New Mexico Concealed Carry Permit

New Mexico has no state law prohibiting a non-prohibited person from building a firearm for personal use, no state serialization mandate for a self-made firearm, and no state firearm registry of any kind. This is a finding of the ABSENCE of state law, not an affirmative state authorization — federal law fully controls. Under federal law an unlicensed person may make a firearm for personal use (not for sale or distribution) without marking it with a serial number, but it must not be a National Firearms Act item (machine gun, short-barreled rifle/shotgun, suppressor, destructive device) absent ATF approval, must comply with the Undetectable Firearms Act (18 U.S.C. § 922(p)), and the maker must not be prohibited under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). ATF Final Rule 2021R-05F (effective Aug. 24, 2022, upheld in Garland v. VanDerStok, 2025) also treats many partially complete frames/receivers and weapon parts kits as 'firearms' subject to federal licensing, serialization and background-check requirements when sold commercially — a federal constraint on kits, not a New Mexico rule. Related New Mexico provisions that apply to acquiring rather than making a firearm: NMSA 30-7-7.1 (unlawful sale of a firearm without a background check) and NMSA 30-7-7.3 (seven-day waiting period on the sale/transfer of a firearm, effective May 15, 2024; concealed handgun license holders are exempt). NMSA 30-7-3.1, added by Laws 2025, makes knowing possession of an unlawfully obtained 'weapon conversion device' (e.g. an auto sear or 'switch') a third-degree felony — relevant if a home build involves such a device.

No New Mexico statute on point. Verified by full-text search of the official NMSA 1978 compilation (NM One Source / NM Compilation Commission), current through the Second Session of the 57th Legislature (2026): NMSA Chapter 30, Article 7 (Weapons and Explosives) contains no section addressing the manufacture, assembly, serialization, or registration of firearms. The complete Article 7 section list is 30-7-1, 30-7-2, 30-7-2.1, 30-7-2.2, 30-7-2.3, 30-7-2.4, 30-7-3, 30-7-3.1, 30-7-4, 30-7-4.1, 30-7-5 through 30-7-8, and 30-7-10 through 30-7-22 — none reaches self-manufacture. Full-text searches of Chapters 29 and 30 for 'manufacture a firearm,' firearm 'serial number,' 'unserialized,' 'privately manufactured,' 'ghost gun,' 'unfinished frame,' 'receiver blank,' and 'registration of firearms' returned zero hits.

Federal law, gunsmithing schools, and tools →

What we could not confirm

• The $100 initial application fee is confirmed from the NMDPS application checklist and is consistent with the statutory cap in NMSA 29-19-5(B)(2) ('not to exceed one hundred dollars'), but the exact figure is set administratively, not in statute — the version of 10.8.2.11 NMAC reproduced in the DPS booklet states only that fees are non-refundable and does not itself recite an amount. Verify with the CCU at (505) 841-8053 before relying on the exact number.
• There is a genuine textual conflict between statute and rule on the two-year refresher. NMSA 29-19-6(H) requires 'a two-hour refresher firearms training course' taken 22-26 months after issuance. NMAC 10.8.2.15(A)(2), as amended December 9, 2025, describes the two-year requirement as 'a refresher course which consists of range qualification of the licensee's approved caliber of handgun' with no hour count. I could not resolve from a primary source whether the current DPS-approved two-year refresher is two classroom hours, a range qualification only, or both. training.hours reports the initial-course figure (15 hours); treat the refresher hour count as unsettled.
• The fingerprinting fee charged by IdentoGo (the state's vendor) is not published on the DPS pages retrieved; it is paid to the vendor at scheduling, so no amount could be stated from a primary source.
• The instructor directory is published as a Google Sheets document linked from the DPS licensing page rather than hosted on a .gov domain. It is the official state-published list, but the URL is not itself a government address and could be re-issued.
• NMAC 10.8.2.29 makes recognition discretionary with the DPS secretary, and the reciprocity table carries state-specific effective dates (most recent: Wisconsin, 9-3-2025). The table can change without notice; the 20-state 'NM accepts' list should be re-checked against the DPS page before any traveler relies on it.
• The 'no license needed for a concealed loaded handgun in your own vehicle' rule rests on NMSA 30-7-2(A)(2) ('in a private automobile or other private means of conveyance, for lawful protection of the person's or another's person or property') as interpreted by the NMDPS FAQ, which extends it to motorcycles and bicycles. The statutory text conditions the exception on lawful protection of person or property; I found no primary source defining the outer limits of that condition, and school and university premises have separate vehicle carve-outs tied to age 19.
• Regarding the seven-day waiting period (NMSA 30-7-7.3): a source indicated a February 2026 preliminary injunction limited to two named plaintiffs, with the statute otherwise in effect. I did not independently verify that litigation posture from a court order or the Attorney General's office, so treat the injunction detail as unconfirmed. It does not affect concealed-carry licensing.
• homeManufacture is a finding that New Mexico has NO statute on the subject, established by exhaustive full-text search of NMSA Chapters 29 and 30 (current through the 2026 session). I did not search every other NMSA chapter, and I did not check county or municipal ordinances — New Mexico's firearms preemption provision was not independently verified, so local restrictions cannot be ruled out. Federal law (NFA, Undetectable Firearms Act, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), and ATF Rule 2021R-05F on frames/receivers and parts kits) applies in full and is the binding constraint.
• The WebSearch budget for this session was exhausted before I began, so I could not run discovery searches. All findings were obtained by fetching official URLs directly (dps.nm.gov, nmonesource.com, nmcompcomm.us, srca.nm.gov). No aggregator sites were consulted. The main risk from this is that an official page I never discovered — e.g. a separate published fee schedule — was not reviewed.