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Missouri Concealed Carry Permit

Missouri allows permitless carry for non-prohibited adults 19+. A CCW is still available and is what other states recognize.

Permitless carry is legal in Missouri

A non-prohibited adult aged 19 or older may carry a concealed handgun without a permit (since 2017). CONFIRMED from the statute text on the Missouri Revisor site. RSMo 571.030.1(1), in the version currently in force (effective 8/28/2023), makes it unlawful use of weapons only to carry 'concealed upon or about his or her person a knife, a firearm, a blackjack or any other weapon readily capable of lethal use INTO ANY AREA WHERE FIREARMS ARE RESTRICTED UNDER SECTION 571.107.' Since S.B. 656 (2016) took effect 1/1/2017 there is no general prohibition on carrying a concealed firearm without a permit anywhere else in Missouri, so a non-prohibited adult may carry concealed with no permit. IMPORTANT CAVEATS: (1) The carrier must not be prohibited from possessing a firearm under RSMo 571.070. (2) Permitless carriers are NOT exempt from RSMo 571.030.1(8) (carrying a firearm into a church or place of worship, into an election precinct on election day, or into any building owned or occupied by the state or federal government) or 571.030.1(10) (school, school bus, school-sponsored activity). RSMo 571.030.4 exempts ONLY holders of a Missouri permit, a pre-8/28/2013 endorsement, or an out-of-state permit/endorsement from subdivisions (1), (8) and (10) - so for a permitless carrier those two locations remain criminal offenses, while for a permit holder entering a 571.107 location is non-criminal (removal/citation only). This is the single biggest practical reason Missourians still get permits. (3) Age: the statute's text for subdivision 1(1) contains no explicit age element; 19 (or 18 for active-duty/honorably-discharged U.S. Armed Forces members) is the threshold used in the RSMo 571.030.3 motor-vehicle transport exemption and in the permit statutes, and is the age generally applied to permitless carry. See uncertainties.

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.

RSMo 571.030.1(1) (as amended by A.L. 2016 S.B. 656, effective Jan. 1, 2017); see also RSMo 571.030.3

There are 9 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 Carry Permit
Issuing authority County sheriff of the county in which the applicant resides (or the sheriff of any city not within a county, i.e. the City of St. Louis). There is no statewide issuing agency.
System shall-issue
Minimum age 19 — RSMo 571.101.2(1) and 571.205: applicant must be at least nineteen years of age, OR at least eighteen years of age and a member of the United States Armed Forces or honorably discharged from the Armed Forces. Applicant must also be a citizen or permanent resident of the United States. Note that federal law separately bars handgun purchase from a licensed dealer before age 21.
Training required Yes — 8 hours, live fire required
State fee $100 initial / $50 renewal — the state's own charge, not the total
Valid for 5 years
Processing time RSMo 571.101: the sheriff must issue the permit within three working days after approval. If the required background checks have not been completed within 45 calendar days of the application and no disqualifying information has been found, the sheriff shall issue a PROVISIONAL permit, valid until the permit is issued or denied. In practice most counties finish well inside 45 days; Boone County states it tries to complete renewals within seven days.
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.

Training course $75–$250 (private instructor)
Sheriff's fee varies — capped at $100 for a five-year permit — Boone County charges $95
Extended permits varies — capped at $200 for ten years, $250 for twenty-five, $500 for life
Fingerprinting and background check varies — may be billed separately

RSMo 571.101.9 caps rather than sets the fee, and the county sheriff decides the rest, so Missouri has 114 answers to what a permit costs. The longer terms are priced proportionally — $500 for life against $100 for five years — which is unusual, since most states that offer a lifetime option charge a premium for it. The 8-hour course under RSMo 571.111 is mandatory and includes live fire.

RSMo 571.101.9 sets CAPS, not fixed prices: the sheriff may charge a non-refundable fee not to exceed $100 for an initial 5-year permit and not to exceed $50 for renewal. Actual amounts are set county by county and are often lower - Boone County, for example, charges $95.00 new / $50.00 renewal, plus a $10.00-per-month late-renewal fee. Missouri also offers longer-term permits under RSMo 571.205-571.230, issued by the same county sheriff, with caps of $200 (10-year extended), $250 (25-year extended), $500 (lifetime), and $50 to renew an extended permit. Fingerprinting/background-check costs may be billed separately.

How to apply

  1. Complete an 8-hour firearms safety training course meeting RSMo 571.111, including the live-fire practice and qualification, and obtain the instructor's firearms safety training certificate.
  2. Go to the sheriff's office of the Missouri county where you reside (or the City of St. Louis), or use that sheriff's online application system if offered.
  3. Submit the application form along with the training certificate, a valid photo ID, and proof of current address. Non-U.S.-born applicants also submit naturalization papers, a U.S. passport, or a permanent resident card.
  4. Be fingerprinted for the state and federal (NICS/criminal history) background checks. No other biometric data may be collected.
  5. Pay the non-refundable fee to the sheriff (up to $100 for the standard 5-year permit; up to $200/$250/$500 for a 10-year, 25-year, or lifetime permit).
  6. The sheriff runs the background check and must issue the permit within three working days of approval; if checks are still pending at 45 days with nothing disqualifying, a provisional permit is issued.
  7. Renew before expiration by re-applying to the sheriff and paying the renewal fee (up to $50). No repeat of the 8-hour course is required for renewal, but a late fee applies after expiration.

Apply on the official Missouri site

What disqualifies you

Where to get the required training

Missouri does not publish a central list of certified instructors. Confirm directly with County sheriff of the county in which the applicant resides (or the sheriff of any city not within a county, i.e. the City of St. Louis). There is no statewide issuing agency. that a course will be accepted before you pay for it.

Training providers in Missouri

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 Missouri →

Reciprocity

Carrying into Missouri

Missouri 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, Michigan, Minnesota, 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

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

Official Missouri reciprocity page Full reciprocity matrix →

Building your own in Missouri

Build for personal use
Allowed
Serial number required
No

Missouri law is silent on building a firearm for personal use, and silence means it is permitted. RSMo 571.020 - the only Missouri statute restricting the manufacture of weapons - reaches only specific categories: explosive weapons, gas guns, armor-piercing and exploding projectiles, knuckles, and items regulated under the National Firearms Act (machine guns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, silencers, switchblades). It contains nothing about ordinary handguns or rifles built for personal use. There is NO Missouri statute requiring a serial number on a self-made firearm, no state registration of firearms of any kind, and no state regulation of unfinished frames or receivers or of so-called 'ghost guns'. RSMo 571.045 (defacing a firearm, a class A misdemeanor) and RSMo 571.050 (possessing a defaced firearm) prohibit only altering or destroying identifying marks on a firearm that already has them - they do not impose an affirmative duty to serialize a firearm that never had a serial number. Missouri also broadly preempts local firearm ordinances, so cities and counties cannot impose their own serialization rules. SEPARATE FEDERAL LAW STILL APPLIES: a non-licensee may generally make a firearm for personal use without a serial number under federal law, but may not manufacture for sale or distribution without an FFL, may not make an NFA item without ATF approval, and may not make a firearm that is undetectable or otherwise prohibited. ATF's 2022 frame-and-receiver rule means commercially sold 'buy-build-shoot' kits and readily convertible frames/receivers are themselves firearms that must be serialized by the seller.

No Missouri statute prohibits it; see RSMo Chapter 571 generally, and RSMo 571.020, 571.045, 571.050

Federal law, gunsmithing schools, and tools →

Statutes

What we could not confirm

  • TIMING RISK - a new version of RSMo 571.030 takes effect 8/28/2026, eighteen days after this research (revision history line: '... A.L. 2023 S.B. 186, A.L. 2026 S.B. 1421'). I fetched BOTH the currently-in-force version (effective 8/28/2023, bid=54290) and the pending 8/28/2026 version (bid=60673) and compared them: subdivision 1(1) is word-for-word identical in both, so permitless carry is unaffected. The visible change is in the permit-holder exemption, which in the 2026 version adds a cross-reference to 'sections 571.205 to 571.230' (the extended/lifetime permits) alongside the existing reference to sections 571.101 to 571.121 - a technical fix, not a substantive change. I could NOT retrieve the text of S.B. 1421 itself (the Missouri Senate bill URL 404'd and my web-search budget was exhausted), so I cannot rule out other changes elsewhere in Chapter 571 effective 8/28/2026. Re-verify after that date.
  • MINIMUM AGE FOR PERMITLESS CARRY - RSMo 571.030.1(1) as written contains no age element at all; it simply is not an offense to carry concealed outside 571.107 locations. The '19 years of age or older, or 18 and a member of / honorably discharged from the Armed Forces' language appears in RSMo 571.030.3 (the motor-vehicle transport exemption) and in the permit qualification statutes (571.101, 571.205). I could not locate a Missouri statute that sets an explicit minimum age for carrying a concealed handgun on the person without a permit. 19 is reported here as the safe, commonly applied floor, but the statutory basis for applying it to on-person carry outside a vehicle is inferential rather than express.
  • DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND U.S. TERRITORIES - RSMo 571.030.4 recognizes a permit 'issued by another state or political subdivision of another state.' DC is a federal district, not a state, and Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa are territories. I found no official Missouri interpretation extending recognition to them, so I excluded DC and the territories from the honors list. This is a textual reading, not a confirmed agency position. In practice the point is nearly moot: a DC or territorial licensee who is 19+ and not prohibited may carry concealed in Missouri under Missouri's own permitless carry regardless of recognition - the only difference is that without recognized permit status they remain subject to RSMo 571.030.1(8) and (10).
  • VERMONT is omitted from the honors list solely because Vermont issues no concealed carry permit for Missouri to recognize, not because Missouri excludes it.
  • NO STATEWIDE ISSUING AGENCY OR APPLICATION PORTAL - Missouri permits are issued exclusively by the 114 county sheriffs plus the City of St. Louis. Neither the Missouri Department of Public Safety site (dps.mo.gov), the Missouri Attorney General site (ago.mo.gov), nor the Missouri State Highway Patrol Criminal Justice Information Services pages I fetched carry any CCW permit, reciprocity, or instructor content. The issuingAuthorityUrl field therefore points to the governing statute, and officialApplicationUrl points to Boone County's sheriff page as a REPRESENTATIVE official county example - applicants must use their own county sheriff's page, and the exact fee, forms, and turnaround will differ by county.
  • FEES ARE STATUTORY CAPS, NOT FIXED AMOUNTS - the $100 initial / $50 renewal figures are the maximums a sheriff may charge under RSMo 571.101.9. Real charges vary by county (Boone County: $95 new). Any single number for 'the Missouri fee' is approximate.
  • NO PUBLIC INSTRUCTOR REGISTRY FOUND - RSMo 571.111 directs the Missouri sheriff methamphetamine relief taskforce (MoSMART) to create and maintain a statewide database of qualified instructors, but the statute describes it as accessible to sheriffs for verification. I could not locate any publicly published searchable list (mosheriffs.com/ccw returned 404 and my search budget was exhausted), so instructorRegistryUrl is null. It is possible a public-facing list exists at a URL I did not find.
  • I was unable to verify the exact wording of the RSMo 571.010 definition of 'deface' (whether it is limited to serial numbers or covers other identification marks). This does not change the conclusion that Missouri imposes no affirmative duty to serialize a self-made firearm, since 571.045 punishes only the act of defacing.
  • My web-search quota was exhausted at the start of this task, so all findings come from directly fetched official URLs (Missouri Revisor of Statutes and a county sheriff's office) rather than from search-assisted discovery. I may have missed an official page that a search would have surfaced - most plausibly a state CCW landing page or an instructor list. No aggregator sites were used.

Sources