Updated August 26, 2026. Quick answer: the $200 tax everyone quotes is no longer the law for the items most gun trusts actually hold. Since 1 January 2026 the National Firearms Act transfer tax and making tax are $0 for every NFA firearm except a machinegun or a destructive device — so a suppressor, a short-barrelled rifle or a short-barrelled shotgun now moves at no tax at all. What did not change is the process. And the only per-trust dollar figure any government has ever published is ATF’s own $218.71; what a lawyer charges to draft one is not published anywhere, so this page does not print a number for it.
The tax, before and now
The rate lives in 26 U.S.C. §5811 (transfer) and §5821 (making). Both subsections were replaced outright by Pub. L. 119-21, §70436, the section the enrolled law heads Reduction of Transfer and Manufacturing Taxes for Certain Devices, enacted 4 July 2025.
| Item | Transfer tax before | Transfer tax now |
|---|---|---|
| Suppressor / silencer | $200 | $0 |
| Short-barrelled rifle | $200 | $0 |
| Short-barrelled shotgun | $200 | $0 |
| Any other weapon (AOW) | $5 | $0 |
| Machinegun | $200 | $200 |
| Destructive device | $200 | $200 |
The “before” column is the repealed text itself, which the Code still prints as an amendment note: “There shall be levied, collected, and paid on firearms transferred a tax at the rate of $200 for each firearm transferred, except, the transfer tax on any firearm classified as any other weapon under section 5845(e) shall be at the rate of $5 for each such firearm transferred.” The rate as the regulation now states it: “The transfer tax imposed with respect to NFA firearms transferred within the United States is at the rate of— (1) $200 for each firearm transferred, in the case of a machine gun or a destructive device; and (2) $0 for any firearm transferred that is not described in paragraph (a)(1) of this section.”
Every item in the table is an NFA firearm because the statute itself lists them — 26 U.S.C. §5845(a) names short-barrelled shotguns and rifles, any other weapons, machineguns, destructive devices and, at paragraph (7), “any silencer”.
Why the date is 1 January 2026 and not July 2025
The law was enacted on 4 July 2025, but it did not take effect then. Its own effective-date subsection reads: “The amendments made by this section shall apply to calendar quarters beginning more than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act.”
“Calendar quarters beginning more than 90 days after” is the part that moves the date. The quarter beginning 1 October 2025 starts 89 days after enactment, which is not more than 90, so it does not qualify. The next quarter, beginning 1 January 2026, starts 181 days after, and it does. ATF reached the same date in writing: “The OBBBA specified that the tax reduction amendments to the NFA would be effective on January 1, 2026, at which point the NFA making and transfer taxes for NFA firearms other than machine guns and destructive devices would be reduced to $0.”
ATF then conformed its own regulations, four months after the statute had already changed: Changes to National Firearms Act Tax Remittance Provisions, 91 FR 25112 (8 May 2026), effective 10 June 2026. That is the amendment the source note under 27 C.F.R. §479.82 now carries: ATF 2025R-45F, 91 FR 25118, May 8, 2026.
The two page numbers are not a contradiction: the rule runs 25112 to 25118, and the regulation’s source note cites the page the amendatory text sits on, which is its last.
$0 tax is not $0 process
This is the sentence to read twice, and it is ATF’s, in the same rule: “Although ATF is revising its rule to reflect that OBBBA reduced the tax amount for these NFA firearms to $0, all other regulatory provisions of the NFA application and registration process remain in full force and effect.”
So the application, the registration, the approval wait, the photograph, the fingerprint cards and the notification to your chief law enforcement officer are all exactly where they were. The remittance line on the form is what changed. For a trust that means the real cost was never mostly the tax — it was the responsible-person paperwork, which multiplies by every trustee.
The one per-trust figure a government has published
When ATF wrote the 41F rule it had to price its own paperwork, and it did: “Accordingly, the estimated cost increase per trust or legal entity is $218.71 (cost of increase ($25,333,317) / number of trusts and legal entities (115,829)).”
That is $218.71 per trust or legal entity, per year, in 2016 dollars, for the identification and notification burden alone — and it is an agency estimate of a regulatory burden, not a price anyone quoted or charged. It is published here because it is the only such figure that exists, and because it reproduces: $25,333,317 divided by 115,829 entities is $218.71.
What it costs when the owner dies
27 C.F.R. §479.90a splits the estate into two limbs, and almost everything written about it covers only the first. To a beneficiary, the executor files the tax-exempt Form 5. To anyone else: “If there are no beneficiaries of the estate or the beneficiaries do not wish to possess the registered firearm, the executor will dispose of the property outside the estate (i.e., to a non-beneficiary).” “The executor shall file an ATF Form 4 (5320.4), Application for Tax Paid Transfer and Registration of Firearm, in accordance with § 479.84.”
Form 4 is the tax-paid application, so before 2026 that second limb cost $200 where the first cost nothing. Since 1 January 2026 both limbs cost the same $0 for a suppressor or a short-barrelled rifle, and the $200 survives on the Form 4 limb only for a machinegun or a destructive device. The paperwork still differs: paragraph (c) requires the executor to attach “documentation of the person’s appointment as executor, administrator, personal representative, or as an authorized person, a copy of the decedent’s death certificate, a copy of the will (if any), any other evidence of the person’s authority to dispose of property, and any other document relating to, or affecting the disposition of firearms from the estate.”
The published way to spend less
Paragraphs (c) of §479.63 and §479.85 carry the only cost relief either section offers: “If the applicant entity has had an application approved as a maker or transferee within the preceding 24 months, and there has been no change to the documentation previously provided, the entity may provide a certification that the information has not been changed since the prior approval and shall identify the application for which the documentation had been submitted by form number, serial number, and date approved.”
A trust that files more than once inside two years pays the fingerprinting and photograph cost once, not every time — provided nothing about the entity or its responsible persons has changed.
The number nobody publishes
The question most people mean by what does a gun trust cost is what a lawyer charges to draft one, and the honest answer is that no primary source publishes it. There is no federal fee schedule, no state bar tariff, and no government survey of NFA trust drafting fees. Figures circulate, and they come from firms quoting themselves.
We will not repeat one. A number with no source behind it reads exactly like a number with one, which is the problem. What can be said without inventing anything: the drafting is the part that has to be right, because the responsible-person consequences follow from who the instrument empowers, and a generic trust form does not address that at all.
What this page does not tell you
- An attorney fee. Not published by any primary source — see above.
- A processing time. Same reason.
- Fingerprinting and photograph prices. These vary by whoever takes them; ATF’s 41F estimate prices its own burden and is not a market price, so it is reported as what it is.
- State taxes and permits. The $0 above is the federal NFA tax only.
- ATF’s components do not add up. The 41F rule breaks its $25,333,317 total into two parts that sum to $25,333,923, a $606 difference. The total and the per-entity figure reproduce exactly, so only those are printed above; the components are not.
Sources
- 26 U.S.C. §5811, §5821, §5845 — Office of the Law Revision Counsel, current through the prelim edition read 2026-08-26.
- Pub. L. 119-21, §70436 — enrolled public law, govinfo; and the effective-date note printed under 26 U.S.C. §4182.
- 27 C.F.R. §479.63, §479.82, §479.85, §479.90a — official eCFR, title 27 issue of 2026-08-24.
- Changes to National Firearms Act Tax Remittance Provisions, 91 FR 25112 (8 May 2026) — Federal Register full text.
- Machineguns, Destructive Devices and Certain Other Firearms; Background Checks for Responsible Persons of a Trust or Legal Entity With Respect To Making or Transferring a Firearm, 81 FR 2658 (15 January 2016) — Federal Register full text.
Federal statutes read from the Office of the Law Revision Counsel; regulations from the official eCFR and the GPO edition of the Code of Federal Regulations; rules from the Federal Register. General information, not legal advice. State law adds requirements this page does not enumerate, and it varies.