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Michigan Concealed Carry Permit

Michigan requires a Concealed Pistol License (CPL) to carry. It is shall-issue, the minimum age is 21, and 8 hours of training is required.

Requirements at a glance

Permit name Concealed Pistol License (CPL)
Issuing authority County clerk of the applicant's county of residence (applications are processed and background-verified by the Michigan State Police CPL Unit; MSP does not itself issue or deny CPLs)
System shall-issue
Minimum age 21 — 21 for every Michigan CPL, including emergency licenses (MCL 28.425b(7)(a); MSP CPL Requirements page). There is no reduced age for military members or any other category. Michigan issues no concealed carry license to 18-20 year olds.
Training required Yes — 8 hours, live fire required
State fee $100 initial / $115 renewal — the state's own charge, not the total
Valid for 4.5 years
Processing time The county clerk must issue the license or a notice of statutory disqualification within 45 days after the date the applicant has classifiable fingerprints taken. If neither is issued within 45 days after the fingerprint receipt date, the fingerprint receipt itself serves as a CPL when carried with an official state-issued Michigan driver's license or personal identification card (MCL 28.425b; MSP Concealed Pistol Application and Instructions).
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.

State fee $100
Fingerprinting $15
Training course $75–$250 (private instructor)
Realistic total $190–$365

MCL 28.425b(5) and (9). No other local charge may be added. Renewal applicants do not pay for fingerprints again if the State Police already hold them.

Initial: $100.00 nonrefundable application and licensing fee payable to the county clerk (MCL 28.425b(5)), PLUS a $15.00 fingerprinting fee (MCL 28.425b(9)) — about $115 total out of pocket. Renewal: $115.00 payable to the county clerk, or to MSP if renewing online/by mail (MCL 28.425l(1)-(2)). No other local charge, fee, cost or assessment may be required. Renewal applicants do not pay again for fingerprints if MSP already has their prints on file (MSP has maintained CPL fingerprints since January 1, 2006).

How to apply

  1. Complete an 8-hour Michigan-compliant pistol safety training course (MCL 28.425j) within the 5 years before applying; obtain the signed certificate of completion bearing the statement 'This course complies with section 5j of 1927 PA 372.'
  2. Obtain a free concealed pistol application kit from the county clerk in the county where you reside, or from michigan.gov/firearms (form RI-012, Concealed Pistol License Standard & Emergency Application).
  3. File the completed RI-012 application in person with the county clerk of your county of residence during normal business hours, signed under oath administered by the clerk or the clerk's representative.
  4. Attach the training certificate of completion, and a passport-quality photograph if you do not have a digitized photo on file with the Michigan Secretary of State.
  5. Pay the $100.00 application and licensing fee to the county clerk; the clerk issues a receipt (this receipt alone does NOT authorize carrying).
  6. Have classifiable fingerprints taken (county clerk, MSP, sheriff, local police agency, or other fingerprinting entity) and pay the $15.00 fingerprint fee. Fingerprints must be taken within 45 days of filing or the application is deemed withdrawn. The fingerprinting entity issues a second receipt and forwards prints to MSP.
  7. MSP verifies eligibility through LEIN and the federal NICS and reports any statutory disqualifications to the county clerk.
  8. The county clerk issues the CPL by first-class mail, or a notice of statutory disqualification, within 45 days of the fingerprinting date. If nothing arrives within 45 days of the fingerprint receipt, that receipt serves as a CPL when carried with your Michigan driver's license or state ID.
  9. If denied, appeal to circuit court using form CC-79, Claim of Appeal on Application for Concealed Weapon License.

Apply on the official Michigan site

What disqualifies you

Where to get the required training

Michigan does not publish a central list of certified instructors. Confirm directly with County clerk of the applicant's county of residence (applications are processed and background-verified by the Michigan State Police CPL Unit; MSP does not itself issue or deny CPLs) that a course will be accepted before you pay for it.

Training providers in Michigan

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 Michigan →

Reciprocity

Carrying into Michigan

Michigan 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, 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, Washington, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Wyoming

35 jurisdictions honor a Michigan 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, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Wyoming

Official Michigan reciprocity page Full reciprocity matrix →

Building your own in Michigan

Build for personal use
Allowed
Serial number required
No

Michigan has NO 'ghost gun' / untraceable-firearm statute. A full-text search of Firearms Laws of Michigan (Legislative Service Bureau, April 2025 edition, supplemented through 2025 PA 2 — the state's own official compilation of every Michigan firearms statute) returns zero occurrences of 'untraceable', 'homemade', 'undetectable', or 'self-manufactured', and there is no offense of making or possessing an unserialized firearm. Building a firearm for one's own personal use is therefore not prohibited by Michigan law, and Michigan imposes no serialization requirement and no separate state registration of a self-made firearm. MCL 750.230 reaches only ALTERING a firearm that already bears identifying marks: a person who 'wilfully alter[s], remove[s], or obliterate[s] the name of the maker, model, manufacturer's number, or other mark of identity of a pistol or other firearm' commits a felony (up to 2 years / $1,000). That section's presumption from mere possession was held unconstitutional in People v Moore, 402 Mich 538 (1978). Independent limits still apply: Michigan bans machine guns, silencers, short-barreled rifles/shotguns and similar items (MCL 750.224, 750.224b) regardless of who made them, and federal law separately prohibits undetectable firearms (18 USC 922(p)) and manufacturing for sale or distribution without a federal license. IMPORTANT CAVEAT: MCL 28.422(1)(a) states that, except as otherwise provided, 'a person shall not... [p]urchase, carry, possess, or transport a pistol in this state without first having obtained a license for the pistol as prescribed in this section.' On its face that possession-license requirement is not limited to purchased pistols, but the entire licensing and pistol entry database mechanism in MCL 28.422 and 28.422a is transaction-based (the seller fills out and returns the license/record copy), and neither statute provides any procedure for a pistol with no seller. Michigan CPL holders and federally licensed dealers are exempt from the section 2 license requirement entirely under MCL 28.422a(1). No MSP guidance on self-manufactured pistols was located — see uncertainties.

No Michigan statute addresses self-manufacture; see MCL 750.230 (marks of identity), MCL 28.422 / 28.422a (pistol licensing and pistol entry database), MCL 750.224 and 750.224b (prohibited weapons)

Federal law, gunsmithing schools, and tools →

Statutes

What we could not confirm

  • Michigan publishes no enumerated list of recognized out-of-state permits. The 48-jurisdiction 'honors' array is DERIVED from Michigan's universal rule (MSP Reciprocity page + MCL 28.432a(h)), not transcribed from an official Michigan list. Vermont is excluded because it issues no permit; the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories are excluded because MCL 28.432a(h) says 'another state' and Michigan has issued no guidance on whether DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, or the U.S. Virgin Islands count. A DC-permit holder's status in Michigan is genuinely unsettled and should not be relied on.
  • Michigan's recognition of non-resident permits: the plain text of MCL 28.432a(h) ('a resident of another state who is licensed by that state') excludes permits issued by a state other than the holder's state of residence, and the House Fiscal Agency analysis echoes this. I found no MSP or Attorney General statement expressly confirming that a non-resident permit is refused recognition, so this reading is textual rather than officially confirmed.
  • Whether MCL 28.422(1)(a)'s requirement of a 'license for the pistol' to possess a pistol applies to a pistol the possessor built themselves. Michigan's licensing and pistol-entry-database machinery (MCL 28.422(4)-(6), 28.422a(2)-(3)) is entirely transaction-based and provides no path for a firearm with no seller, and CPL holders are exempt from section 2 altogether under MCL 28.422a(1)(a). No MSP guidance, Attorney General opinion, or case law on self-manufactured pistols was located. Treat 'no state registration required for a self-made pistol' as unconfirmed rather than settled.
  • Whether HB 4481/4482/4483 of the 2025-2026 session (which would require the Attorney General to maintain a CPL reciprocity website and put a QR code on the physical license) have been enacted as of 2026-08-10. Only the committee-stage House Fiscal Agency analysis dated 11-12-25 was located; enactment status was not verified. These bills would not change who Michigan recognizes.
  • Michigan does not maintain a statewide registry of certified CPL instructors, so instructorRegistryUrl is null. Instructors are certified by the state or by a state or national firearms training organization, and MCL 28.425b(18) merely permits (does not require) a county clerk to publish and distribute a list of qualified instructors. Availability of such a list varies county by county.
  • The MSP-hosted link to form RI-012 (Concealed Pistol License Standard & Emergency Application) returned HTTP 404 at the URL surfaced by search on 2026-08-10; the application kit is still described as available free from county clerks and at michigan.gov/firearms. The form's current direct URL was not confirmed.
  • The listed validityYears of 4.5 is an approximation of a variable term: MCL 28.425l(1) makes a CPL valid until the licensee's date of birth falling not less than 4 nor more than 5 years after issuance or renewal, so the actual term depends on the holder's birthday.
  • Fingerprint-service pricing at 'other entities' beyond the $15.00 statutory fee in MCL 28.425b(9) was not independently verified.

Sources