), so a small number of administrative details in those documents are unverified, notably any additional supporting documentation the State Police request and the exact renewal notification procedure.
  • The WebSearch quota for this session was already exhausted when I started, so I navigated to official URLs directly rather than searching. An official Maine page may exist that I did not discover. In particular I found no state-published registry of certified firearms instructors (the State Police instead link to the NRA instructor search), so instructorRegistryUrl is null; I cannot fully rule out that such a list exists somewhere I did not reach.
  • Reciprocity in Maine is administrative rather than statutory: I found no dedicated reciprocity subsection in 25 M.R.S. 2003. The only statutory hook I located is 25 M.R.S. 2003(11), which references 'a nonresident who holds a permit issued by the nonresident's state of residence.' The 23-state list therefore rests on the State Police page, not on statutory text.
  • homeManufacture rests on the ABSENCE of any Maine statute, established by reading the full section indexes of the three relevant chapters rather than by finding affirmative authorization. I did not exhaustively read every section of the Maine Revised Statutes, and I did not check DPS Rule Chapter 41 for anything touching self-manufacture. Federal law, not Maine law, is the operative constraint and should be verified separately.
  • Maine enacted several firearms measures in 2024, including a 72-hour waiting period (25 M.R.S. 2016) and expanded background-check provisions. These affect transfers rather than concealed carry, and I did not read their full text. They do not change the permitless-carry or permit answers above, but a reader making a purchase decision should consult them.
  • Location restrictions are summarized only in general terms here. The Maine State Police page cites 17-A M.R.S. 1057, 1058, 1059; 12 M.R.S. 1803, 756, 12707; 20-A M.R.S. 6552; 25 M.R.S. 2904; 32 M.R.S. 9412; and 26 M.R.S. 600. I did not read each of those sections.

Sources