Inheriting a Firearm in South Dakota: Permit, Report, Dealer and What the Code Says About Inheritance

Updated September 3, 2026. Quick answer: In South Dakota, an ordinary heir does not need a state permit, licence or card to receive or possess the firearm, and the acquisition does not have to be reported to any state agency. South Dakota has no dealer-mediated background-check law for private transfers at all, so there is no such mandate for a bequest to be exempt from. The statute does not name inheritance, bequest or intestate succession anywhere in the sections that govern this. Every answer below is quoted from South Dakota’s own code with the section named and linked, because this is a subject where being roughly right is not a category that exists.

What South Dakota law settles, in four lines

What this covers. An ordinary estate transfer in South Dakota: the person who died and the person inheriting are in the same state, and the firearm is an ordinary rifle, shotgun, pistol or revolver. Machine guns, suppressors, short-barrelled rifles and anything else registered under the National Firearms Act run on a separate federal track that is not this page, and neither is moving a firearm across a state line. The federal layer is set out separately.

Does the heir need a permit, licence or card

No. South Dakota does not condition receiving or possessing an inherited firearm on a state permit, licence or card.

The issuance of a permit to carry a concealed pistol under this chapter does not impose a general prohibition on the carrying of a pistol without a permit.

Source: S.D. Codified Laws § 23-7-7

Does anyone have to be told, and by when

No. Nothing in South Dakota’s code requires the acquisition to be reported or registered with a state or local agency.

No provision was found imposing this requirement. The corpus searched: S.D. Codified Laws Chapter 22-14 (full chapter as in force).

Does it have to go through a licensed dealer

South Dakota has no dealer-mediated background-check law for private transfers at all, so there is no such mandate for a bequest to be exempt from. The claim that an inherited firearm always has to be transferred through a licensed dealer is not true as a flat statement in any state in this table.

No provision was found. The corpus searched: S.D. Codified Laws Chapter 22-14 (full chapter as in force).

What the code says about inheritance itself

The statute does not name inheritance, bequest or intestate succession anywhere in the sections that govern this.

No express carve-out was found. The corpus searched: S.D. Codified Laws Chapter 22-14 and Chapter 23-7 (full text as in force).

What this page does not tell you

• This is what the statute says, not what a court or a police department has done with it. No case law and no agency guidance was read. Where a code is silent, this page reports silence rather than filling it in.
• City and county rules sit on top and are not here. A local rule can add a step the state code does not mention.
• Who may possess is a separate question from how it transfers. A federal or state bar on possession (a felony conviction, a protective order, an involuntary commitment) attaches to the person and reaches an inherited firearm exactly as it reaches a bought one.
• A gun trust is a different mechanism and is covered separately. What a gun trust does and does not do is its own question, and it is mostly a federal one.
• This is general information, not legal advice. On this subject a wrong step is not a paperwork problem, so the sections are linked for you to read and a probate lawyer in the state is the right next call if anything here is close.

Sources

Every answer on this page comes out of a 51-jurisdiction table built from statute text. South Dakota’s four cells are individually cited below.

All 51 jurisdictions are in the by-state table, with the same four cells for every state side by side.

General consumer information, not legal advice. State codes are as published by the cited source and change without notice; the statute and a lawyer in the state govern.