Pennsylvania Concealed Carry Permit

Pennsylvania has no statute prohibiting a non-prohibited adult from building a firearm for personal use, and no statute requiring a serial number or state registration on a self-made firearm. Verified by full-text review of Chapter 61 (Uniform Firearms Act): the words 'untraceable', 'unfinished', 'self-manufactured', 'personally made' and 'ghost' appear nowhere in the chapter, and no serialization mandate exists. Manufacture is restricted only as to PROHIBITED PERSONS — § 6105 is titled 'persons not to possess, use, manufacture, control, sell or transfer firearms', so a person disqualified under § 6105 may not manufacture one. No registry is permitted: § 6111.4 provides that 'nothing in this chapter shall be construed to allow any government or law enforcement agency or any agent thereof to create, maintain or operate any registry of firearm ownership within this Commonwealth,' expressly including frames and receivers. So there is no state registration of any firearm, homemade or not. IMPORTANT ADJACENT FELONY: § 6110.2 makes it a FELONY OF THE SECOND DEGREE to possess a firearm whose manufacturer's number integral to the frame or receiver 'has had ... altered, changed, removed or obliterated.' By its terms this addresses defacing an existing number rather than a firearm that never bore one, but that distinction as applied to homemade firearms is a matter of Pennsylvania case law that was not confirmed against a primary source here. Do not remove or deface any existing serial number. § 6120 preempts counties and municipalities from regulating lawful firearm ownership, possession, transfer or transportation, which has been the basis for challenges to local ghost-gun ordinances (e.g. Philadelphia). SEPARATELY, FEDERAL LAW STILL APPLIES and is not addressed by any of the above: making a firearm for personal use without a license is generally permissible federally, but ATF Final Rule 2021R-05F treats certain unfinished frames/receivers and parts kits as firearms requiring serialization and a licensed transfer, the Undetectable Firearms Act applies, and building with intent to sell requires an FFL. State silence is not federal permission.

18 Pa.C.S. §§ 6105, 6110.2, 6111.4; see also 18 Pa.C.S. § 6120

Federal law, gunsmithing schools, and tools →

What we could not confirm

• ARIZONA, CONNECTICUT and RHODE ISLAND reciprocity is internally contradicted by the AG's own page: each shows a 'Yes' badge answering whether that state's residents may carry in PA, while the table immediately beneath reports 'No' for both of the only two legal bases (written agreement under § 6109(k) and statutory recognition under § 6106(b)(15)), and none has an agreement PDF. I could not resolve this from a primary source. They are included in honors on the strength of the headline answer, but relying on them risks a third-degree felony. This is the single largest unresolved item.
• The AG reciprocity page displays no last-updated or effective date anywhere in its markup, so I cannot confirm how current the reciprocity determinations are. Retrieved 2026-08-10.
• Fee discrepancy between two official state sources: 18 Pa.C.S. § 6109(h) yields $20 ($19 license fee stated to be 'in addition to' the $1 Firearms License Validation System fee), while the PSP Firearms Information page describes the total as $19.00 including the $1 to PSP. I reported $20 as the statutory result but did not resolve which the sheriffs actually collect in every county.
• fingerprintsRequired is set false because 18 Pa.C.S. § 6109 contains no fingerprint requirement (the word does not appear in the section). I did not verify whether any individual county sheriff imposes fingerprinting or photographing as a local practice.
• South Carolina: the AG page hosts a PA–SC reciprocity agreement file yet answers 'No' to whether SC residents may carry in PA. I could not confirm from a primary source whether that agreement was terminated, is one-directional, or the page is stale. SC is excluded from honors per the page's answer.
• The status of 18 Pa.C.S. § 6108 (Philadelphia public-street carry) is unsettled following Commonwealth v. Sumpter, 340 A.3d 977 (Pa. Super. 2025), which held it unconstitutional as applied. I read the General Assembly's own annotation of that holding but did not read the opinion, and cannot state how Philadelphia is currently enforcing it.
• Open carry outside Philadelphia: I am relying on the absence of any prohibiting statute in Chapter 61 rather than an affirmative official statement that open carry is lawful. PSP does not address open carry on its page. Treat the open-carry point as inference from statutory silence, not a confirmed official position.
• Home manufacture: PA statutes are silent, which I read as permissive, but I could not confirm from a primary source how Pennsylvania courts apply § 6110.2 (altered manufacturer's number, a second-degree felony) to a homemade firearm that never bore a serial number. Anyone building a firearm in PA should get counsel on this specific point.
• permitSystem is reported as shall-issue, but 18 Pa.C.S. § 6109(e)(1)(i) lets a sheriff deny on 'character and reputation' grounds, which is genuine discretion. Pennsylvania does not fit the shall-issue label as cleanly as most shall-issue states.
• instructorRegistryUrl is null because Pennsylvania requires no training and therefore certifies no instructors. I confirmed the absence of a training requirement in the statute but did not find an official page affirmatively stating that no instructor registry exists.