Updated August 17, 2026. Quick answer: In California, whether an heir needs a state credential depends on a line the statute itself draws, and the line is the answer; on the dealer question, it depends, and in practice it depends on who the heir is rather than on what the firearm is; and on inheritance itself, the code names inheritance in so many words and carves it out. Something has to be filed: 30 days, counted from the date the recipient takes possession of the firearm. Every answer below is quoted from California’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 California law settles, in four lines
| Question | What the code says | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Does the heir need a state permit, licence or card? | Depends | Cal. Penal Code §§ 31615(a)(1), 27875(a)(4), 27920(a)(2)(B), 27925(b), 31700(b) |
| Does the acquisition have to be reported? | Yes — 30 days | Cal. Penal Code §§ 27875(a)(3), 27920(a)(1)-(2)(A) |
| Does it have to go through a licensed dealer? | Depends | Cal. Penal Code §§ 27545, 27875(a), 27920(a) |
| Does the statute name inheritance at all? | Named expressly | Cal. Penal Code §§ 27875(a), 27920(a), 27925(a) |
What this covers. An ordinary estate transfer in California: 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
Whether an heir needs a state credential depends on a line the statute itself draws, and the line is the answer. In California that answer reads depends. The section that settles it is quoted here rather than paraphrased:
Purchase or receive any firearm, except an antique firearm, without a valid firearm safety certificate, except that in the case of a handgun, an unexpired handgun safety certificate may be used.
— Cal. Penal Code §§ 31615(a)(1), 27875(a)(4), 27920(a)(2)(B), 27925(b), 31700(b)
Does anyone have to be told, and by when
30 days, and the number is the smaller half of the answer. What it counts from is the date the recipient takes possession of the firearm — which is the part a comparison table drops and the part that decides whether the deadline has already passed. It goes to California Department of Justice.
the person shall, within 30 days of taking possession, submit a report to the Department of Justice, in a manner prescribed by the department, that includes information concerning the individual taking possession of the firearm, how title or possession was obtained and from whom, and a description of the firearm in question.
Does it have to go through a licensed dealer
It depends, and in practice it depends on who the heir is rather than on what the firearm is. 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, and in California the section that settles it reads:
Section 27545 does not apply to a person who takes title or possession of a firearm by operation of law if the person is not prohibited by state or federal law from possessing, receiving, owning, or purchasing a firearm and all of the following conditions are met:
What the code says about inheritance itself
The code names inheritance in so many words and carves it out. An express carve-out is worth more than the convenience it buys today: it is a decision somebody made about heirs, and it survives the next amendment to the rule it sits in.
Section 27545 does not apply to the transfer of a firearm by gift, bequest, intestate succession, or other means from one individual to another, if all of the following requirements are met:
What is specific to California
- “Immediate family” is narrower in California than the phrase sounds. The definition the inheritance section runs on reaches parent-and-child and grandparent-and-grandchild and stops there, so a sibling or a surviving spouse is not in it and takes the other pathway. Cal. Penal Code §§ 31615(a)(1), 27875(a)(4), 27920(a)(2)(B), 27925(b), 31700(b)
- An executor who is also an heir crosses a line the statute draws explicitly: holding the firearm in a representative capacity is exempt, and moving it into personal ownership is the step that requires the safety certificate. Cal. Penal Code §§ 31615(a)(1), 27875(a)(4), 27920(a)(2)(B), 27925(b), 31700(b)
- The 30-day report is filed by the person who ends up with the firearm, and both inheritance pathways carry it. Cal. Penal Code §§ 27875(a)(3), 27920(a)(1)-(2)(A)
- There is a second California section that exempts an estate distribution from the one-firearm-per-30-days limit. It is a different statute answering a different question, and it does not decide whether a dealer is needed. Cal. Penal Code §§ 27545, 27875(a), 27920(a)
What this page does not tell you
- The permit answer is a genuine “it depends”. It is recorded that way because the statute draws a line rather than giving one answer, and flattening it to yes or no would be wrong in half the cases.
- 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. Several of these states let a city license or register firearms separately, and 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: 204 cells, 201 of them read from a state’s own code and 3 from an official state publication, with 0 resting on a secondary source of any kind. 175 quotations were machine-checked against the bytes of the page each came from, with 0 failures. 22 of the 204 cells are flagged because the text is verbatim but the date of the copy it came from could not be confirmed at the state’s own site.
| What it supports | Section | Tier | Read on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Does the heir need a state permit, licence or card? | Cal. Penal Code §§ 31615(a)(1), 27875(a)(4), 27920(a)(2)(B), 27925(b), 31700(b) | statute | 2026-08-17 |
| Does the acquisition have to be reported? | Cal. Penal Code §§ 27875(a)(3), 27920(a)(1)-(2)(A) | statute | 2026-08-17 |
| Does it have to go through a licensed dealer? | Cal. Penal Code §§ 27545, 27875(a), 27920(a) | statute | 2026-08-17 |
| Does the statute name inheritance at all? | Cal. Penal Code §§ 27875(a), 27920(a), 27925(a) | statute | 2026-08-17 |
The other states with their own page: Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Hawaii, Connecticut, Maryland, Washington, Michigan, Texas. All 51 jurisdictions are in the by-state table.
General consumer information, not legal advice. State codes are as published by the cited source on 2026-08-17 and change without notice; the statute and a lawyer in the state govern.