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North Carolina Concealed Carry Permit

North Carolina requires a Concealed Handgun Permit 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 Handgun Permit
Issuing authority Sheriff of the county in which the applicant resides (N.C. county sheriffs). The N.C. Department of Justice / Criminal Justice Education and Training Standards Commission sets the training-course and instructor standards and runs the annual reciprocity inquiry, but does not issue permits.
System shall-issue
Minimum age 21 — G.S. 14-415.12(a)(2) requires the applicant to be "21 years of age or older." There is no lower-age tier and no 18-20 military exception in the NC concealed handgun permit statute. 2025 SB 50 would have set an 18+ permitless standard but is not law (see permitlessCarry notes).
Training required Yes — 8 hours, live fire required
State fee $80 initial / $75 renewal — the state's own charge, not the total
Valid for 5 years
Processing time Up to 45 days. G.S. 14-415.15 provides the sheriff "shall either issue or deny the permit" within 45 days of receipt of the items required by G.S. 14-415.13 and the applicant's mental health/capacity records. The 45-day clock does not start until the complete application, fingerprints and records release are received.
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 $80
Fingerprinting $10
Training course $75–$250 (private instructor)
Realistic total $165–$340

G.S. 14-415.19 sets $80, and the sheriff's fingerprint-processing fee is capped at $10, so the government side cannot exceed $90. The 8-hour course required by 12 NCAC 09F .0102 — two hours of legal instruction, a written examination and live fire — is bought privately and is the larger half of the bill. Retired law enforcement officers and honorably discharged veterans pay $45 rather than $80.

G.S. 14-415.19: application fee $80.00; renewal fee $75.00; duplicate permit $15.00. An additional fingerprint-processing fee 'not to exceed ten dollars ($10.00)' is collected by the sheriff, so realistic initial out-of-pocket is about $90, plus the separate private cost of the 8-hour training course (not set by statute). Reduced fees of $45.00 application / $40.00 renewal apply to retired sworn law enforcement officers (subsec. (a1)) and, under subsec. (a2), to 'a person who was discharged honorably or under general honorable conditions from military service in the Armed Forces of the United States.' Fees are paid to the sheriff and transmitted to the county finance officer; $45 per application and $40 per renewal is remitted to the N.C. Department of Public Safety for the background check.

How to apply

  1. Complete an approved 8-hour 'Concealed Carry Handgun Training' course taught in person by a Commission-certified CCH instructor, including live fire and the written legal-issues examination, and obtain the original numbered certificate of completion bearing the raised seal of the Commission (G.S. 14-415.12(a)(4); 12 NCAC 09F .0102, .0105).
  2. Apply to the sheriff of the county in which you reside - not any other county and not a state agency (G.S. 14-415.13(a)).
  3. Complete the sheriff's application form under oath. There is no single statewide form; each sheriff provides its own, and many NC counties use an online scheduling/intake portal.
  4. Pay the nonrefundable $80 application fee (or $45 if a retired sworn LEO or honorably discharged veteran), plus a fingerprint-processing fee of up to $10.
  5. Submit a full set of fingerprints administered by the sheriff (G.S. 14-415.13(a)(3)).
  6. Sign the release, on a form prescribed by the Administrative Office of the Courts, authorizing disclosure to the sheriff of any record concerning mental health or capacity (G.S. 14-415.13(a)(5)).
  7. Provide the original certificate of completion of the approved course (G.S. 14-415.13(a)(4)).
  8. Wait up to 45 days for issuance or denial (G.S. 14-415.15). The permit is valid 5 years statewide.
  9. Once permitted: carry the permit and valid identification whenever carrying concealed, disclose to any approached law enforcement officer that you hold a permit and are carrying, and notify the issuing sheriff of any address change within 30 days (G.S. 14-415.11).
  10. Renew by applying to the sheriff within the 90-day period before expiration; the sheriff may waive retaking the training course, and no new fingerprints are required if prints were submitted to the SBI after June 30, 2001 on AFIS (G.S. 14-415.16).

Apply on the official North Carolina site

What disqualifies you

Where to get the required training

North Carolina does not publish a central list of certified instructors. Confirm directly with Sheriff of the county in which the applicant resides (N.C. county sheriffs). The N.C. Department of Justice / Criminal Justice Education and Training Standards Commission sets the training-course and instructor standards and runs the annual reciprocity inquiry, but does not issue permits. that a course will be accepted before you pay for it.

Training providers in North Carolina

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 North Carolina →

Reciprocity

Carrying into North Carolina

North Carolina recognizes permits from 49 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, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, 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, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Wyoming

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

Official North Carolina reciprocity page Full reciprocity matrix →

Building your own in North Carolina

Build for personal use
Allowed
Serial number required
No

North Carolina has NO state statute prohibiting an otherwise non-prohibited adult from building a firearm for personal use, and NO state statute requiring a serial number, state registration, or marking on a self-made firearm. NC has not enacted a 'ghost gun' / unserialized-firearm law. The two nearby statutes do not change this: (1) G.S. 14-409 makes it unlawful to 'manufacture, sell, give away, dispose of, use or possess machine guns, submachine guns' and similar automatic weapons, subject to exceptions for lawful possession under 26 U.S.C. Chapter 53 with a sheriff permit, for scientific/experimental purposes, and for pre-existing historical relics - so building a machine gun is barred, but ordinary semiautomatic and manually operated firearms are untouched. (2) G.S. 14-160.2 only prohibits altering, defacing, destroying or removing a permanent serial number or other identification mark with intent to conceal identity, and possessing a firearm whose mark has been so altered; it presupposes a mark already exists and does not mandate that one be applied in the first instance. Article 53 of Chapter 14 (G.S. 14-409.1 through 14-409.9) was repealed in its entirety by S.L. 1995, c. 487, s. 4 and contains nothing on the subject. FEDERAL LAW STILL CONTROLS AND IS THE BINDING CONSTRAINT: a person may build a firearm for personal use without a license, but may not manufacture for sale or distribution without an FFL, may not build an NFA item without prior ATF approval, may not build an undetectable firearm (18 U.S.C. 922(p)), and may not build one at all if prohibited under 18 U.S.C. 922(g). ATF's 2022 frame-or-receiver rule (2021R-05F) governs commercially sold kits. Verify current federal requirements independently; this field describes NORTH CAROLINA law only.

N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-409 (machine guns); § 14-160.2 (alteration of identification marks); no NC statute addresses self-manufacture or serialization of ordinary firearms

Federal law, gunsmithing schools, and tools →

Statutes

What we could not confirm

  • PENDING LEGAL CHANGE - RECHECK BEFORE RELYING: 2025 SB 50 ('Freedom to Carry NC') is one House vote away from making NC a permitless-carry state at 18+. The Senate overrode the veto 7/29/2025; the House has repeatedly calendared and withdrawn the override, most recently withdrawing an item calendared for 4/21/2026. As of the official bill page the last recorded action is 4/6/2026 and no session-law number has been assigned, so it is NOT law. I could not independently confirm activity between April 2026 and 2026-08-10 because this session's web-search budget was exhausted; verification rests on the NCGA bill-history page plus the fact that the published texts of G.S. 14-269 and G.S. 14-415.11 still show 2023 as their most recent amendments. If the House overrides, permitlessCarry.allowed flips to true.
  • G.S. 14-415.24 says a permit 'issued by another STATE' is valid in NC. Neither the statute nor the NC DOJ page addresses the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands or other territories, so DC and territorial permits are of uncertain status in NC. I did not list them in reciprocity.honors and found no official NC statement resolving the question.
  • The NC DOJ reciprocity page carries no visible last-updated date; its references are dated 2022 and 2024. Its list of ~17 states is the OUTBOUND direction (states honoring NC permits) and I deliberately excluded it from reciprocity.honors, but I could not confirm how recently that outbound list was refreshed.
  • There is no single statewide application form or online application portal. G.S. 14-415.13(a)(1) requires an application 'on a form provided by the sheriff,' so the process is county-by-county; the URL given for officialApplicationUrl is the governing statute rather than an actual form. Applicants must go to their own county sheriff's office.
  • instructorRegistryUrl is null: I could not locate any official NC-published, publicly browsable list of certified Concealed Carry Handgun instructors. NC DOJ offers only a general 'Officer Search: Certification Status' tool (https://ncdoj.gov/officer-search/), which is not confirmed to cover CCH instructors. The NC DOJ instructor page also states that processing of NEW CCH instructor applications is on hold pending administrative code changes, with renewals continuing through the Acadis Portal - I could not determine the current status or end date of that hold, or whether it has reduced course availability.
  • nonResidentPermitAvailable is set to false based on G.S. 14-415.12(a)(1) (30-day NC residency) and G.S. 14-415.13(a) (apply to the sheriff of the county 'in which the person resides'). I did not separately verify how active-duty military personnel stationed in North Carolina but domiciled elsewhere are treated for residency purposes.
  • The 8-hour figure comes from the administrative rule (12 NCAC 09F .0102, last amended effective October 1, 2019), not from the statute. A 2024 CJETS rules package amended .0103, .0104 and .0105 but did not touch .0102; I verified .0102's current text on the official NCAC site and it still reads 'eight hours,' but I could not rule out a post-2024 rulemaking not yet reflected on that site.
  • permitSystem is recorded as shall-issue on the strength of G.S. 14-415.11's 'The sheriff shall issue a permit...' language. NC retains a narrow discretionary denial ground and an appeal path to district court; I did not research how that discretion is applied in practice across the 100 county sheriffs.
  • The disqualifier list is a condensed rendering of G.S. 14-415.12(b), which is long and cross-references numerous specific Chapter 14 offenses and federal prohibitors. Read the full statute before relying on it in any individual case.
  • homeManufacture reflects the ABSENCE of any NC statute on point - a negative finding. I confirmed Article 53 is fully repealed, that G.S. 14-409 reaches only machine guns/submachine guns, and that G.S. 14-160.2 punishes only removal of an existing mark. I did not exhaustively search every article of Chapter 14 or any local ordinances, and federal law (including ATF rule 2021R-05F) imposes requirements this field does not describe.

Sources