Washington Concealed Carry Permit Fees and Costs

Fees and Costs for a Washington Concealed Pistol License

Washington puts its concealed pistol license (CPL) prices in the statute itself, so the base amounts are the same in every city and county. Under RCW 9.41.070 an original five year license is $36 plus the FBI fingerprint charges passed on to the applicant, a renewal is $32, a replacement is $10, and renewing after the license has already expired adds a $10 penalty. You pay the issuing authority, which is the chief of police of your municipality or the sheriff of your county. No training course is a condition of the license today, so there is no state mandated class to buy before you apply.

Keep two cost tracks separate. The CPL is a carry license, not a purchase permit, and the charges a Washington dealer collects when you buy or receive a firearm are a different set of costs that the license fee does not cover.

What the license itself costs

The original, renewal, and replacement fees are each called nonrefundable in the statute, and the original fee is due when you file the application. The license runs five years from the date of issue. Payment is by cash, check, or money order at your option under RCW 9.41.070(8), and the issuing authority may allow additional methods if it chooses to. The statute does not name any, so ask before you go. The Department of Licensing keeps the records but does not issue or renew the license, and its firearms page tells applicants to check the required fees and accepted payment methods with the local law enforcement agency.

Fingerprints and the charges that can ride on the fee

An original application has to include a complete set of fingerprints, forwarded to the Washington State Patrol (RCW 9.41.070(4)). The background check for an original license runs through the State Patrol criminal identification section and includes a national FBI check made by submitting those prints (RCW 9.41.070(2)(d)).

RCW 9.41.070(5) names one charge that rides on the license fee: the federal bureau of investigation charges passed on to the applicant. The subsection sets the original fee at "thirty-six dollars plus additional charges imposed by the federal bureau of investigation that are passed on to the applicant," and then says "No other state or local branch or unit of government may impose any additional charges on the applicant for the issuance of the license." RCW 9.41.070(6) carries a parallel bar for renewals, worded slightly more broadly without the state or local limit: no other branch or unit of government may impose additional charges on the applicant for the renewal of the license. So chapter 9.41 RCW puts the license price at $36 plus whatever the FBI currently charges for the print submission. RCW 9.41.070 does not fix a dollar figure for that federal charge, so the amount is whatever the federal bureau of investigation is charging when you apply.

Fingerprint taking is already funded inside the fee: RCW 9.41.070(5)(b) sends $4.00 of the $36.00 to the agency that takes the prints. Separately, RCW 43.43.760 caps at five dollars what any law enforcement agency may charge "for the purpose of taking fingerprint impressions or searching its files of identification for noncriminal purposes." The two provisions are not cross-referenced, and neither says which one governs a fingerprint charge taken for a concealed pistol license application. Ask the agency what it charges and why before you pay it.

The State Patrol has fee authorities of its own outside chapter 9.41 RCW, and two of them bear on the fingerprints and record check an original application requires. RCW 43.43.742 lets the State Patrol charge fees for submission of fingerprints taken by local agencies for a license application, covering as nearly as practicable its direct and indirect costs of processing the submission. RCW 43.43.760(4) requires it to charge fees for processing noncriminal justice system requests for criminal history record information under that section on the same cost recovery basis. Neither names an amount, and neither says how it fits the bar in RCW 9.41.070(5).

Renewing on time, renewing late, and losing the right to renew

1. You may apply to renew within 90 days before or within 90 days after the expiration date (RCW 9.41.070(9)(a)). A license renewed in that window takes effect on the prior license's expiration date, so you do not lose time by renewing early.
2. Renewing on or before the expiration date costs the $32.00 renewal fee.
3. Renewing after the expiration date costs $32.00 plus the $10.00 late penalty.
4. Nothing in RCW 9.41.070(9)(a) provides for renewal outside that window. The Department of Licensing states the practical result on its firearms page: if your CPL is more than 90 days past expiration you must apply for an original CPL, which puts you back at the $36.00 original fee and a fresh set of fingerprints.

Under RCW 9.41.070(9)(b) the Department of Licensing mails or emails a renewal notice roughly 90 days before expiration, and the notice must state the renewal fee amount and the late penalty. The Department's own web page currently tells licensees these notices go out 60 days before expiration, and RCW 9.41.070(9)(b) is the requirement that binds the Department.

Members of the armed forces, the national guard, and the reserves who cannot renew on time because of an out of state assignment, reassignment, or deployment may renew within 90 days after returning to Washington. RCW 9.41.070(14) says a person renewing on that basis pays only the renewal fee and is not charged the late penalty, provided the required copies of the original assignment order, and of any discharge or later order sending the person back to Washington, reach the issuing authority no later than 90 days after that discharge or order. RCW 9.41.070(15) requires issuing agencies to offer a mail renewal process for those same licensees, and a license renewed through it is valid for one year rather than five.

Where your fee money goes

RCW 9.41.070 itemizes the distribution of each amount it sets.

The $10.00 late penalty is split by RCW 9.41.070(9)(a) into $3.00 for the limited fish and wildlife account, spent first on printing and distributing the pamphlet on the legal limits of the use of firearms, firearms safety, and the preemptive nature of state law that every license applicant receives, and then on supporting volunteer instructors in the Department of Fish and Wildlife basic firearms safety training program, and $7.00 to the issuing authority for enforcing chapter 9.41 RCW. The $10.00 replacement fee goes entirely to the issuing authority.

Costs on the buying side

Buying or receiving a firearm in Washington carries its own charges, and holding a CPL does not waive any of them.

A transfer a dealer runs through the State Patrol system carries a state background check fee. RCW 9.41.1135(2) requires a dealer to charge the purchaser or transferee "a background check fee in an amount determined by the Washington state patrol" and to remit the proceeds monthly, and RCW 43.43.580(4)(a) requires that the amount be "reasonably calculated to cover the direct and indirect costs" of running the program, with collections deposited in the state firearms background check system account created in RCW 43.43.590. There is no longer a statutory ceiling on it: the earlier cap of eighteen dollars was struck from RCW 43.43.580 by 2026 c 100 s 1, effective June 11, 2026. The State Patrol publishes the current amount, and its firearms background division page announces a background check fee of $33 effective July 1, 2026. Confirm it with the State Patrol, since the figure is now set administratively rather than by statute. The fee does not apply to a pawnbroker's receipt or redemption of a pawned firearm (RCW 43.43.580(4)(b)), and RCW 9.41.1135(3) exempts transfers to licensed dealers and antique firearms.

On a private party sale where neither side is a licensed dealer, and where no exception in RCW 9.41.113(4) applies, the parties must complete the transfer through a licensed dealer (RCW 9.41.113(3)). RCW 9.41.113(3)(e) lets that dealer "charge a fee that reflects the fair market value of the administrative costs and efforts incurred by the licensed dealer for facilitating the sale or transfer." The statute sets no amount and no cap, so the figure is the dealer's to set.

Training is a purchase requirement, not a carry requirement. RCW 9.41.1132(1) requires a person applying for the purchase or transfer of a firearm to show proof of completing a recognized firearms safety training program within the last five years covering eight listed topics, and RCW 9.41.1132(2) limits who may sponsor that training to a federal, state, county, or municipal law enforcement agency, a college or university, a nationally recognized organization that customarily offers firearms training, or a firearms training school with instructors certified by such an organization. RCW 9.41.090(1)(a) makes the dealer's delivery depend on that proof or on proof of an exemption. The exemptions in RCW 9.41.1132(4) cover the peace officer categories defined in RCW 10.93.020, most of them only where arrest powers and carrying a firearm are a normal part of the officer's duties, plus active duty, national guard, and reserve members who completed qualifying firearms proficiency or familiarization training as part of their service in the last five years. Course pricing is set by the private and institutional providers who run these classes, not by the statute.

Finally, RCW 9.41.092 bars a licensed dealer from delivering a firearm until the required background check results are known and ten business days have passed since the dealer requested the check. That is a delay rather than a charge.

Costs and requirements that are not in effect yet

Nothing in this group is a cost you can be charged today, and none of it changes the CPL fee schedule above.

• RCW 9.41.121, the permit to purchase application, takes effect May 1, 2027 under 2025 c 370.
• RCW 9.41.071 takes effect May 1, 2027 and will let a local law enforcement agency charge a reasonable cost recovery fee for taking and transmitting fingerprints for a permit to purchase under RCW 9.41.121. It is a purchase permit charge, not a concealed pistol license charge.
• RCW 43.43.575, which directs the State Patrol to certify the firearms safety training programs used for both concealed pistol licenses (RCW 9.41.070) and firearm purchases and transfers (RCW 9.41.1132), takes effect May 1, 2027. From that date a superseding version of RCW 9.41.070 makes a certificate from a certified live fire program a condition of the license. That requirement is not in force now.
• A second version of RCW 43.43.580 enacted as 2026 c 100 s 2 takes effect May 1, 2027.

Two other Washington license fees

A nonimmigrant noncitizen residing in Washington who wants to carry or possess a firearm for hunting and sport shooting applies to the county sheriff for a noncitizen firearm license good for two years. RCW 9.41.173(5) sets that fee at fifty dollars "plus additional charges imposed by the Washington state patrol and the federal bureau of investigation that are passed on to the applicant," bars any other state or local charge for issuance, and leaves the fee with the sheriff. This matters to CPL applicants because RCW 9.41.070(4) requires an applicant who is not a United States citizen to meet the additional requirements of RCW 9.41.173 where applicable and to produce proof of compliance at application.

For anyone going into the business, RCW 9.41.110(16)(c) sets the dealer's license fee at one hundred twenty-five dollars for pistols, the same for firearms other than pistols, and the same for ammunition, with the remaining licenses available at no further fee to a dealer who already holds one. Those fees go to the state general fund.

Penalties that carry a cost

RCW 9.41.810 makes any violation of chapter 9.41 RCW a misdemeanor except where a provision says otherwise, which is what supplies the grade for carrying without a license, and RCW 9.92.030 supplies the punishment for a misdemeanor that no statute in force punishes by its own terms. A person who knowingly makes a false statement about citizenship or identity on a CPL application is guilty of false swearing under RCW 9A.72.040, a gross misdemeanor under RCW 9A.72.040(2) punishable by up to 364 days in county jail, a fine of up to $5,000, or both (RCW 9A.20.021(2)), and RCW 9.41.070(12) adds revocation of the license and permanent ineligibility for another one.

Where each figure comes from

Before you write a check, call the police department or sheriff's office you will apply to and ask for its current total, since the statute names the $36.00 but not the charges added to it.