A Pennsylvania License to Carry Firearms (LTCF) is issued by your county sheriff (or, in Philadelphia, the chief of police) under 18 Pa.C.S. 6109. It...
Reviewed by Will Luker, Founder of CCW Hub. USCCA Training Counselor, USCCA Certified Instructor, NRA Certified Instructor, Law Enforcement.
A Pennsylvania License to Carry Firearms (LTCF) is issued by your county sheriff (or, in Philadelphia, the chief of police) under 18 Pa.C.S. 6109. It is valid for 5 years and authorizes you to carry a firearm concealed on your person or in a vehicle anywhere in the Commonwealth. To apply you must be at least 21 years old, pass a background check run through the Pennsylvania Instant Check System (PICS), and pay the $19 statutory license fee plus a $1 validation-system fee. The sheriff has 45 days to issue or deny. Pennsylvania is a shall-issue state in practice: the sheriff must issue unless one of the disqualifiers in 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(e)(1) applies, and a denial is reviewable in the Court of Common Pleas under 18 Pa.C.S. 6114.
Pennsylvania is a licensed-carry state, not a constitutional-carry (permitless) state. You need the LTCF to carry concealed or to carry in a vehicle.
The LTCF is Pennsylvania's only state-issued concealed-carry license. 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(a) states its purpose: "A license to carry a firearm shall be for the purpose of carrying a firearm concealed on or about one's person or in a vehicle throughout this Commonwealth." It is the credential that satisfies 18 Pa.C.S. 6106, which makes carrying a firearm concealed on the person (outside your home or fixed place of business) or carrying a firearm in any vehicle, without a valid license, an offense.
The grade of that 6106 offense matters. Under 18 Pa.C.S. 6106(a)(1), unlicensed carry is a felony of the third degree. Under 18 Pa.C.S. 6106(a)(2), it drops to a misdemeanor of the first degree if the person is otherwise eligible to possess a valid license and has not committed any other criminal violation.
A few things the LTCF is not:
Pennsylvania's licensing model is decentralized. Under 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(b), a resident applies to the sheriff of the county in which he resides, except that a resident of a city of the first class applies to the chief of police of that city. Philadelphia is the only city of the first class, so:
The application form is uniform statewide. 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(c) requires that "the application for a license to carry a firearm shall be uniform throughout this Commonwealth and shall be on a form prescribed by the Pennsylvania State Police," and that "issuing authorities shall use only the application form prescribed by the Pennsylvania State Police." Counties may add local administrative steps (in-person appointments, a photograph, online scheduling), but no county may impose substantive eligibility criteria beyond what 6109 and 6105 already require.
18 Pa.C.S. 6109(e)(1) is the operative section. It directs that a license "shall be issued if, after an investigation not to exceed 45 days, it appears that the applicant is an individual concerning whom no good cause exists to deny the license," and then lists the people to whom a license shall not be issued:
Two items deserve emphasis.
Age 21. 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(b) limits LTCF eligibility to an individual "who is 21 years of age or older." This applies even to active-duty military and to applicants who already hold a state ID at 18.
Character and reputation. The character-and-reputation standard in 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(d)(3) and 6109(e)(1)(i) is the main area of sheriff discretion. An applicant denied on this ground may seek judicial review under 18 Pa.C.S. 6114, which routes the appeal through the local-agency-review procedures of 2 Pa.C.S. Ch. 7 Subch. B. In practice, denials that survive review tend to rest on documented conduct (violence, threats, instability) rather than on a generalized concern.
18 Pa.C.S. 6109(c) fixes the core content of the application. The form must:
The PSP form (SP 4-127, current revision 7-2024) collects additional identifying information (name, date of birth, physical description, address, and character references) as a matter of form design. Those specific data fields are part of the application form, not separate requirements enumerated in the text of 6109(c). Under 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(e)(4), the sheriff must require a photograph of the licensee on the license, in a form compatible with the Commonwealth Photo Imaging Network. Fingerprinting is not required by 6109; some counties collect it and others do not.
The form turns the 6109(e)(1) disqualifications into lettered yes-or-no questions (A through J) under a single numbered prompt asking whether any of the prohibiting criteria under 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(e)(1) apply. Question C sends the applicant to the back of the form, which reproduces the full 18 Pa.C.S. 6105(c) condition list. On the current revision that list runs to ten items. Two of them are worth noting because they are broader than they used to be: item 6 now reaches an active final protection-from-abuse order under 23 Pa.C.S. 6108, any other active protection-from-abuse order under 23 Pa.C.S. 6107(b) that required relinquishment of firearms while it is in effect, and anyone otherwise barred under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8); and item 10 covers a conviction under 18 Pa.C.S. 6105(a.1)(2), with the prohibition terminating five years after the later of conviction, final release from confinement, or final release from supervision.
Question E is the mental-health question, and it is the one that changed on the 7-2024 revision. It asks whether the applicant has ever been involuntarily committed to a hospital or health care facility for a mental health condition or other treatment, or adjudicated incompetent or incapacitated, and it now carries its own relief instruction:
YOU MAY CHECK "NO" IF YOU HAVE BEEN GRANTED RELIEF OR EXPUNGEMENT IN PENNSYLVANIA PURSUANT TO EITHER 18 PA.C.S. 6105(F)(1) OR 6111.1(G)(2), OR BY THE ADJUDICATING/COMMITTING STATE PURSUANT TO A QUALIFYING MENTAL HEALTH RELIEF FROM DISABILITIES PROGRAM, AS SET FORTH IN 34 U.S.C. Section 40915.
Read that for what it is. It is the form telling an applicant how to answer a question, not a new grant of rights. An applicant who has already been granted relief or expungement under 18 Pa.C.S. 6105(f)(1) or 18 Pa.C.S. 6111.1(g)(2), or under another state's qualifying mental-health relief-from-disabilities program of the kind described in 34 U.S.C. 40915, may lawfully answer no to Question E. An applicant who has not obtained that relief must answer yes. The relief statutes themselves are not new; the older revision of the form simply asked the same question with no relief language at all, which left applicants who had been granted relief to guess.
Once an application is filed, 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(d) directs the sheriff to:
The background check is run through PICS, the Pennsylvania Instant Check System operated by the Pennsylvania State Police. Pennsylvania is a point-of-contact state: PSP runs its own PICS check (querying state records and the federal databases) rather than the sheriff or dealer contacting the FBI's NICS directly. A PICS denial is a categorical bar; a PICS approval clears the database review but does not, by itself, resolve the separate character-and-reputation question.
18 Pa.C.S. 6109(g) requires the sheriff, within 45 days of receiving the application, to issue or refuse to issue the license on the basis of the 6109(d) investigation and the accuracy of the application. If the sheriff refuses, the refusal must be in writing, must state the specific reasons, and must be sent by certified mail to the applicant. The 45-day cap on the investigation is repeated in 6109(e)(1).
A denial may be appealed to the Court of Common Pleas under 18 Pa.C.S. 6114, which applies the judicial-review procedures of 2 Pa.C.S. Ch. 7 Subch. B (review of local agency action). Under 6114, a judgment sustaining a refusal does not bar a new application after one year. Counties vary in how close they run to the 45-day cap; larger counties tend to use most of it.
18 Pa.C.S. 6109(f)(1): "A license to carry a firearm issued under subsection (e) shall be valid throughout this Commonwealth for a period of five years unless extended under paragraph (3) or sooner revoked." Two points:
There is one narrow grace provision. 18 Pa.C.S. 6106(b)(12) carves out an exception to the 6106 carry offense for a person who held a valid LTCF that "expired within six months prior to the date of arrest" and who "is otherwise eligible for renewal." This is an exception in a 6106 prosecution, not affirmative authorization to keep carrying on an expired license, and it does not reach licenses expired more than six months or applicants with a new disqualifying condition.
A military deployment extension is available under 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(f)(3) and (4): an LTCF held by a member of the U.S. Armed Forces or the Pennsylvania National Guard on federal active duty deployed overseas, scheduled to expire during deployment, is extended until 90 days after the deployment ends. Possession of the license together with a copy of the deployment orders is, during the extension, a defense to a charge under 6106 or 6108.
The license fee is set by 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(h)(1) at $19. That $19 base fee includes a renewal-notice processing fee of $1.50 (6109(h)(1)(i)) and a $5 administrative fee under section 14(2) of the Sheriff Fee Act (6109(h)(1)(ii)). In addition to the $19, 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(h)(3) requires the applicant to pay another $1, which the sheriff remits to the Firearms License Validation System Account in the General Fund. Total statutory cost is therefore about $20.
The fee is payable at the time of application (6109(h)(5)). Under 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(h)(4), no fee other than those provided in 6109(h) or the Sheriff Fee Act may be assessed "for the performance of any background check." Under 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(h)(6), if the application is denied, all fees are refunded except the $5 Sheriff Fee Act administrative fee; there is no refund if a license is issued and later revoked. Selling or attempting to sell a license for more than the statutory amount is a summary offense under 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(h)(7).
A temporary emergency license is available under 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(m.1) for a person facing imminent danger who cannot wait for a regular LTCF. The applicant submits evidence of imminent danger (defined in 6109(m.1)(10) to include a written document from the Attorney General, a district attorney, a chief law enforcement officer, or a judicial officer, or a police report), a sworn affidavit attesting to eligibility, the regular application form, and a temporary-license fee not exceeding the actual cost of the background check or $10, whichever is less. The temporary license is valid for 45 days and may not be renewed; a person may not receive another temporary emergency license unless at least five years have passed. If the sheriff's investigation comes back clean, the sheriff issues a regular license effective for the balance of the five-year period (6109(m.1)(9)).
The LTCF authorizes you to carry a firearm concealed on your person, or in a vehicle, anywhere in Pennsylvania, subject to place restrictions and federal law.
The LTCF does not override:
Carrying while intoxicated is addressed separately in Pennsylvania's UNDER_INFLUENCE section.
State preemption under 18 Pa.C.S. 6120 bars a county, municipality, or township from regulating "the lawful ownership, possession, transfer or transportation of firearms, ammunition or ammunition components when carried or transported for purposes not prohibited by the laws of this Commonwealth." A local ordinance that purports to add carry restrictions on LTCF holders is preempted. During a declared emergency, 18 Pa.C.S. 6107 restricts carry on public streets and public property, but it expressly exempts a person actively defending life or property, a person licensed under 6109, and a person exempt from licensing under 6106(b).
Pennsylvania sits toward the more permissive end of the Mid-Atlantic but is not a constitutional-carry state.
The practical takeaway: Pennsylvania is more permissive than New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware (no training requirement, clean shall-issue framework with judicial review of denials), and less permissive than Ohio and West Virginia (which do not require a permit for residents to carry concealed).
Pennsylvania issues LTCFs to non-residents, but 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(e)(1)(ix) disqualifies a non-resident who does not hold a current carry license or permit from their home state, if their home state issues one. Procedure varies by county (some accept non-resident applications by mail). A non-resident applicant typically submits the PSP application, the $19 fee plus the $1 validation fee and any county photo fee, a copy of the home-state driver's license, a copy of a current home-state carry permit, and the required references. A non-resident LTCF is the same instrument as a resident LTCF and runs for the same five years.
County practice on non-resident applications varies more than the statute does, and that variation is administrative practice rather than law. The Pennsylvania State Police warn that some county sheriffs will not issue non-resident licenses at all and refer the question to the Pennsylvania Sheriffs' Association. Counties also set their own submission and payment mechanics. York County, for example, posts this instruction for out-of-state applicants:
"Effective July 1st, 2026, out of state residents will be required to submit their applications online or mail their applications with a certified check or money order. No personal checks will be accepted."
That is a York County rule about how a non-resident files and pays. It is not a change to Pennsylvania reciprocity law, it is not statewide, and it says nothing about whether an out-of-state licensee may carry in Pennsylvania without a Pennsylvania license. The same page also states that a non-Pennsylvania resident applying through York County must already hold a concealed weapons permit issued by their domicile state, which is that county's way of applying the 6109(e)(1)(ix) eligibility item. Check the specific county before mailing a non-resident application.
18 Pa.C.S. 6109(i) lets the issuing authority revoke an LTCF "for good cause," and requires revocation for any 6109(e)(1) disqualification that arises during the term. The notice must be in writing, must state the specific reason, and must be sent by certified mail, with electronic notice to the Pennsylvania State Police. The licensee must surrender the license within five days of receipt; an individual who violates this provision commits a summary offense. A revocation may be appealed to the Court of Common Pleas under 18 Pa.C.S. 6114.
The certification in 6109(c) runs the other way too: a licensee who knowingly becomes ineligible to possess or acquire firearms must promptly notify the issuing sheriff (or Philadelphia chief of police). A final protection-from-abuse order under 23 Pa.C.S. 6108 can require relinquishment of firearms and any firearm license.
Under 18 Pa.C.S. 6111(c), a private (unlicensed) seller who wants to sell or transfer a firearm to another unlicensed person "shall do so only upon the place of business of a licensed importer, manufacturer, dealer or county sheriff's office," which then runs the same PICS procedure as if it were the seller. Transfers between spouses, between a parent and child, and between a grandparent and grandchild are exempt. Because "firearm" for purposes of Chapter 61 is defined in 18 Pa.C.S. 6102 as a pistol or revolver with a barrel under 15 inches, a shotgun with a barrel under 18 inches, a rifle with a barrel under 16 inches, or any firearm under 26 inches overall, the 6111(c) dealer-or-sheriff requirement reaches handguns and short-barreled weapons. Private sales of ordinary long guns (standard rifles and shotguns) are not covered and may be transferred privately without a PICS check.
| Statute | Subject |
|---|---|
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6102 | Definition of "firearm" (handgun and short-barreled threshold) |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6105 | Persons not to possess, use, or transfer firearms (prohibitor list) |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6105(h) | Disqualification cross-reference for 6109 ineligibility |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6106 | Firearms not to be carried without a license |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6106(a)(1) | Unlicensed carry as a felony of the third degree |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6106(a)(2) | Unlicensed carry as a misdemeanor of the first degree (otherwise eligible, no other crime) |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6106(b)(12) | Six-month grace-period exception for an expired LTCF |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6106(c) | Sportsman's firearm permit (county treasurer) |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6107 | Prohibited conduct during emergency; LTCF holders exempt |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6108 | Carrying firearms on public streets or property in Philadelphia (held unconstitutional as applied, Sumpter, 2025) |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6109 | Licenses (the LTCF statute) |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(a) | Purpose: concealed carry on person or in a vehicle, statewide |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(b) | Place of application; age 21 minimum |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(c) | Application form; certification statement |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(d) | Sheriff's investigation duties |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(e)(1) | Issuance standard and the disqualifications |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(e)(4) | Photograph requirement |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(f) | Five-year term; military deployment extension |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(g) | 45-day decision deadline; written certified-mail denial |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(h) | $19 fee; $1 Validation System fee; refund rules |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(i) | Revocation; surrender within five days |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(k) | Reciprocity authority of the Attorney General |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6109(m.1) | Temporary emergency license |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6111 | Sale or transfer of firearms; PICS background check |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6111(c) | Private transfers through a dealer or county sheriff; family exemptions |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6114 | Judicial review of license decisions |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6120 | State preemption of local firearms regulation |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 6123 | Waiver of disability or pardons |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 912 | Possession of a weapon on school property |
| 18 Pa.C.S. 913 | Possession of a firearm in a court facility |
| 18 U.S.C. 922(g) | Federal firearms-disability list |
| 18 U.S.C. 922(q) | Federal gun-free school zones |
| 18 U.S.C. 930 | Federal facilities |
| 49 U.S.C. 46505 | Weapon in an airport secured area or aircraft |
| Commonwealth v. Sumpter, 340 A.3d 977 (Pa. Super. 2025) | 6108 held unconstitutional as applied |
This page covers one part of our Pennsylvania concealed carry guide.
Read the complete Pennsylvania guideBrowse local instructors offering state-approved training in your area. Book online, complete your training, and get one step closer to your concealed carry permit.