FFL License – How Long Does it Take to Get FFL?

To understand how long it takes to get an FFL, you’ll need to know all of the steps for applying for one. They are as follows:

• Complete and mail in an accurate application with the proper licensing fee to the address listed on the form.
• The Federal Firearms Licensing Center (FFLC) records the application information and reviews the form for correctness.
• The FFLC conducts a background check on the “responsible persons.”
• The new license application is sent to your local ATF field office.
• At your local ATF field office, an Industry Operations Investigator (IOI) will conduct an in-person interview with you.
• The IOI prepares a report and makes a recommendation on whether or not ATF should issue or deny the license to their area supervisor.
• The area supervisor reviews the report and submits his/her recommendation to the FFLC.
• Assuming all background checks have been completed and your business is in compliance with state and local law, the FFLC will issue the license.

The application, which is officially known as a Form 7, is more than just paperwork, and it’s literal paperwork. Unlike other ATF forms where you can submit them electronically, a Form 7 can only be done as a hard copy paper application.

You’ll first have to take some time to learn all of the requirements for getting an FFL. This will take some time. The actual application itself shouldn’t take more than an hour or so.

From our own findings and reports that previous members have given us, it seems to take an average of eight or nine hours’ worth of work to learn the requirements, complete the paperwork, and have your ducks in a row for your FFL application. If you break that down, that’s just a little over an hour a night for a week. Skip the endless evening social media scroll and put that time to work for you! Or, if you’re more of a one-and-done kind of person, you can buckle down and knock it out all at once on one day of the weekend and still have an entire day left to relax.

When you really think about it, the application itself doesn’t really require a huge amount of time for what you get out of it! It also gets easier the more times you do it. (Yes, there are business situations where multiple FFLs are not only desirable but also required.) For example, I recently applied for my eighth FFL and it only took me about 30 minutes since I knew exactly what I was doing.

Once you have your application complete and ready to go, it’s time to submit it to the government. This is the longest part of the whole process, but there’s actually some good news about this. An FFL is a “shall issue” kind of license.

According to law, the Attorney General must respond to your FFL application with either an approval or denial within 60 days after its receipt. In order to deny it, they must show good, solid reasons for why you are being denied. If not, then you’re entitled to your license.

So from a legal standpoint, within no more than two months, you’ll know where you stand – not too bad considering the snail’s pace at which the government normally works.

If you don’t get any response within 60 days, the applicant may file an action to compel the Attorney General to act. Don’t worry, though; you’ll very likely get a response before the 60-day time period is up. It’s just nice to know that there’s a procedure already in place if you have the need to take action if you don’t receive a response within the allotted period of time. On the off chance that this happens to you, FFL123 is right here to help you navigate that process as well.

From a federal standpoint, no. There are no more holdups. However, you may encounter issues with your state of local governments. For help there, we recommend you look at our state-by-state blog posts for specific information.