Leaving Firearms to Heirs: What Federal Law Actually Says (2026)

Updated August 26, 2026. Quick answer: the advice you will read everywhere — that an inherited firearm must always go through a licensed dealer to cross state lines — is not what the statute says. Federal law carves out bequests and intestate succession explicitly. What it does not carve out is state law, which still applies in full and is where the real work is — state by state, that work is here.

The two exceptions, quoted

The two federal prohibitions people have in mind are the bans on receiving a firearm obtained out of state and on transferring one to an out-of-state resident. Both contain a bequest exception:

• 18 U.S.C. 922(a)(3)(A) does not “preclude any person who lawfully acquires a firearm by bequest or intestate succession in a State other than his State of residence from transporting the firearm into or receiving it in that State, if it is lawful for such person to purchase or possess such firearm in that State.”
• 18 U.S.C. 922(a)(5)(A) does not apply to “the transfer, transportation, or delivery of a firearm made to carry out a bequest of a firearm to, or an acquisition by intestate succession of a firearm by, a person who is permitted to acquire or possess a firearm under the laws of the State of his residence.”

Read together: an executor distributing an estate may transfer a firearm directly to an heir in another state without going through a dealer — so long as that heir may lawfully possess it where they live. That condition is doing all the work, and it is the part to check first.

NFA items are a separate process, and the good news is it is free

Suppressors, short-barrelled rifles and other National Firearms Act items follow their own path. Under 27 CFR 479.90a(a) the executor “may possess a firearm registered to a decedent during the term of probate without such possession being treated as a ‘transfer’”, and must apply to transfer it “no later than the close of probate”. A transfer to a beneficiary goes on ATF Form 5 — the tax-exempt application — with the estate shown as transferor.

Two corrections to what is usually written about this. First, the $200 that the tax-exempt form is meant to save you is no longer the ordinary rate: since 1 January 2026 the NFA transfer tax is $0 for every NFA firearm except a machinegun or a destructive device, so a suppressor or a short-barrelled rifle moves at no tax on any form — the rate change and its date are set out here. Second, 479.90a has a limb almost nobody quotes. Paragraph (b): where there are no beneficiaries, or the beneficiaries do not wish to possess the item, the executor disposes of it outside the estate and files the tax-paid Form 4, not the Form 5. Paragraph (c) then requires the executor to attach proof of appointment, the death certificate, a copy of the will if there is one, and any other document affecting the disposition of firearms from the estate.

Where this actually goes wrong

• State law. Registration, permit-to-purchase, assault-weapon and magazine rules differ enormously, and an item that is ordinary in one state is contraband in the next. The federal exception is conditioned on the heir being permitted to possess it where they live; nothing here overrides that.
• A prohibited person as heir. If the named heir cannot lawfully possess firearms, the bequest cannot be carried out to them at all.
• The executor’s own position. Possession during administration is protected for NFA items by 479.90a, but an executor who is themselves prohibited has a problem from day one.
• Sitting on it. For NFA items the regulation sets an outside date: the application must be in no later than the close of probate.

What to do

Inventory what is actually there and whether any of it is NFA-registered, because the two paths diverge immediately. Confirm each heir may lawfully possess the specific item in their own state before transferring anything. Where an item is NFA or a state’s rules are restrictive, this is one of the genuinely narrow areas where a lawyer who does this work is worth the fee — the cost of getting it wrong is criminal, not financial.

Related: what a gun trust costs in 2026 · who counts as a responsible person · what a gun trust does, and does not, do · which assets to leave to which heirs.

Federal statutes and regulations read from uscode (Cornell LII) and the official eCFR; state law quoted from the enacting state’s own statute. General information, not legal advice. State law adds requirements this page does not enumerate, and it varies.