Federal Firearm Rights Restoration

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

How does the new DOJ 925(c) firearm rights restoration application work, and when can you file?

You apply online to the Attorney General through the Office of the Pardon Attorney, not ATF. Applications open to invited candidates on September 25, 2026, to the public — the first 5,000 applicants — on November 4, 2026, and to 500 more on January 4, 2027, when a $30 fee begins. Restoration is, in the Department’s own words, “neither automatic nor guaranteed.”

Key takeaways on § 925(c) rights restoration

• The governing statute is 18 U.S.C. § 925(c); the governing rule is 91 Fed. Reg. 54054 (Aug. 20, 2026), effective September 21, 2026.
• All nine § 922(g) prohibited-person categories may apply — not only felons.
• The Department publishes five tiers of presumptive disqualifiers: current status, permanent, ten-year, five-year, and reapplication. Anyone may apply; some applicants must show extraordinary circumstances to overcome a presumption of denial.
• You must disclose every presumptive disqualifier even if the conviction was expunged, pardoned, set aside, or otherwise amended.
• Once you begin the e-application you have 30 days to finish it, and fingerprints can only be taken after you submit the first part and receive a QR code.
• A denial “for other reasons” adds a new five-year presumptive disqualifier on top of your existing disability.
• Relief removes federal disabilities only. It does not restore state or tribal firearm rights.

When can you apply? The Federal Firearm Rights Restoration schedule

The program opens in three stages, and the first stage has no published cap — because it is invitation-only.

Date	Stage	Who may apply	Cap	Fee
September 21, 2026	Final rule takes effect	—	—	—
September 25, 2026	Stage 1 — invited candidates	Only individuals the Department invites	Not published	None
November 4, 2026	Stage 2 — public opening	Anyone prohibited under § 922(g), first come, first served	First 5,000 applicants	None
January 4, 2027	Stage 3 — fee pilot	Public	500 additional applicants	$30, waiver or reduction available for indigency
Not yet announced	General availability	Public	—	Expected $30

Source: the Department of Justice’s Federal Firearm Rights Restoration program page and program FAQ, both retrieved August 31, 2026. Verify the dates on the DOJ page before relying on them; the Department has not committed to a fourth window.

The Department explains the staging as a test rather than a rationing decision: it chose “a phased rollout to test the effectiveness of the online platform and internal procedures with a small group of applicants before opening the process to the public at large,” and the January stage “is intended to specifically test the effectiveness of our online payment portal to collect fees.” The stated intention is that “[o]nce the Department is confident of the effectiveness of our processes, we will ensure access to the public at large.”

That is a reason for optimism about the long run and no reason at all to be relaxed about November 4. Five thousand slots, distributed first-come first-served, against a population the U.S. Pardon Attorney has publicly described as thirty million Americans who have lost their Second Amendment rights, is a narrow door. (That figure is the Pardon Attorney’s public statement, not a Department finding, and should be read as such.)

What is 18 U.S.C. § 925(c), and what does relief actually do?

Section 925(c) is the Gun Control Act’s built-in escape valve. It provides that a person “who is prohibited from possessing, shipping, transporting, or receiving firearms or ammunition may make application to the Attorney General for relief from the disabilities imposed by Federal laws,” and that the Attorney General “may grant such relief if it is established to his satisfaction that the circumstances regarding the disability, and the applicant’s record and reputation, are such that the applicant will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and that the granting of the relief would not be contrary to the public interest.”

Three features of that sentence structure everything that follows.

It is discretionary. The statute says the Attorney General “may” grant relief, not “shall.” No applicant, however sympathetic, is entitled to a grant.

The burden is on the applicant. Relief issues only if it is “established to his satisfaction.” The Department is not obliged to develop your case for you; an incomplete record is a record that fails.

There are two independent findings. Not likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety is one. Granting relief would not be contrary to the public interest is a separate one. An applicant can be plainly non-dangerous and still fail the second.

What relief does is narrower than most people assume. It lifts federal firearms disabilities. It does not lift state or tribal ones. The Department’s announcement of the final rule states that “[a]ny relief granted under the rule removes only applicable federal firearms disabilities and does not override independent restrictions imposed by state law,” and the program page repeats that “[t]he FFRR application process does not automatically restore state or tribal firearm rights.”

Nor does § 925(c) relief erase the conviction. It is not a pardon and it is not an expungement. The judgment stands; the firearms consequence of it is lifted. For what a pardon does that this does not, see what a pardon does not do.

Who can apply for federal firearm rights restoration?

Every category of prohibited person under § 922(g) may apply. This is the point most competing coverage misses — the program is not a felon program.

§ 922(g) category	Prohibited person	Eligible to apply for FFRR
(g)(1)	Felons — convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year	Yes
(g)(2)	Fugitives from justice	Yes
(g)(3)	Unlawful drug users	Yes
(g)(4)	Certain mental health statuses	Yes — but exhaust a qualifying state program first
(g)(5)	Certain aliens	Yes
(g)(6)	Dishonorable discharge	Yes
(g)(7)	Citizenship renunciants	Yes
(g)(8)	Domestic violence court order	Yes
(g)(9)	Domestic violence misdemeanants	Yes

Source: DOJ, Who Can Apply for Federal Firearm Rights Restoration (updated Aug. 17, 2026).

Two additional rules sit alongside that table.

Corporations and other entities apply separately. The Department states that requests from “a corporation or entity that has lost its federal firearms rights” will be “process[ed] . . . separately from the process for individual applicants,” with more information to follow. Entity relief under § 925(c) is not new — ATF granted it to companies during the years individual applications were defunded, because the appropriations rider was read to bar spending on individual applications only.

Eligibility to apply is not the same as likelihood of relief. The Department is explicit: “[a]nyone who is federally prohibited from handling firearms under 18 U.S.C. 922(g) can apply for FFRR relief. However, applicants with certain prior convictions or in certain statuses will be denied, unless they can show the extraordinary circumstances of their case overcome that presumption.”

What are the presumptive disqualifiers?

The Department has published the categories in which an application “will be denied, absent extraordinary circumstances.” There are five tiers, and you must disclose all of them that apply to you — including, expressly, “past convictions even if they were expunged, pardoned, set aside, or similarly amended by a post-conviction event.”

Tier 1 — Current status

Your application will be denied, absent extraordinary circumstances, if you are:

• awaiting sentencing for any crime;
• incarcerated or serving any part of a sentence;
• in a program that diverts conviction or is in place of conviction;
• a fugitive from justice;
• an unlawful user of or addict of controlled substances as defined in 27 C.F.R. § 478.11 — except where the only unlawful use or addiction is marijuana;
• an alien in the United States illegally or under a nonimmigrant visa;
• under a court-issued restraining order for harassment, stalking, or threatening of an intimate partner or an intimate partner’s child;
• required to register as a sex offender for an offense that prohibits firearm possession; or
• subject to a § 922(g)(4) mental-health disability where the imposing jurisdiction maintains a relief-from-disability program and you are eligible but have not applied, your application is pending, or your application was denied.

The marijuana carve-out is genuinely unusual and worth stating precisely: the Department defines “controlled substance” for this purpose by reference to 27 C.F.R. § 478.11 “except that it does not include marijuana,” and excludes from the unlawful-user disqualifier “those whose only unlawful use of or addiction to a controlled substance consists of the use of or addiction to marijuana.” That is a presumptive-disqualifier rule for this program. It does not change the underlying federal law: marijuana use still makes a person a prohibited person under § 922(g)(3).

Tier 2 — Permanent

Denied absent extraordinary circumstances if you have ever been convicted of committing, attempting, soliciting, or conspiring to commit, or aiding or abetting the commission of, a felony involving:

Conduct	Conduct	Conduct
Death of another person	Robbery	Terrorism
Rape, sexual abuse, or sexual assault	Extortion	Witness tampering
Human trafficking	Carjacking	Escape or rescue of a person in custody
Kidnapping	Arson	Maiming, assault, or battery
Intimate partner or domestic violence	Racketeering (if a predicate act is violent)	Stalking
Burglary	Gang-related offenses	Brandishing or discharging a firearm, or using an explosive

The list closes with a catch-all: “acts that are the same as or similar to the conduct identified above.”

Tier 3 — Ten years

Denied absent extraordinary circumstances if, within the last 10 years, you were convicted of or served any part of a sentence for:

• a felony involving drug trafficking (manufacturing, selling, distributing, importing, or exporting); threats of violence; manufacturing, possessing, transferring, or using explosives; certain firearm- or ammunition-related conduct; possessing or discharging a firearm or other weapon on school property; or animal abuse; or
• a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.

A second ten-year rule runs from an MCDV conviction: within the ten years following a conviction for or service of any part of a sentence for a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence, you are presumptively disqualified if you incurred any other § 922(g) disability, or if you were merely arrested for a felony, an MCDV, or any offense involving acts or threats of violence, brandishing or discharging a firearm, or using an explosive.

That is an arrest trigger, not a conviction trigger, and it is the harshest rule in the schedule.

Tier 4 — Five years

Denied absent extraordinary circumstances if, within the past 5 years, you were convicted of or served any part of a sentence for any other felony not already listed, or for misdemeanor assault, battery, stalking, or a threatened act of violence.

Tier 5 — Reapplication

Denied absent extraordinary circumstances if any prior application was denied based on a permanent presumptive disqualifier, or if within the last five years a prior application was denied for a reason other than a presumptive disqualifier, on a five-year reapplication presumptive disqualifier, or because a relief-from-disability program denied you.

The definitions that decide close cases

The Department supplies its own definitions, and several are broader than the ordinary meaning:

Term	How the Department defines it
Convicted / conviction	A criminal conviction, a guilty plea, a finding of guilt without judgment by a court, a general or special court-martial judgment under 10 U.S.C. § 860c, and a judgment entered on a plea of nolo contendere
Felony	“A crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20)
Arrest	A criminal arrest, UCMJ “apprehension,” “pretrial restraint,” and a citation in lieu of arrest — excluding parking, traffic, and fine-only motor vehicle violations
Sentence	Custodial and non-custodial penalties, plus the period during which other penalties are unsatisfied — restitution, monetary obligations, treatment or programming requirements, community service, extra duties, movement restrictions, or electronic monitoring
Brandish	To display all or part of a firearm, or make its presence known, in a threatening or intimidating manner — expressly not lawful carry, concealed or open, including for self-defense
Misdemeanor crime of domestic violence	The 27 C.F.R. § 478.11 definition, plus a court-martial conviction that would meet it had it been entered by a state, local, or tribal court

The “sentence” definition deserves emphasis because it silently moves everyone’s clock. If you owe restitution, your sentence is not complete — so a five- or ten-year lookback measured from “service of any part of a sentence” has not started to run. Paying a restitution balance can therefore be the single most consequential step an applicant takes before filing.

What documents does the Federal Firearm Rights Restoration application require?

The documentary burden is the heaviest part of this process, and it is specified disability by disability. All documents must be true digital copies; anything not in English needs a translation and the translator’s certificate of completeness and accuracy. Accepted formats are jpg, jpeg, png, bmp, doc, docx, txt, pdf, xls, and xlsx.

If this applies to you	The Department requires
Every applicant	State criminal records covering the last 25 years, or since age 18 if shorter, showing arrests (or documentation of a clear record) in each place you have lived, plus any other arrest. Locality records are acceptable where no statewide report exists
§ 922(g)(1) — state or federal felony	Charging document (indictment or complaint); judgment of conviction; official document showing the date you completed the final requirement of your sentence. If applicable: plea agreement, factual basis for the plea, and the presentence report or other sentencing-aid document
§ 922(g)(4) — mental health	The commitment or adjudication order; medical records stating the diagnosis; and a current certification from a licensed mental health professional that you no longer suffer from the condition, or that it has been successfully treated or is stably managed such that you are unlikely to be a danger. If applicable: the petition that sought commitment, and any order restoring competency or rights
Military conviction or dishonorable discharge	DD Form 214, DD Form 214-1, and/or DD Form 215. If applicable: charge sheet (DD Form 458), judgment of the court, and certificate of completion of appellate review
§ 922(g)(7) — renunciation of citizenship	The formal renunciation of nationality described in 8 U.S.C. § 1481(a)(5)–(6), and an explanation of why you renounced
§ 922(g)(9) — MCDV	Charging document; underlying investigative reports; a document showing the victim’s relationship to you; judgment of conviction; and proof of the date you completed the final requirement of your sentence. If applicable: a document showing the conviction was rendered nugatory or civil rights restored even if a federal restriction remains, and any police report of domestic-violence involvement since the original arrest
Ever applied for state pardon, expungement, set-aside, or restoration	A copy of your application, and any decision on it
Veterans who served within the last 25 years or since age 18	DD Form 214, DD Form 214-1, and/or DD Form 215
Any activity outside the United States	Foreign law-enforcement records for the last 25 years or since age 18 for every place you lived abroad; and, if applicable, foreign equivalents of felony or MCDV convictions, mental-health commitments, dishonorable discharges, and expungements, set-asides, pardons, or restorations

Source: DOJ, Federal Firearm Rights Restoration Required Documents (updated Aug. 17, 2026).

There is one escape hatch, and it is conditional. Where a required document “is not available from an official source,” the Department accepts a sworn statement — but the statement must both “includ[e] the details contained in the document” and “describe[] your efforts to obtain the document and the reason it is unavailable to you.” A sworn statement that says only “the courthouse burned down” does not satisfy it; a sworn statement that recites what the judgment said, names the clerk’s office you contacted and when, and attaches the response, does.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: The twenty-five-year residential arrest history is the requirement that surprises people, because it is not tied to the conviction that prohibited them. Someone with a single federal conviction from 2004 who has lived in four states still has to produce state criminal-history records from all four. Those requests have their own forms, fees, and processing times, and several states will not accept a request from out of state without notarization or fingerprints of their own. On a thirty-day application clock, that is the item to have finished before you ever open the portal.

How the application actually works

The Department has published the mechanics in enough detail to plan around. Six of them change how you sequence the work.

1. The application is online, and it is not open yet. The program page lists the online application — identified as OMB Form #1123-0017 — as “Coming soon” as of August 31, 2026. The Department’s Paperwork Reduction Act notice confirms there is no agency form number for the collection and that the responsible component is the Office of the Pardon Attorney.
2. Filing runs through the Office of the Pardon Attorney, not ATF. The Department’s FAQ states that ATF “previously administered the restoration of federal firearm rights program,” that “[t]he new rule states that they no longer do so,” and that “[a]ll applications for federal firearm rights restoration must be submitted through the Office of the Pardon Attorney.”
3. You have 30 days once you start. “Once you have initiated the e-application, you will have 30 days to complete and submit it. If you do not submit a completed e-application in 30 days, you will have to start the application process over.” The Department’s own advice follows: “you are encouraged to collect all your required documents before you begin the e-application.”
4. Fingerprints come second, not first. “You MUST obtain your fingerprints AFTER you submit the first part of your e-application, and you receive the QR code via email.” They are then taken at a participating United States Post Office. That step runs inside the thirty days.
5. There is no password recovery. “At this time, PARDON cannot provide an opportunity to recover a link and PIN. You may have to start your application again if you lose it.”
6. Character references are part of the package, alongside the fee and the fingerprints.

The fee is $30, beginning with the January 4, 2027 stage. The Department notes that other costs — fingerprints, criminal records — vary by jurisdiction and are not included. A waiver or reduction may be requested: “[e]ach applicant shall set forth the reasons why a waiver or modification should be granted,” and the fee “may be waived or reduced because of indigency.”

After filing, applications are worked by restoration specialists, and the Department has published guidance on responding to them. Treat those requests as the substance of the case rather than administrative noise; a request for clarification is the Department telling you what it is not yet satisfied about.

What is the standard, and what counts as “extraordinary circumstances”?

The statutory standard is the one quoted above. The Department’s own framing of it, from the announcement of the final rule, is worth having in full because it is the sentence an adjudicator is applying:

“Under the final rule, restoration of firearm rights is neither automatic nor guaranteed. Each applicant must establish to the Attorney General’s satisfaction that the circumstances giving rise to the prohibition, together with the applicant’s record, reputation, and subsequent conduct, demonstrate that the applicant is not likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and that granting relief would not be contrary to the public interest.”

Note what that sentence asks for. Not “the offense was long ago” but the circumstances giving rise to the prohibition — the Department wants the facts of what happened, not a characterization. Not “I have been fine since” but record, reputation, and subsequent conduct — three separate evidentiary categories.

On extraordinary circumstances, the Department has said less than applicants would like. Its FAQ states that the final rule “identifies a variety of additional factors that can be considered when deciding whether the individual is likely to pose a danger to public safety if firearms rights are restored and whether restoration is contrary to the public interest,” and that “[t]he statements the Department made when issuing the rule name some factors that the Department may consider when determining if an applicant’s individual circumstances are extraordinary and can overcome a presumptive disqualification.”

There is no published body of decisions interpreting that phrase, because the program has not run long enough to generate one. Anyone who tells you what “extraordinary circumstances” means in operation is extrapolating. What can be said with confidence is structural: a presumption is a burden allocation, and an applicant carrying one needs affirmative, documented, specific evidence — not an argument that the presumption should not apply to people like them.

Are decisions published? Has anyone actually been granted relief?

Yes to both, and the second answer is the more useful one.

Section 925(c) requires that “[w]henever the Attorney General grants relief to any person pursuant to this section he shall promptly publish in the Federal Register notice of such action, together with the reasons therefor.” The Department confirms in its FAQ that “[u]nder 18 USC 925(c), the Department is required to publish the names of those who have received relief in the Federal Register.” Denials are not published.

Four Granting of Relief; Federal Firearms Privileges notices have issued since January 2025:

Notice	Citation	Date
Granting of Relief; Federal Firearms Privileges	90 Fed. Reg. 17835	April 29, 2025
Granting of Relief; Federal Firearms Privileges	91 Fed. Reg. 8532	February 23, 2026
Granting of Relief; Federal Firearms Privileges	91 Fed. Reg. 32094	May 29, 2026
Granting of Relief; Federal Firearms Privileges	91 Fed. Reg. 55362	August 27, 2026

The August 2026 notice records relief granted to nine individuals — eight on May 18, 2026 and one on August 5, 2026 — and states that the Attorney General “has reviewed all the relevant facts for each individual listed below, including the materials that each individual submitted seeking either a pardon or relief from Federal firearms disabilities.”

That phrase carries a strategic implication. Grants have issued on pardon files as well as on firearms-relief files, and they issued before the application portal opened. A person weighing whether to pursue a pardon petition, a § 925(c) application, or both should understand that the Department has been drawing on both kinds of submissions.

The published “reasons” are, so far, a recitation of the statutory findings rather than a reasoned explanation. That is a real limitation on what anyone can learn from them — but the notices remain the only public record of the standard being applied to actual people.

What happens if the application is denied?

The Department ties the consequence to the reason, and one of the four outcomes is materially worse than the others:

Reason for denial	What happens next
Permanent presumptive disqualifier	“[Y]ou will remain disqualified”
Time-limited five- or ten-year presumption	Wait until the presumption expires, then reapply
Current status	Wait until the status changes, then reapply
Any other reason	You acquire “a 5-year presumptive disqualifier in addition to whatever your initial firearm disability was”

That final row is the one to plan around. An application denied on the merits — as opposed to one denied because a listed disqualifier applied — does not simply fail. It creates a new, independent five-year presumption against you that did not exist before you filed. Filing early with a thin record is not a free option.

Is there judicial review of a denial?

The statute says there is, and whether it now works is unresolved.

Section 925(c) provides that “[a]ny person whose application for relief from disabilities is denied by the Attorney General may file a petition with the United States district court for the district in which he resides for a judicial review of such denial,” and that “[t]he court may in its discretion admit additional evidence where failure to do so would result in a miscarriage of justice.”

The complication is United States v. Bean, 537 U.S. 71 (2002). Bean’s application had been returned unprocessed because the appropriations rider barred ATF from spending money on it, and he asked a district court to decide his fitness in the agency’s place. The Supreme Court held he could not: “Inaction by ATF does not amount to a ‘denial’ within the meaning of § 925(c),” and “an actual decision by ATF on an application is a prerequisite for judicial review.” The Court reasoned that “the very use in § 925(c) of the word ‘review’ to describe a district court’s responsibility in this statutory scheme signifies that a district court cannot grant relief on its own, absent an antecedent actual denial,” and that the danger assessment “presupposes an inquiry into that applicant’s background — a function best performed by the Executive, which, unlike courts, is institutionally equipped for conducting a neutral, wide-ranging investigation.”

Bean thus decided that inaction is not reviewable. It did not decide what a court does with an actual denial by the Attorney General under a functioning process — because in 2002 no such process existed. That question is now live, and it has not been litigated under the new rule. Related questions ride along with it: the standard of review, whether the Administrative Procedure Act’s arbitrary-and-capricious standard supplies the measure, and what the “additional evidence” clause permits.

Anyone stating confidently what a district court will do with an FFRR denial is guessing. The right posture is to build the administrative record as though it is the only record you will ever have, because it may be.

Applied Insight — Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney: In post-conviction work, the record you make at the first opportunity usually determines the ceiling on everything after it. That instinct transfers directly here. Whatever a court eventually decides about reviewing these denials, review of an agency decision is ordinarily review of what was in front of the agency. That argues for putting the complete case in the initial application — the full offense conduct, the documented years since, the references, the treatment records if they are relevant — rather than holding material back for an appeal that may never be available.

Why was § 925(c) unavailable for thirty years?

Because Congress stopped paying for it, every year, for three decades.

Section 925(c) was enacted as part of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and broadened in 1986. Beginning with the Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government Appropriations Act, 1993, Pub. L. 102-393, 106 Stat. 1732, Congress attached a rider prohibiting ATF from using “funds appropriated herein . . . to investigate or act upon applications for relief from Federal firearms disabilities under 18 U.S.C. [§] 925(c).” Bean recites that rider and lists its re-enactment in the appropriations acts for 1994 through 2002, and it continued after that.

The rider never repealed the statute. It made the statute inoperable — a right with no functioning administrator — and Bean confirmed that courts could not substitute themselves for the agency. The result was a thirty-year period in which the truthful answer to an individual applicant was that there was nowhere to file. It is why so much published guidance says restoration is impossible: for most of the professional lifetimes of the people who wrote it, that was accurate.

Notably, the Department’s own final rule reads congressional intent the other way. Its preamble reasons that “[h]ad Congress concluded that section 925(c) was indeed an irredeemably dangerous threat to public safety, it could have amended the GCA to remove section 925(c) entirely,” and that Congress’s choice “simply to limit the appropriations available to implement section 925(c) on a year-to-year basis” suggests otherwise.

Two rulemakings restored the mechanism. The interim final rule, Withdrawing the Attorney General’s Delegation of Authority, 90 Fed. Reg. 13080 (Mar. 20, 2025), withdrew ATF’s delegation and the “effectively moribund regulations” governing ATF adjudication. The final rule, 91 Fed. Reg. 54054 (Aug. 20, 2026), effective September 21, 2026, established the criteria and the program, and placed adjudication with the Office of the Pardon Attorney.

What should you do between now and November 4?

The cap converts preparation into strategy. A workable sequence:

1. Get your own criminal history first — from the FBI and from the state police of every state you have lived in for the last twenty-five years. The Department’s instruction if it is wrong: obtain the report, identify the errors, and “dispute the errors with the relevant law enforcement agency.” That correction happens before you apply, not during.
2. Confirm your sentence is actually complete, including restitution and every other unsatisfied obligation, because the Department’s definition of “sentence” includes them and the lookback clocks turn on it.
3. Order certified court records now — charging document, judgment, plea agreement, factual basis, presentence report, and proof of final completion. Where a record cannot be produced, start building the sworn statement and the paper trail of your attempts.
4. Map yourself against the five disqualifier tiers. If a permanent one applies, the case you have to build is a different and much harder case, and you should know that before November rather than after.
5. If your disability is § 922(g)(4), find out whether your jurisdiction has a qualifying relief program and use it first. Relief under a program meeting the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 removes the § 922(g)(4) prohibition outright. The Department currently lists Arkansas, Montana, New Hampshire, Wyoming, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands as offering no such program — residents there may proceed federally without one.
6. Secure character references and brief them properly on what the statute actually asks.
7. Decide whether to pursue a pardon in parallel, in light of the published grants that came out of pardon files. See how to get a presidential pardon.
8. Do not open the e-application until the file is assembled. Thirty days is the clock, and the fingerprint step runs inside it.

If your prohibiting conviction is a state conviction, the analysis is different and the state route may be faster — see how to get gun rights back after felony. If you are not certain whether you are prohibited at all, start at can a felon own a gun. If your disability comes from a domestic-violence misdemeanor, the rules are materially different — see misdemeanor domestic violence gun rights restoration.

Related reading on pardons and firearm rights

The Department itself makes the point this page closes on. Answering whether a presidential pardon is the only way to regain federal firearm rights, the Office of the Pardon Attorney states: “No. A federal pardon does restore a person’s federal firearms rights, but also, under 18 U.S.C. § 925(c), the Attorney General can restore the federal firearms rights of a person who is prohibited from owning a firearm under federal law.” And then the caution that governs everything downstream of a grant: “a person who has had their federal firearms rights restored, either through pardon or under the § 925(c) process, should consult with their state, territorial, or tribal authorities to learn more about whether he can possess firearms under the laws where he lives.”

That second half is what the firearm rights restoration by state table exists to answer — including which states’ statutes give express effect to a § 925(c) grant and which do not mention it at all. The narrative version is the state guide to firearm rights restoration.

For the threshold question of whether you are prohibited and by what, see can a felon own a gun and, if the disability is a domestic-violence conviction, misdemeanor domestic violence gun rights restoration. For the pardon route as an alternative or a parallel filing, see how to get a presidential pardon, pardons lawyer, and what a pardon does not do. Where the conviction itself may be defective, a federal § 2255 motion or a writ of coram nobis removes the disability at its source.

For the executive alternative and how it compares, see clemency lawyers, what does clemency mean, clemency vs pardon vs commutation, what is a presidential pardon, and presidential pardon power — and note that a commutation does nothing here, because it leaves the conviction and its disabilities in place (commutation of sentence). If a clemency petition has already been denied, that does not affect a § 925(c) application: see clemency denied, what next. To talk through which route fits your record, firearm rights restoration attorney and gun rights restoration.

Why work with Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a boutique federal criminal defense and appellate firm founded in 2019, with a national federal practice run on an intentionally small caseload. Elizabeth Franklin-Best is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and twelve of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals — every regional circuit (1st–11th) plus the D.C. Circuit — and has handled more than 330 federal proceedings, over 100 of them appeals, with sixteen published decisions as counsel of record. She is recognized by Best Lawyers in America 2026 for Appellate Practice and by Chambers USA 2026 for white-collar litigation.

Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, the firm’s Managing Director, leads its federal prison consulting work and is the author of the Federal Prison Handbook, the Directory of Federal Prisons, Prison Education Guide, and College for Convicts. He serves as Chairman of the Board of the Human Rights Defense Center and earned his J.D. at UC Davis School of Law after serving roughly a decade in the federal Bureau of Prisons.

A § 925(c) application is a records case and a persuasion case at once, filed into a capped window under a discretionary standard with real consequences for getting it wrong. That is the kind of work this firm is built for. Legal work on any matter is handled by the firm’s attorneys.

Offices in Columbia and Mount Pleasant, South Carolina; clients nationwide. No outcome can be promised.

Schedule a consultation

To discuss whether a § 925(c) application fits your situation — and whether your records can realistically be assembled before the window opens — schedule a consultation or call (843) 620-1100.

Frequently Asked Questions About Federal Firearm Rights Restoration

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026