DOJ Gun-Rights Restoration Portal Fills 5,000 Slots on Day One, Reopens January 2027

The Justice Department’s federal firearm rights restoration application reached its cap of 5,000 new applicants on November 4, 2026, its first day open to the public, and the department has closed the site to new starts until January 2027, it says on the application page. “We have reached our limit of 5,000 new applicants, so the application website is temporarily closed,” the page reads. “We cannot accept any new applications at this time.”

Anyone who started an application before the cap can still log in, finish and submit it. The form, OMB Form 1123-0017, exists only online, and the department says there is no paper option. The program page lists the next stage as January 4, 2027, when 500 more applicants can file and the $30 application fee begins. Invited candidates have been able to apply since September 25.

The program runs under 18 U.S.C. 925(c), which lets the Attorney General lift a federal firearms prohibition when relief would not endanger public safety and is in the public interest. The final rule, published August 20 in the Federal Register at 91 FR 54054 over Attorney General Todd Blanche’s signature, took effect September 21, 2026, and assigns intake to the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Congress barred the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) from spending money on the applications from 1992, and the rule says budget riders through January 2026 kept that bar in place. The department called 330,000 applications a reasonable estimate for the first year and set the fee at $30 after proposing $20.

Once an application begins, the clock is short. The department’s frequently asked questions page says an applicant has 30 days from starting the online form to complete and submit it, and must start over after that. Fingerprints come after the first part is submitted, when the department emails a QR code for electronic fingerprinting at a participating Post Office. Fingerprints taken anywhere else are not accepted, and the FBI processes them into the application. The Office of the Pardon Attorney cannot recover a lost link and PIN.

Each application needs three character references who are not related to the applicant by blood or marriage, have known the applicant for at least three years and are not themselves prohibited under 18 U.S.C. 922(g). References affirm under penalty of perjury that the applicant has committed no crime beyond minor infractions in the past five years and would not pose a danger if allowed a firearm. Applicants with a felony conviction also upload the charging document, the judgment and proof that the sentence was completed, and a sworn statement stands in for any required document that cannot be obtained.

The department lists five types of presumptive disqualifiers: current status, permanent, 10 years, 5 years and reapplication. A felony involving a death, sexual assault, kidnapping, robbery, arson or brandishing a firearm is a permanent bar absent extraordinary circumstances, and drug trafficking, threats of violence and a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence carry a 10-year presumption. An applicant barred by a mental health commitment is presumptively disqualified until applying to a state relief program where one exists. The department’s page on those cases lists Arkansas, Montana, New Hampshire, Wyoming, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands as having no such program.

A grant leads the FBI to update the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), may come with a special number the department calls an RPIN for use when buying a firearm, and is published with the applicant’s name and the grant date in the Federal Register. It does not remove a state or tribal prohibition. A denial can be challenged in the U.S. district court where the applicant lives, and a new application usually follows a waiting period. The next 500 slots open January 4, 2027.