Inheriting a Firearm in the District of Columbia: Permit, Report, Dealer and What the Code Says About Inheritance

Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: The District of Columbia is the strictest jurisdiction in this table. An heir who lives in D.C. must obtain a firearm registration certificate, the same eligibility-screened certificate anyone in the District needs to possess a firearm, before the executor may hand it over. The executor also has an affirmative duty to notify the police of the death within 30 days, but that clock runs from the executor’s own appointment, not from the date the decedent died. No licensed dealer is involved; D.C. runs its own direct estate-to-heir registration procedure in a subchapter written specifically for firearms in estates. An heir who lives outside D.C. follows a lighter notice-only path instead. Every answer below is quoted from the District’s own code with the section named and linked.

What the District of Columbia law settles, in four lines

What this covers. An ordinary estate transfer in the District of Columbia: the person who died and the person inheriting are in the same jurisdiction, 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

Yes, for an heir who lives in the District. D.C. runs a general firearm-registration system: no one may possess a firearm in the District without a valid registration certificate, issued by the Chief of Police after an eligibility review (age, criminal history, mental health, among other findings). The estate-specific regulation applies that requirement directly to inheritance: an executor or administrator may not distribute the firearm to an heir who lives in the District until that heir has obtained the registration certificate in their own name.

the executor or administrator shall not distribute any firearm in an estate to an heir or legatee that resides in the district unless the person to inherit or receive the firearm has first obtained a valid registration certification for the firearm.

Source: D.C. Official Code § 7-2502.01(a); 24 DCMR § 2319.6

The rule changes for an heir who lives outside the District. The same regulation gives an out-of-District heir a different path: the executor or administrator only has to notify the Firearm Registration Section in writing that the firearm has been distributed to someone living outside D.C. That heir does not need a D.C. registration certificate before receiving it (though the receiving state’s own law still applies).

Does anyone have to be told, and by when

Yes, and the 30-day clock does not start at death. D.C. dedicates an entire subchapter of its firearms code, Subchapter III, “Estates Containing Firearms,” to exactly this situation. The executor or administrator must notify the Chief of Police’s Firearm Registration Section within 30 days, but that window runs from the executor’s own appointment or qualification to act, whichever happens first, not from the date the decedent died. An estate that takes months to open a probate case still gets the full 30 days from the day the executor is actually appointed.

the executor or administrator of an estate containing a firearm shall notify the chief of the death of the decedent within 30 days of his appointment or qualification, whichever is earlier.

Source: D.C. Official Code § 7-2503.01(a); 24 DCMR § 2319.1

The notice must include the executor or administrator’s name, address and phone number; the firearm’s registration number if known or a description with make, model and serial number; and the decedent’s name and address. A second, separate duty applies once the firearm is actually handed to the heir: the executor must also notify the Chief in writing of that transfer within 2 business days, layered on top of the 30-day initial notice, not a replacement for it.

Does it have to go through a licensed dealer

No. D.C.’s ordinary private-sale law routes transfers through a licensed dealer, but the estate-specific regulation sets up a separate, direct procedure: once the heir holds the registration certificate described above, the executor or administrator distributes the firearm straight to them. No licensed dealer appears anywhere in that estate-to-heir step.

What the code says about inheritance itself

Named expressly, but the carve-out is about liability, not about skipping registration. D.C. Official Code § 7-2503.01, inside a subchapter titled “Estates Containing Firearms,” says so in terms: while an estate holds a firearm, the executor or administrator takes on the decedent’s own duties under the firearms law, but is shielded from the criminal penalty that would otherwise attach to holding an unregistered firearm during that window.

until the lawful distribution of such firearm to an heir or legatee or the lawful sale, transfer, or disposition of the firearm by the estate, the executor or administrator of such estate shall be charged with the duties and obligations which would have been imposed by this unit upon the decedent, if the decedent were still alive; provided, that such executor or administrator shall not be liable to the criminal penalties of § 7-2507.06.

Source: D.C. Official Code § 7-2503.01(b)

What it does not do is waive the heir’s own registration duty described above, or route the transfer through the ordinary dealer-sale channel. It replaces that channel with the direct estate-to-heir registration procedure, and protects the executor from criminal exposure for lawfully holding the firearm in the meantime.

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 beyond what is cited above. Where a code is silent or a question is unresolved, this page reports that 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, and the four cells for the District of Columbia 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.