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Minnesota Concealed Carry Permit

Minnesota requires a Permit to Carry a Pistol to carry. It is shall-issue, the minimum age is 18, and training is required.

Requirements at a glance

Permit name Permit to Carry a Pistol
Issuing authority County sheriff (sheriff of the county where the applicant resides; nonresidents may apply to any Minnesota sheriff). The Department of Public Safety / Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) administers the program statewide and publishes the uniform application form.
System shall-issue
Minimum age 18 — CRITICAL NUANCE. The statute as printed still says 21: Minn. Stat. § 624.714, subd. 2(b)(2) requires that an applicant 'is at least 21 years old and a citizen or a permanent resident of the United States.' However, that age bar is unenforceable against 18-to-20-year-olds, and the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes carries this official NOTE on the statute page: 'That portion of subdivision 2, paragraph (b), clause (2), prohibiting the issuance of a permit to carry a firearm to persons ages 18 to 20 years was found to be unconstitutional in violation of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution in Worth v. Jacobson, 108 4th 677 (8th Cir. 2024), cert. denied, 145 S.Ct. 1924 (2025).' The Eighth Circuit (No. 23-2248, filed July 16, 2024) affirmed the district court and held: 'The Carry Ban, § 624.714 subd. 2(b)(2), violates the Second Amendment as applied to Minnesota through the Fourteenth Amendment, and, thus, is unconstitutional.' Because certiorari was denied in 2025, that ruling is final and binding in Minnesota, so the operative minimum age for a Minnesota permit to carry is 18. Caution: the BCA's own news release of Aug. 22, 2024, titled 'BCA: You must be 21 to get a pistol permit,' still appears on the DPS site and has not been updated or retracted; it reflected the pre-cert-denial posture, when the state's rehearing petition kept the 21 bar in effect. Separately, federal law still bars anyone under 21 from buying a handgun or handgun ammunition from a federally licensed dealer, which the BCA application form restates.
Training required Yes, live fire required
State fee $100 initial / $75 renewal — the state's own charge, not the total
Valid for 5 years
Processing time 30 days. Minn. Stat. § 624.714, subd. 6: the sheriff 'must, within 30 days after the date of receipt of the application packet' either issue the permit or deny it in writing with the reason. Emergency permits are available and are valid for 30 days.
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.

Training course $75–$250 (private instructor)
Sheriff's processing fee varies — capped at actual cost or $100, whichever is less — Scott County charges $80

Minnesota's $100 is a ceiling, not a price: § 624.714, subd. 3 lets the sheriff charge 'the actual and reasonable direct cost of processing the application or $100, whichever is less', of which $10 goes to the commissioner. Counties commonly land below it. No fingerprints are required, which would otherwise make this one of the cleanest states to total — the obstacle is that the one government charge is bounded rather than fixed, so a range built from it would be a range of caps rather than of costs.

These are STATUTORY CAPS, not flat fees — the actual cost varies by county and is commonly lower. Minn. Stat. § 624.714, subd. 3: the sheriff 'may charge a new application processing fee in an amount not to exceed the actual and reasonable direct cost of processing the application or $100, whichever is less. Of this amount, $10 must be submitted to the commissioner and deposited into the general fund.' Renewal: 'a renewal processing fee not to exceed the actual and reasonable direct cost of processing the application or $75, whichever is less. Of this amount, $5 must be submitted to the commissioner...' Late renewal (submitted after expiration but within 30 days): additional $10 late fee. Replacement permit card: $10. Example of real county pricing: Scott County charges $80 new, $45 renewal, $60 late renewal. Check your own county sheriff for the exact amount.

How to apply

  1. Complete a state-certified firearms safety/training course from a certified instructor within the 12 months before you apply (or renew), and obtain the instructor's certificate of completion. The course must include pistol fundamentals, a successful live shooting qualification exercise, and the legal aspects of carry and use of deadly force.
  2. Download and complete the Minnesota Uniform Firearm Application – Permit to Carry a Pistol (BCA form, Rev. 5-21-24), including required personal data and all residences for the past 5 years.
  3. Sign the Data Practices Advisory and the Authorization for Release of Human Services Data (civil-commitment background check consent). Refusing consent means the background check cannot be completed and the application will not be processed.
  4. Read the RESTRICTIONS pages and sign the statement: 'I hereby state to the best of my knowledge and belief that I am not prohibited by law from possessing a firearm.'
  5. Assemble the application packet: the signed application; an accurate photocopy of the training certificate; and an accurate photocopy of your current driver's license, state identification card, or passport photo page. If you are otherwise ineligible due to a conviction that has been pardoned or expunged, also include a copy of the relevant court order.
  6. Submit the packet IN PERSON to the sheriff of the county where you live (nonresidents may submit to any Minnesota sheriff's office) and pay the county's fee. You will be given a receipt, which is not itself a permit.
  7. The sheriff runs state and federal background checks and must issue or deny in writing within 30 days. A denial may be appealed to district court.
  8. Once issued, notify the issuing sheriff within 30 days of any change of permanent address or of loss/destruction of the card (a notarized statement is required for a lost or destroyed card); failure to do so is a petty misdemeanor.
  9. Renew within the 90 days before expiration (or up to 30 days after expiration with a $10 late fee), with fresh training completed within the prior year.

Apply on the official Minnesota site

What disqualifies you

Where to get the required training

Minnesota 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 Minnesota

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 Minnesota →

Reciprocity

Carrying into Minnesota

Minnesota recognizes permits from 33 other jurisdictions.

Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia

29 jurisdictions honor a Minnesota permit

Derived from what each of those states officially publishes.

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

Official Minnesota reciprocity page Full reciprocity matrix →

Building your own in Minnesota

Build for personal use
Allowed
Serial number required
Yes

Building a firearm for personal use is not itself prohibited by Minnesota statute. There is no Minnesota law criminalizing self-manufacture, no state manufacturing license for personal (non-transfer) making, no statute on 'unfinished frames or receivers,' 3D-printed firearms, or 'untraceable firearms,' and no state firearm registration system. I confirmed this by reading the full section list of Minn. Stat. ch. 624 (dangerous weapons) — no such section exists — and the definitions in § 624.712, which define no such terms. BUT THE SERIAL-NUMBER RULE IS THE TRAP, AND IT IS A FELONY-LEVEL OFFENSE. Minn. Stat. § 609.667 ('FIREARMS; REMOVAL OR ALTERATION OF SERIAL NUMBER') provides in full: 'Whoever commits any of the following acts may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than five years or to payment of a fine of not more than $10,000, or both: (1) obliterates, removes, changes, or alters the serial number or other identification of a firearm; (2) receives or possesses a firearm, the serial number or other identification of which has been obliterated, removed, changed, or altered; or (3) receives or possesses a firearm that is not identified by a serial number.' Clause (3) means mere POSSESSION of an unserialized firearm — including one you built yourself — is punishable by up to five years. So while Minnesota permits you to build a firearm, the finished firearm must bear a serial number. The section adds: 'As used in this section, "serial number or other identification" means the serial number and other information required under United States Code, title 26, section 5842, for the identification of firearms.' History: 1994 c 636 art 3 s 22 — clause (3) is not a recent addition. Because Minnesota provides no state mechanism for assigning a serial number, a private maker must self-mark the firearm. Two honest caveats, both flagged in uncertainties: (a) the cross-reference to 26 U.S.C. § 5842 is the National Firearms Act identification provision, and I found no official Minnesota guidance or published construction resolving how clause (3) applies to privately made NON-NFA firearms; (b) the antiques/ornaments exemption at Minn. Stat. § 624.715 sits in chapter 624 and does not on its face reach § 609.667. Anyone contemplating this should get Minnesota-licensed legal advice rather than rely on a summary.

Minn. Stat. § 609.667

Federal law, gunsmithing schools, and tools →

Statutes

What we could not confirm

  • AGE — administrative practice not independently confirmed. The legal answer is solid: the Revisor of Statutes' official note on § 624.714 states the 18-20 exclusion was held unconstitutional in Worth v. Jacobson, cert. denied, 145 S.Ct. 1924 (2025), and I read the Eighth Circuit opinion itself. What I could NOT confirm from an official source is that BCA and individual county sheriffs are in fact now issuing permits to 18-20-year-olds. Neither the BCA Permit to Carry page nor the eLicense page states any age at all, and the BCA's Aug. 22, 2024 news release still says 'You must be 21' with no update banner. An 18-20-year-old applicant should call the county sheriff before relying on this.
  • Whether Minnesota recognizes NON-RESIDENT permits issued by the 33 reciprocal states, or only permits held by residents of the issuing state. The BCA reciprocity page is silent on this point.
  • The BCA reciprocity page carries no 'last updated' or effective date. DPS says it reviews other states' laws annually, but I could not determine when the current list was last revised — the only date markers are the 8/1/24 conditions on Colorado and Massachusetts. The list should be re-checked before travel.
  • Fee figures are statutory maximums ($100 new / $75 renewal), not the amount any given county actually charges. Counties set their own fee up to the cap based on actual processing cost, and observed county fees are lower. There is no official statewide table of per-county fees.
  • Training hours — Minnesota sets no statutory minimum number of hours, only required content. I found no official source specifying a duration, so 'hours' is left blank rather than guessed. Course length varies by provider.
  • Minnesota publishes no official registry of individual certified instructors. The URL given (portal.dps.mn.gov/bca/firearms) is the official BCA search tool, but it lists ORGANIZATIONS approved to certify instructors, not the instructors themselves.
  • HOME MANUFACTURE — the key legal question is unresolved by any official source I could find. Minn. Stat. § 609.667(3) criminalizes possessing 'a firearm that is not identified by a serial number,' but the section defines that term by cross-reference to 26 U.S.C. § 5842, the National Firearms Act identification provision. I found no Minnesota Attorney General opinion, BCA guidance, or published construction resolving how clause (3) applies to a privately made non-NFA firearm, nor whether the § 624.715 antiques exemption (which sits in chapter 624, not chapter 609) has any bearing. Given that a wrong answer here is five-year felony exposure, this should be treated as genuinely unsettled and verified with Minnesota counsel.
  • Fingerprints — recorded as 'not required' because neither Minn. Stat. § 624.714 nor the BCA uniform application form (which I extracted and read in full) requires a fingerprint card, and the form's checklist of required submissions lists only the application, the training certificate photocopy, and a photo-ID photocopy. I did not find an affirmative official statement that fingerprints are never taken, and I cannot rule out an individual sheriff's local practice.
  • The 2025 amendments to § 624.714 (2025 c 35 art 5 s 22; 2025 c 38 art 3 s 83-84) touch subdivisions 3 and 4. I read the current consolidated statute text, which is authoritative, but I could not pull the session-law text to see precisely what those sections changed.

Sources