Updated September 3, 2026. Quick answer: In North 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. North 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 North 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 North Dakota law settles, in four lines
| Question | What the code says | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Does the heir need a state permit, licence or card? | No | N.D. Cent. Code ch. 62.1-02 (Possession of Weapons); ch. 62.1-03 (Handguns) |
| Does the acquisition have to be reported? | No | N.D. Cent. Code ch. 62.1-02 (Possession of Weapons); ch. 62.1-03 (Handguns) |
| Does it have to go through a licensed dealer? | No mandate exists | N.D. Cent. Code ch. 62.1-02 (Possession of Weapons) |
| Does the statute name inheritance at all? | Not named | N.D. Cent. Code tit. 62.1 (Weapons), chs. 62.1-01 to 62.1-05 |
What this covers. An ordinary estate transfer in North 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. North Dakota does not condition receiving or possessing an inherited firearm on a state permit, licence or card.
No person may transfer a handgun to any person who the transferor knows or has reasonable cause to believe is a person prohibited by section 62.1 -02-01 from possessing a firearm.
Source: N.D. Cent. Code ch. 62.1-02 (Possession of Weapons); ch. 62.1-03 (Handguns)
Does anyone have to be told, and by when
No. Nothing in North Dakota’s code requires the acquisition to be reported or registered with a state or local agency.
A retail dealer licensed to sell handguns by the federal government shall send a copy of the license, within seven days after receiving it, to the chief of police of the city and the sheriff of the county in which the dealer is licensed to sell handguns.
Source: N.D. Cent. Code ch. 62.1-02 (Possession of Weapons); ch. 62.1-03 (Handguns)
Does it have to go through a licensed dealer
North 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.
The one dealer-related provision on the books does not reach an ordinary private transfer:
No person may transfer a handgun to any person who the transferor knows or has reasonable cause to believe is a person prohibited by section 62.1 -02-01 from possessing a firearm.
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: N.D. Cent. Code tit. 62.1 (Weapons), chs. 62.1-01 to 62.1-05.
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. North Dakota’s four cells are individually cited below.
| What it supports | Section | Tier | Read on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Does the heir need a state permit, licence or card? | N.D. Cent. Code ch. 62.1-02 (Possession of Weapons); ch. 62.1-03 (Handguns) | statute | 2026-08-17 |
| Does the acquisition have to be reported? | N.D. Cent. Code ch. 62.1-02 (Possession of Weapons); ch. 62.1-03 (Handguns) | statute | 2026-08-17 |
| Does it have to go through a licensed dealer? | N.D. Cent. Code ch. 62.1-02 (Possession of Weapons) | statute | 2026-08-17 |
| Does the statute name inheritance at all? | N.D. Cent. Code tit. 62.1 (Weapons), chs. 62.1-01 to 62.1-05 | 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.