North Dakota Landowner Tags
North Dakota gratis licences take a flat 150 acres for all four species, and owners face no agricultural-use test at all - bare land qualifies - while lessees must hold an ag lease and actively farm it. One licence per individual and one for all qualifying land, so stacking parcels or entities buys nothing. The dangerous detail is scope: deer, pronghorn and moose gratis licences are valid only on the land described in the application, while elk is unit-wide.
Checked against North Dakota Game and Fish Department rules, October 20, 2026. Where the rule is silent or its sources disagree, the line says so.
Gratis licences
contiguous, deeded and other tests apply
with an exemption
Hunting Your Own Land
The own-land exemption in NDCC 20.1-03-04 covers small game only. The gratis licence IS the licence and tag, and residents holding gratis need no other licences - no $2 certificate and no $20 habitat licence - while hunter education is waived for anyone hunting only land they own or operate (source: nd_ndcc_20_1_03).
Gratis licences
Gratis licences, NDCC 20.1-03-11
contiguous and deeded tests below
Gratis licences are subtracted from the unit lottery...
out-of-state owners qualify
Who Qualifies
| Species | Deer, Antelope (Pronghorn), Elk, Moose (No gratis licence exists for bighorn sheep or turkey.) |
|---|---|
| Acreage test | 150 acres, identical for all four species. Owners who hold title face no agricultural-use requirement, so bare land qualifies; lessees must hold an agricultural lease and actively farm the land. No contiguity requirement appears in NDCC 20.1-03-11.1 |
| Land test | ✓ Deeded✗ Agricultural use within the property Not addressed in the rule. NDCC 20.1-03-11 sets a flat 150-acre test for all four species and never requires the acres to be contiguous. |
| Who may hunt it | The applicant (an entity names one individual) or a resident agricultural lessee, plus a spouse or legal dependent by transfer. Employees, tenants-as-hunters, grandchildren and lineal descendants have no standing. Family may pool described lands within one unit but each must hold their own gratis licence. |
| When to apply | Deer gratis by midnight Jun 3, 2026; pronghorn by Aug 5, 2026. Late deer applications are accepted but get leftovers. Issued only through the Bismarck office. |
What You Get
| The tag | One licence per individual and one for ALL qualifying land - stacking parcels or entities does not multiply licences. Deer, pronghorn and moose gratis licences are valid only on the land described in the application; elk gratis is unit-wide. Deer is guaranteed if filed by the lottery deadline (any-legal-deer); pronghorn is capped at one-half per unit, cut from 100 percent by SB 2155 (2025); elk and moose are capped at 15 percent. |
|---|---|
| Set-aside | Gratis licences are subtracted from the unit lottery quota: 2026 saw 11,221 deer gratis, 28.2 percent of availability, and seven unit/type combinations left zero for the resident drawingNot addressed in the rule. The lottery statistics carry a Gratis Deduction column for deer and pronghorn only - there is no gratis column for moose or elk - and no CSV or API is offered. |
| Transfer or sale | No. No person may transfer, give away, barter or sell an issued licence. Pre-issuance eligibility may be transferred only to a spouse or a co-residing legal dependent. Absent lease language, the landowner gets the licence. No market can exist. |
| Enrolled properties | Agency list |
Nonresidents qualify for deer only and pay the nonresident big-game fee of $350, drawn from the 1 percent per-unit nonresident allocation; nonresident lessees and all other species are resident-only, and owning a North Dakota parcel or cabin confers no residency. Published data is the best in class - lottery stats by unit with an explicit Gratis Deduction column (94 unit/type rows), the pronghorn equivalent (604 of 1,305, 46.3 percent), proclamation section 11 plus Amendment 1, and GIS unit polygons - but there is no gratis column for moose or elk and no CSV or API.
New for 2025–26: SB 2155 (2025) cut the gratis pronghorn ceiling from 100 percent to one-half per unit. 2026 deer licences fell 3,200 to 39,100, and Amendment 1 bans antlerless whitetail harvest in units 3C, 3E1, 3E2 and 3F2 for all licence types including gratis.
“No person may transfer, give away, barter or sell an issued license” — NDCC 20.1-03-11, subsections 3 (deer), 5 (pronghorn), 7 (elk) and 8 (moose). No NDAC rule exists: statute plus the annual proclamation is the complete rule set.1
General Season or Limited Draw?
Deer gun is lottery only - there is no over-the-counter resident deer gun tag - and muzzleloader is a weighted lottery of 750. Archery is the OTC product: resident bow is unlimited and any-deer, and youth licences are not limited. Turkey runs lottery first then first come first served. Nonresident whitetail bow is unlimited OTC at $350, while nonresident any-deer bow (mule deer access) is a limited lottery of 240 for 2026, Apr 15 - May 15. Nonresident landowner deer comes out of the 1 percent per-unit nonresident allocation. Every gun and muzzleloader unit should be flagged limited; resident and nonresident whitetail archery are unlimited and not unit-restricted. The geography is 38 deer units.
Check a parcel on the map →
Click the ground or paste a listing's coordinates: the unit for every species (74 North Dakota units mapped), and whether the acreage clears the floor.
North Dakota draw odds →
Every species, unit and hunt code, with the odds at each point level, fees and deadlines.
Things That Trip People Up
- North Dakota is the worst state for correctness on a point-in-unit lookup: deer, pronghorn and moose gratis licences are valid only upon the land described in the application, so answering you are in unit 2E, your gratis tag is good here produces an illegal harvest.
- Elk gratis is unit-wide and the restricted-area moose variant is too, so a blanket landowner-equals-own-land rule is also wrong. Model it per species.
- Gratis comes out of the lottery quota - 11,221 deer licences, 28.2 percent of availability, with seven unit/type combinations left at zero for the resident drawing - so licences available in this unit does not equal licences a non-landowner can draw.
- One licence per individual and one for all qualifying land: stacking parcels or entities does not multiply licences.
- Owners face no agricultural-use test and bare land qualifies, but lessees must hold an ag lease and actively farm - the sharpest tenure line of the 21 states.
- The own-land licence exemption covers small game only; the gratis licence is itself the licence and tag.
Sources
- 1. North Dakota Legislative Branch · NDCC 20.1-03 (gratis licences: deer subsec. 3, pronghorn 5, elk 7, moose 8; 20.1-03-04 exemptions) · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 2. North Dakota Game and Fish Department · Gratis application help page · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 3. North Dakota Game and Fish Department · Deer lottery statistics by unit (with the Gratis Deduction column) · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 4. North Dakota Game and Fish Department · Pronghorn lottery statistics by unit · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 5. Office of the Governor of North Dakota · Governor's 2026-27 deer proclamation (signed scan), section 11 licences-by-unit table · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 6. Office of the Governor of North Dakota · 2026-27 deer proclamation Amendment 1 (withdraws licences) · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 7. North Dakota GIS Hub · North Dakota hunting unit polygons (38 features) · retrieved 2026-10-20
This page summarizes agency rules for orientation. The statute, commission rule and the current year's application booklet govern; check them before buying land or applying.