Minnesota Carry Guide

Minnesota is a permit state. To carry a pistol in public, open or concealed, you need a Permit to Carry from a county sheriff, and you need it with you. The rules on where you can go fit on a page. The rules on what you carry with you, and what you drink, are stricter. This page is the whole book on one sheet, and every line points to the chapter that explains it.

You can get a Minnesota Permit to Carry at 18, as a citizen or permanent resident, from anywhere in the country. You can't get one if you're on the prohibited-persons list in section 624.713 of the Minnesota Statutes, and a registered predatory offender may not carry a pistol even with a permit. A sheriff can also refuse if there's a "substantial likelihood" you're a danger, but must prove it in court if you appeal. Legal cannabis use doesn't disqualify you under Minnesota law. Federal law is separate and unsettled for cannabis users, so talk to an attorney first.

You apply in person to your county sheriff with three things: the form, a training certificate less than a year old, and a copy of your driver's license, state ID card or passport photo page. The sheriff may charge up to $100. The sheriff has 30 days to decide, and if you hear nothing, the law counts that as issuing the permit, unless the sheriff has suspended your application because a charge that would bar you is pending. Don't carry until the card is in your hand, because the law requires you to have it on you. It lasts five years. To renew, you take the class again.

Minnesota has no permitless carry. Carrying a pistol in public without a permit is a gross misdemeanor, and a felony the second time. What the law does have is a short list of five places and trips where no permit is needed, like your own home, hunting, or driving with the gun unloaded and cased. With a permit, you may carry openly or concealed. A rifle or shotgun in public needs the same permit, unless it's unloaded and fully cased, or on the way to or from a hunt, range or repair shop.

Minnesota's banned places are few: school property, courthouses, the State Capitol area, jails and correctional facilities, plus federal buildings, post offices and a federal 1,000-foot zone around schools. A Minnesota permit holder can carry into the Capitol. Courthouses require notice to the sheriff that no official page explains, so treat them as closed unless your sheriff tells you how. Private businesses can ban guns, with a sign the law describes down to the typeface or by telling you in person. Refusing to leave is a petty misdemeanor. State hospitals are closed by law. Bars and other hospitals aren't on Minnesota's list, and we found no polling-place ban, though one in a school is school property.

With a permit, Minnesota law lets your pistol ride loaded anywhere in the vehicle, including on you. On the federal law's text, a Minnesota permit also covers the federal school zone, though no official page confirms it (Chapter 5). Without a permit, the pistol has to be unloaded and in a closed, fastened case, a gunbox, or a securely tied package. A real gun case, fully closed, is the choice that clearly meets the separate vehicle law too; lock it near schools, and the safe course is to keep it off school property. Rifles and shotguns have their own rule: unloaded and cased, or unloaded in the closed trunk, with a narrow uncased option for hunters and range-goers.

Minnesota has no magazine-capacity limit. Ordinary ammunition isn't restricted either. One rule adds prison time for using or possessing a "metal-penetrating" handgun bullet during a crime. People on the prohibited-persons list in Chapter 2 may not have any ammunition, except that someone under 18 may have ammunition for a gun they may lawfully have. And since January 1, 2025, binary triggers are banned as machine-gun parts, with up to 20 years in prison.

You don't have to announce your gun in Minnesota. But you must carry your permit card and a photo ID, show both when an officer lawfully asks, and say whether you're carrying if an officer asks. Forgetting the card is a petty misdemeanor, with a first-offense fine of no more than $25, and the ticket must be dismissed if you show you had a valid permit.

At a dealer, a free purchase permit from your police chief (or the county sheriff if your city has none), or your Permit to Carry, skips the up-to-30-day wait for a handgun or "semiautomatic military-style assault weapon." Since August 1, 2023, private transfers of those guns go through a dealer, or the buyer shows a transferee permit (the permit to purchase) and ID; if you skip the dealer, both sides keep a signed record for ten years. In a private handgun transfer, the BCA accepts a Permit to Carry; for an assault-weapon type, use a transferee permit or a dealer. Close-family transfers (spouses, parents, children, siblings, grandparents) are exempt; the full list is below. At home, a loaded gun must be secured if a child is likely to reach it.

In Minnesota, gun law is state law. Cities, counties and other local governments can't regulate guns or ammunition, except to regulate the firing of guns, or to adopt rules identical to state law. School districts can't set rules for visitors that are inconsistent with state law. And no sheriff may add a single requirement to the permit.

Minnesota honors carry permits from 33 states, some only in one permit type, and Colorado and Massachusetts only if issued or renewed on or after August 1, 2024. It doesn't honor permits from 15 others, including Wisconsin, Iowa and Florida. Visitors follow Minnesota's rules, not their own. A visitor can get a Minnesota permit in person at any Minnesota sheriff's office. Minnesota residents apply to their home county's sheriff. Where your Minnesota permit works when you leave is each other state's decision. The Minnesota Regional Carry Guide covers those crossings. Find it at www.sneakypeteholsters.com/minnesota-regional-carry-guide, or search "Minnesota Regional Carry Guide" at www.sneakypeteholsters.com.

Minnesota allows deadly force only when necessary against a threat you reasonably believe could cause death or great bodily harm to you or another person, or to stop a felony in your own home, and only if you didn't provoke it. The courts add a duty to retreat when you reasonably can, except in your own home. Carrying while drinking has hard lines at 0.04 and 0.10, with lost carry rights on top of the fine. If you ever use your gun, call 911, then a lawyer.

Your county sheriff issues the permit. The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension writes the forms and keeps the reciprocity list and the approved-instructor list. The Office of the Revisor of Statutes publishes the law for free. Everything here was checked on September 27 and 28, 2026.