DOJ Opens Gun-Rights Restoration to the Public Nov. 4, Starting With 5,000 Applicants

The Justice Department opens its federal firearm rights restoration program to the public on November 4, when the first 5,000 applicants can file, the department says on its program page. A second window opens January 4, 2027, for 500 more applicants, and the $30 application fee starts the same day.

The program runs under 18 U.S.C. 925(c), the provision of the 1968 Gun Control Act that lets the Attorney General lift a person’s federal bar on owning guns. The law calls this relief from disabilities. Attorney General Todd Blanche finalized the rule on August 17, the department said in a press release. The final rule was published in the Federal Register on August 20 and took effect September 21. Invited candidates have been able to apply since September 25.

The rule recounts why the process stopped. Congress has barred the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which held the authority, from spending money on individual applications since 1992. In March 2025 the Attorney General withdrew ATF’s authority over the program by interim rule, and in July 2025 the department proposed the criteria it has now adopted. The Office of the Pardon Attorney handles intake.

The online application, OMB Form 1123-0017, is listed as coming soon. Applicants submit electronic fingerprints, records of the conviction or other disqualifying event, arrest records and three character references. The department raised the fee from the $20 it proposed after commenters called that too low. Indigent applicants can ask for a waiver. Fingerprints taken through the Postal Service, the method required at first, cost $50.

The rule adds a new 28 CFR Part 107 that sets presumptive disqualifications. Violent felons, people whose sex-offender registration stems from the disqualifying offense and people in the country illegally are presumed ineligible for good unless they show extraordinary circumstances. Convictions for threats of violence and for firearms offenses carry a 10-year presumption instead of a permanent one, a change from the proposal. Relief is neither automatic nor guaranteed. It lifts only the federal bar, state restrictions stay in place, and each grant is published in the Federal Register.

The department expects about 330,000 applications in the first year, an estimate built on 2024 background-check denials. It received 15,559 comments on the interim rule and the proposal. Roughly 91 percent supported reviving the process and about nine percent opposed the rule. Pardon Attorney Edward Martin put the number of Americans who have lost their federal gun rights at 30 million in the press release.

John Commerford, executive director of NRA-ILA, the National Rifle Association’s lobbying arm, wrote in an American Rifleman column on October 29 that the group filed formal comments on the proposal and that some of its objections were accommodated in the final rule while others were not. “It remains to be seen what administration of the rule will look like in practice,” he wrote.

The public window opens November 4 for the first 5,000 applicants. The fee and the next 500 slots follow on January 4, 2027, at justice.gov/ffrr.