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Washington Concealed Carry Permit

Washington requires a Concealed Pistol License to carry. It is shall-issue, the minimum age is 21, and no training is required.

Requirements at a glance

Permit name Concealed Pistol License
Issuing authority The chief of police of the municipality or the sheriff of the county in which the applicant resides. Nonresidents may apply to any chief of police or sheriff anywhere in the state. The Washington State Patrol administers background checks and (beginning 2027) training-program certification, but does not itself issue CPLs.
System shall-issue
Minimum age 21 — RCW 9.41.070 makes it a disqualifier that the applicant 'is under twenty-one years of age.' No lower-age or military exception was found in the statute. This same age floor is why Washington's reciprocity statute refuses to recognize any state that licenses people under 21.
Training required No
State fee $36 initial / $32 renewal — the state's own charge, not the total
Valid for 5 years
Processing time 30 days after the application is filed; extended to up to 60 days if the applicant does not have a valid Washington driver's license or Washington state identification card, or has not been a resident of the state for the previous 90 consecutive days.
Fingerprints 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.

State fee $36
FBI fingerprint processing varies — RCW 9.41.070 passes the federal charge through verbatim rather than fixing an amount
Local fingerprinting varies — agencies may charge separately for taking the prints

Thirty-six dollars for five years is among the lowest state fees in the country, and today no training is required. Both halves of that are about to change character: on 1 May 2027, 2025 c 370 makes a certified course with 50 rounds of live fire a condition of the licence, which will add the largest cost in this table to a permit that currently has almost none. No total is given because the FBI charge sitting on top of the $36 is an explicit pass-through that the statute declines to fix.

RCW 9.41.070: original five-year license 'thirty-six dollars plus additional charges imposed by the federal bureau of investigation' (the FBI fingerprint-processing charge is passed through and is not fixed by state law). Renewal 'thirty-two dollars.' A late renewal carries 'ten dollars in addition to the renewal fee.' A replacement license is 'ten dollars to be paid to the issuing authority.' Local agencies may charge separately for fingerprinting services.

How to apply

  1. Confirm you are 21 or older and not disqualified under RCW 9.41.040 or federal law.
  2. Apply in person to the chief of police of the municipality or the sheriff of the county where you live. Nonresidents may apply to any chief of police or sheriff in Washington.
  3. Complete the standard CPL application form prescribed by the Washington State Patrol and present valid photo identification.
  4. Be fingerprinted by the issuing agency for an original license (fingerprints are generally not retaken on renewal).
  5. Pay $36 for an original license plus the FBI's fingerprint-processing charge, or $32 to renew.
  6. The agency runs state and federal criminal history and mental health record checks.
  7. The license must be issued or denied within 30 days, or within 60 days if you lack a Washington driver's license or state ID card or have not been a Washington resident for the previous 90 consecutive days.
  8. The license is valid 5 years from date of issue. Renew before expiration; a late renewal costs an extra $10.
  9. NOTE for applications filed on or after May 1, 2027: you will also need a certificate of completion from a WSP-certified concealed carry firearms safety training program taken within the previous 5 years, including live fire of at least 50 rounds.

Apply on the official Washington site

What disqualifies you

Where to get the required training

Washington does not publish a central list of certified instructors. Confirm directly with The chief of police of the municipality or the sheriff of the county in which the applicant resides. Nonresidents may apply to any chief of police or sheriff anywhere in the state. The Washington State Patrol administers background checks and (beginning 2027) training-program certification, but does not itself issue CPLs. that a course will be accepted before you pay for it.

Training providers in Washington

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 Washington →

Reciprocity

Carrying into Washington

Washington recognizes permits from 10 other jurisdictions.

Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Utah

25 jurisdictions honor a Washington permit

Derived from what each of those states officially publishes.

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

Official Washington reciprocity page Full reciprocity matrix →

Building your own in Washington

Build for personal use
Prohibited
Serial number required
Yes

Washington is among the most restrictive states on home firearm manufacture, and for an ordinary resident the practical answer is NO. Four provisions stack. (1) RCW 9.41.327 makes it unlawful to knowingly or recklessly possess, transport, or receive an unfinished frame or receiver unless the person is a law enforcement agency or a federally licensed importer/manufacturer/dealer, OR the unfinished frame or receiver has been imprinted with a serial number issued by a federal firearms importer, manufacturer, or dealer; it also prohibits manufacturing a frame or receiver using a 3D printer or CNC machine except by authorized federal licensees, and restricts distribution of digital firearm manufacturing code. Penalties escalate from civil infraction to misdemeanor to gross misdemeanor. (2) RCW 9.41.190 makes it a class C felony to manufacture an undetectable firearm, or to manufacture an untraceable firearm with intent to sell it, expressly including manufacture 'by use of a three-dimensional printer, computer numerical control milling machine, or other means.' (3) RCW 9.41.325 makes it a gross misdemeanor, and a class C felony for subsequent knowing violations charged per firearm, to knowingly or recklessly allow, facilitate, aid, or abet the manufacture or assembly of an undetectable or untraceable firearm by a person ineligible to possess firearms or who has filed a valid voluntary waiver of firearm rights. (4) RCW 9.41.390 separately provides that no person in this state may manufacture, import, distribute, sell, or offer for sale any assault weapon as defined by state law. RCW 9.41.010 defines 'untraceable firearm' as a firearm manufactured after July 1, 2019 that is not an antique and cannot be traced by law enforcement by means of a serial number, and 'manufacture' as the fabrication, making, formation, production, or construction of a firearm by manual labor or machinery. Bottom line: there is no general state mechanism to obtain a serial number for a privately made firearm, and the lawful path to building one from an unserialized blank is effectively closed. This is a summary of statutory text, not legal advice.

RCW 9.41.327; RCW 9.41.190; RCW 9.41.325; RCW 9.41.390; definitions at RCW 9.41.010

Federal law, gunsmithing schools, and tools →

Statutes

What we could not confirm

  • TIME-SENSITIVE: RCW 9.41.070 currently exists in two published versions. The training and fingerprint-exemption facts reported here reflect the version 'Effective until May 1, 2027.' On May 1, 2027 the 2025 c 370 version takes effect and adds a mandatory certified training requirement with 50-round live fire. Any republication of this record on or after that date is wrong unless re-verified.
  • I could not load any county sheriff or municipal police CPL application page (King County, Pierce County, Spokane County, and Seattle PD all returned 404, 403, or failed redirects). officialApplicationUrl therefore points to the Washington State Patrol firearms page rather than a live application form. Applications are made in person to the local police chief or sheriff on a standard WSP-prescribed form; I did not confirm a canonical statewide PDF link.
  • Fingerprints: the current statute requires fingerprinting for original licenses; the 2027 version adds an exemption for applicants presenting a valid permit to purchase under RCW 9.41.121. I did not independently confirm whether any fingerprint exemption already exists in the current version beyond renewals, so 'true' reflects original applications.
  • The FBI fingerprint-processing charge added to the $36 original fee is not fixed by state law and I did not confirm its current dollar amount. Local agencies may also levy a separate fingerprinting service fee I did not verify.
  • The exact late-renewal window (the period after expiration during which the $10 late fee applies rather than requiring a new original application) was not quoted verbatim and should be confirmed in RCW 9.41.070 before publication.
  • RCW 9.41.327 was obtained only as a summary, not verbatim statutory text, and its penalty tiers (civil infraction / misdemeanor / gross misdemeanor) are paraphrased. Because this section drives the 'home manufacture not allowed' conclusion, the verbatim text should be read before publishing that conclusion as legal fact.
  • RCW 9.41.325 was reported as amended in 2026 to cover distribution of digital firearm manufacturing code; I did not retrieve the 2026 session law citation for that amendment.
  • The disqualifier list combines RCW 9.41.070's own list with the incorporated eligibility rules of RCW 9.41.040, which I did not fetch directly. Treat it as representative rather than exhaustive.
  • permitSystem is recorded as shall-issue because RCW 9.41.070 directs the issuing authority to act within a fixed deadline on objective criteria and Washington has no good-cause requirement; I did not fetch a separate official statement characterizing the system.
  • instructorRegistryUrl is null because Washington has no certified-instructor registry today; WSP's certification program is described as under development for early 2027. A registry URL will likely exist before the training mandate begins.
  • The WebSearch quota was exhausted before this task began, so all sourcing was done by fetching known official URLs directly. An official Washington page I did not think to guess could contain relevant updates, notably any 2026 legislation affecting CPLs not yet folded into the RCW pages I read.

Sources