Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: Nebraska’s Handgun Certificate of Purchase Act reaches inheritance directly, and the exemption that usually gets an heir out of it is a family-relationship exemption, not an inheritance-specific one. An heir inheriting a handgun who is a spouse, sibling, parent, child, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew or grandparent of the decedent does not need the certificate. An heir outside that list, a cousin, great-grandchild, in-law or unrelated legatee, must obtain a police- or sheriff-issued certificate before lawfully receiving the handgun, exactly as a purchaser would. Nothing in the statute reports back to any agency after the fact, and no licensed dealer is involved at any point. An ordinary long gun carries none of this. Every answer below is quoted from Nebraska’s own statutes with the section named and linked.
What Nebraska law settles, in four lines
| Question | What the code says | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Does the heir need a state permit, licence or card? | Conditional, handguns only, unless the heir is close family | Neb. Rev. Stat. § 69-2403(1)(a), (2)(e); § 69-2404 |
| Does the acquisition have to be reported? | No | Neb. Rev. Stat. § 69-2407 |
| Does it have to go through a licensed dealer? | No | Neb. Rev. Stat. § 69-2403(2)(a), 69-2404, 69-2405 |
| Does the statute name inheritance at all? | Partial, a general family exemption, not an inheritance-specific one | Neb. Rev. Stat. § 69-2403(2)(e) |
What this covers. An ordinary estate transfer in Nebraska: 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
Nebraska’s Handgun Certificate of Purchase Act reaches a bequest, not just a commercial sale. The statute requires a certificate, issued by the local chief of police or sheriff after a criminal-history check and valid for three years, before a person may “purchase, lease, rent, or receive transfer of” a handgun. That verb list is not limited to a sale; on its plain text it reaches an heir receiving a handgun by will or intestate succession exactly as it reaches a buyer.
a person shall not: (a) Purchase, lease, rent, or receive transfer of a handgun until he or she has obtained a certificate in accordance with section 69-2404
A family exemption removes the requirement for a transfer between a person and their spouse, sibling, parent, child, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew or grandparent, read on both sides of the relationship. An heir outside that list, a cousin, a great-grandchild, an in-law or an unrelated legatee, must obtain the certificate before lawfully receiving an inherited handgun. An ordinary long gun (outside the certificate law’s definition of “handgun”) carries no permit requirement of any kind for any heir.
Does anyone have to be told, and by when
No. Nebraska’s control is a prospective certificate, not a per-transaction report. Once issued, a certificate authorizes its holder to acquire any number of handguns during its three-year term, with no separate notification back to police or sheriff required for each acquisition.
A certificate issued in accordance with section 69-2404 shall contain the holder’s name, address, and date of birth and the effective date of the certificate. A certificate shall authorize the holder to acquire any number of handguns during the period that the certificate is valid.
Source: Neb. Rev. Stat. § 69-2407
An heir who already holds a current certificate does not need to report or re-register the specific inherited handgun. An heir who does not hold one, and is not within the family exemption, must obtain the certificate first, which is a permit precondition rather than a post-acquisition report.
Does it have to go through a licensed dealer
No. Nebraska’s system routes a prospective recipient directly to the chief of police or sheriff of their own residence for the criminal-history check, not to a licensed dealer.
Any person desiring to purchase, lease, rent, or receive transfer of a handgun shall apply with the chief of police or sheriff of the applicant’s place of residence for a certificate.
A licensed federal firearms dealer is separately exempted from needing the certificate themselves, because a dealer’s own federal license already covers them, not because Nebraska routes other people’s transfers through a dealer. An intrastate bequest of a handgun needs a police or sheriff certificate where the family exemption does not apply, never a dealer visit.
What the code says about inheritance itself
Partial, and not really about inheritance at all. None of Nebraska’s handgun-certificate sections use the words bequest, devise, intestate, inherit, decedent, estate, executor or personal representative. What exists instead is a general family-relationship exemption that applies equally to a lifetime gift, a family sale or a bequest:
The transfer is between a person and his or her spouse, sibling, parent, child, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, or grandparent
Source: Neb. Rev. Stat. § 69-2403(2)(e)
For most ordinary parent-to-child or sibling-to-sibling estates, this exemption covers the transfer. But it leaves a cousin, great-grandchild, in-law, step-relation or unrelated legatee with no exemption at all, needing the certificate exactly as a stranger-to-stranger buyer would.
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 Nebraska are individually cited below.
| What it supports | Section | Tier | Read on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Does the heir need a state permit, licence or card? | Neb. Rev. Stat. § 69-2403(1)(a), (2)(e); § 69-2404 | statute | 2026-08-17 |
| Does the acquisition have to be reported? | Neb. Rev. Stat. § 69-2407 | statute | 2026-08-17 |
| Does it have to go through a licensed dealer? | Neb. Rev. Stat. § 69-2403(2)(a), 69-2404, 69-2405 | statute | 2026-08-17 |
| Does the statute name inheritance at all? | Neb. Rev. Stat. § 69-2403(2)(e) | statute | 2026-08-17 |
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.