South Dakota Landowner Tags
South Dakota has two separate things that both get called landowner licences. Landowner Preference is a draw advantage - 50 percent of the limited licences in the first drawing on a first choice - and needs 160 acres operated within the first-choice unit. Landowner-on-own-land licences are a different product: half price or a free antlerless licence, guaranteed or over the counter, valid only on the holder's own land but within any open unit. Nothing in South Dakota is transferable.
Checked against South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks rules, October 20, 2026. Where the rule is silent or its sources disagree, the line says so.
Landowner Preference · Landowner-on-own-land licences
contiguous, deeded and other tests apply
with an exemption
Hunting Your Own Land
none for big game - and South Dakota defines turkey as big game, so the small-game own-land exemption in SDCL 41-6-2 does not reach it. Neither the own-land licence statutes nor GFP's licence tables address whether that licence carries the habitat-stamp exemption (source: sd_sdcl_41_6_21).
Landowner Preference
Landowner Preference, SDCL 41-6-21; ARSD 41:06:01:07 and 41:06:01:10
or 240 ac elk: 240 acres plus 500 elk use days
50 percent of the limited licences in the first drawing,...
residents only
Who Qualifies
| Species | Deer, Antelope (Pronghorn), Turkey, Elk |
|---|---|
| Acreage test | 160 acres operated within the first-choice unit (elk needs 240 acres plus 500 elk use days); agricultural use is required, land leased solely for hunting is excluded, employment alone does not qualify, and contiguity is not required.1 |
| Land test | ✗ Contiguous✓ Agricultural use within the hunt unit |
| Who may hunt it | A landowner or tenant, but not both on the same property, plus a spouse or co-residing child; the elk family rule is much broader (a grandparent to grandchild living on the ranch or in the nearest community with an active role). Entity shareholders or members qualify if the entity is South Dakota-organised and the applicant is a resident. Employees are expressly excluded. |
| When to apply | Claimed inside the regular window: deer May 27 - Jun 23, 2026; pronghorn Jun 16 - Jul 7; elk Mar 12 - Apr 2, 2026, which is earlier than and separate from the regular elk draw. |
What You Get
| The tag | A draw advantage, not a tag: 50 percent of the limited licences in the first drawing on a first choice (ARSD 41:06:01:10), and 50 percent per elk unit. The licence itself is an ordinary unit-wide licence at the ordinary fee, and it is still drawn. |
|---|---|
| Set-aside | 50 percent of the limited licences in the first drawing, first choice; 50 percent per elk unitNot addressed in the rule. GFP's application and draw tables show licences by unit and type but never break out the 50 percent landowner-preference pool, so its draw odds cannot be computed from open data. |
| Transfer or sale | No. SDCL 41-6-71: no licence or tag is transferable, a Class 1 misdemeanour. There is no voucher product and no market. |
ARSD 41:06:01:07.03 has been amended in three consecutive years (latest eff. May 25, 2026) with the definitions rule changing again on Sep 29, 2026, so re-verify before publishing. Preference is residents-only.
Landowner-on-own-land licences
Landowner-on-own-land licences, SDCL 41-6-19.3, 41-6-19.4, 41-6-19.8 and 41-6-19.9
or 640 ac nonresident: must OWN 640 contiguous acres west of the...
Nonresident East River own-land deer capped at 250 per...
out-of-state owners qualify
Who Qualifies
| Species | Deer, Antelope (Pronghorn), Elk (There is no own-land turkey licence, even though South Dakota treats turkey as big game.) |
|---|---|
| Acreage test | Residents need 160 acres owned OR leased; a nonresident must own 640 contiguous acres west of the Missouri or 160 acres east of it and be an owner-operator.1 |
| Land test | ✗ Contiguous✗ Deeded✓ Agricultural use within the property |
| Who may hunt it | The landowner or tenant, but not both, plus a spouse or co-residing child; the broader elk family rule applies to elk. |
| When to apply | Own-land over-the-counter windows run July to December; the nonresident East River deer draw closes Sep 24. |
What You Get
| The tag | A half-price licence (ARSD 41:06:02:03(15)) or a free antlerless licence, guaranteed or over the counter except for the nonresident East River pool, valid only on the holder's land but within ANY open unit. The nonresident East River deer pool is capped at 250 per year by lottery. |
|---|---|
| Set-aside | Nonresident East River own-land deer capped at 250 per year by lottery |
| Transfer or sale | No. SDCL 41-6-71 bars transfer of any licence or tag. |
Nonresidents may get West River deer, East River deer (draw only), firearm pronghorn and the free antlerless licence, but nonresidents cannot obtain ANY South Dakota elk licence. The 2024 big game annual report breaks out landowner-own-land harvest by season.
Not addressed in the rule. SDCL 41-6-19.3 to .9 and GFP's licence tables set the fee and the own-land scope and never say whether the licence carries a habitat-stamp exemption.
New for 2025–26: Landowner-own-land antlerless elk is now valid in any Prairie unit, and a new over-the-counter East River elk unit (PRE-ERA) was created for 2026.
General Season or Limited Draw?
The default is that big game licences, including turkey, are issued by lottery. The over-the-counter exceptions are resident archery deer (unlimited, ARD-ST1/ER1/WR1, confirmed by ARSD 41:06:22:01), muzzleloader antlerless whitetail (MZD-LM1, unlimited), all landowner-own-land licences, the new 2026 PRE-ERA East River prairie elk hunt (unlimited, resident-only, OTC), spring archery and mentored turkey and spring Black Hills turkey. For nonresidents, East River, West River, Black Hills, Custer State Park and refuge deer are all lottery, Custer State Park is resident-only, Black Hills nonresident is 16 of 220, nonresident archery deer is split between ADNP-ST1 (2,200 by lottery, public and private) and ADN-ST1 (private-land-only, unlimited OTC), and nonresidents may not hunt public or GFP-leased land before Oct 1. Unit codes follow prefix-number-letter with a type code; suffix L means public-land-only units and suffix P means private-land-only licence types.
New for 2025–26: Firearm deer, pronghorn, elk and turkey unit polygons have no open download - the REST endpoints 403 outside the Experience apps.
Check a parcel on the map →
Click the ground or paste a listing's coordinates: the unit for every species (170 South Dakota units mapped), and whether the acreage clears the floor.
South Dakota draw odds →
Every species, unit and hunt code, with the odds at each point level, fees and deadlines.
Things That Trip People Up
- Landowner licence codes (LBD-BH1, LED-ER1, LWD-WR1, LOA-ST1, LOE-PRE, LFD-ST1) are pseudo-units, not geographies: they mean the applicant's own land, wherever it lies in any open unit.
- Preference and own-land licences are two different products - one is a draw advantage, the other a property-restricted licence.
- Land leased solely for hunting is excluded, and employment alone never qualifies.
- Nonresidents cannot obtain any South Dakota elk licence, landowner or otherwise.
- Turkey counts as big game, so the small-game own-land exemption does not cover it, and there is no own-land turkey licence.
- The 50 percent preference pool is not broken out in published tables, so draw odds for it cannot be computed from open data.
- ARSD 41:06:01:07.03 changed in three consecutive years and the definitions rule changed again in Sep 2026 - re-verify before publishing.
Sources
- 1. South Dakota Legislature · SDCL 41-6-21, landowner preference · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 2. South Dakota Legislature · ARSD 41:06:01 (including :07 and :10, landowner preference definitions and allocation) · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 3. South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks · Landowner Preference reference sheet · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 4. South Dakota Legislature · SDCL 41-6-71, licences and tags not transferable · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 5. South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks · Per-season application PDFs with LICENSE AVAILABILITY tables · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 6. South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks · Draw statistics 2022-26 · retrieved 2026-10-20
- 7. South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks · 2024 big game annual report (landowner-own-land harvest by season) · 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.