Gun Trust

A gun trust, also called an NFA trust or a firearms trust, is a trust created to own firearms regulated under the National Firearms Act, principally suppressors, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, machineguns and destructive devices. Nothing in the trust law is unusual, and no federal rule creates the category. The regulations simply recognize a trust as one of the kinds of applicant that may register such a firearm: 27 CFR 479.11 defines "Person" as "A partnership, company, association, trust, corporation, including each responsible person associated with such an entity; an estate; or an individual." Everything distinctive about a gun trust follows from that last clause.

The reason these trusts became popular no longer exists, and this is the single most important fact on the page. Before 2016, an individual applying to make or receive a National Firearms Act firearm needed a certification signed by the chief law enforcement officer of their locality, and an entity such as a trust did not. In some places the local official simply declined to sign, which effectively closed the individual route, and a trust reopened it.

ATF Rule 41F changed both halves at once. Published at 81 Federal Register 2658 on January 15, 2016, and effective July 13, 2016, the rule by its own summary "requires responsible persons of such trusts or legal entities to complete a specified form and to submit photographs and fingerprints when the trust or legal entity files an application to make an NFA firearm or is listed as the transferee on an application to transfer an NFA firearm; requires that a copy of all applications to make or transfer a firearm, and the specified form for responsible persons, as applicable, be forwarded to the chief law enforcement officer of the locality in which the applicant/transferee or responsible person is located; and eliminates the requirement for a certification signed by the CLEO."

So the signature is gone for individuals and entities alike, and what replaced it is notification rather than permission: a copy goes to the local official, who is not asked to approve anything. Meanwhile the entity route acquired the identification burden the individual route always had. Anyone still describing a gun trust as a way around an uncooperative sheriff is describing the law as it stood before July 2016.

Why the identification burden fell where it did. The statute requiring fingerprints and a photograph is drafted around individuals. Internal Revenue Code section 5812(a)(3) conditions a transfer on the transferee being identified in the application "except that, if such person is an individual, the identification must include his fingerprints and his photograph." A trust is not an individual, so before 41F nobody associated with it was fingerprinted. The rule closed that by regulation rather than by statute, defining a category of people inside the entity who must be identified as if they were the applicant.

Who counts as a responsible person, in the regulation's own words. 27 CFR 479.11 defines it, in the case of an unlicensed entity including any trust, as "any individual who possesses, directly or indirectly, the power or authority to direct the management and policies of the trust or entity to receive, possess, ship, transport, deliver, transfer, or otherwise dispose of a firearm for, or on behalf of, the trust or legal entity." For a trust specifically, it reaches "any person who has the capability to exercise such power and possesses, directly or indirectly, the power or authority under any trust instrument, or under State law, to receive, possess, ship, transport, deliver, transfer, or otherwise dispose of a firearm for, or on behalf of, the trust." The regulation then gives examples: "settlors/grantors, trustees, partners, members, officers, directors, board members, or owners." And it gives one exclusion: "An example of who may be excluded from this definition of responsible person is the beneficiary of a trust, if the beneficiary does not have the capability to exercise the powers or authorities enumerated in this section."

That last sentence is the drafting point. Naming someone as a beneficiary rather than a co-trustee keeps them out of the identification requirement, and naming them as a co-trustee is what lets them lawfully possess the firearm. The trust document is choosing between those two things for each person in it.

The tax changed in 2026, and most sources still print the old number. Section 70436 of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, enacted July 4, 2025, rewrote both National Firearms Act tax provisions. Internal Revenue Code section 5811(a) now imposes a transfer tax of "$200 for each firearm transferred in the case of a machinegun or a destructive device" and "$0 for any firearm transferred which is not described in paragraph (1)." Section 5821(a) does the same for the making tax. ATF's conforming final rule, published at 91 Federal Register 25112 on May 8, 2026, states the position in terms: "The OBBBA specified that the tax reduction amendments to the NFA would be effective on January 1, 2026, at which point the NFA making and transfer taxes for NFA firearms other than machine guns and destructive devices would be reduced to $0. As a result, those statutory changes have already occurred."

The same rule is equally clear about what did not change: "all other regulatory provisions of the NFA application and registration process remain in full force and effect." The application, the responsible-person forms, the fingerprints, the photographs, the background check and the wait for approval are all untouched. What is gone, for a suppressor or a short-barreled rifle, is the payment.

Two ATF proposals are pending and neither is law. As of September 5, 2026, ATF has proposed removing the chief law enforcement officer notification requirement that 41F created, at 91 Federal Register 24471, published May 6, 2026, with comments closed on July 6, 2026. It has separately proposed changing the fingerprint and photograph requirements, at 91 Federal Register 40924, published July 6, 2026, with comments open until October 5, 2026. A Federal Register search on September 5, 2026 found no final rule on either. Both are proposals, and a proposal changes nothing until a final rule is published.

A vocabulary correction worth making. "Class 3" is not a kind of trust. 27 CFR 479.32 sets the special occupational tax rates and lists Class 1 as an importer of firearms, Class 2 as a manufacturer, and Class 3 as a dealer. It is an annual tax status for a business, and no private trust holds one.

1. The trust is created under ordinary state trust law, with a settlor, a trustee or co-trustees, beneficiaries, and property.

2. The people in it are sorted. Anyone who can direct the trust to receive or dispose of a firearm is a responsible person under 27 CFR 479.11, which the regulation illustrates with settlors, trustees, officers and owners. A beneficiary without that capability is given as an example of someone who may be excluded.

3. The trust applies to make or receive the firearm, on ATF Form 1 to make one or Form 4 to receive one from a dealer or private party.

4. Every responsible person files the specified form with fingerprints and a photograph, for that application.

5. A copy of the application goes to the chief law enforcement officer of each responsible person's locality. This is notification, not permission, and it is the requirement ATF has proposed to remove.

6. The tax is computed. For a machinegun or destructive device it is $200. For every other National Firearms Act firearm it is $0.

7. ATF approves or denies, and on approval the firearm is registered to the trust rather than to any individual, so any responsible person may possess it within what the law otherwise allows.

8. At the settlor's death nothing has to be transferred, because the registrant is the trust, and the trust continues under its own succession provisions.

A hypothetical showing the arithmetic. The Alvarez family trust has three responsible persons: the settlor and two co-trustees. It applies to make one suppressor and to receive one short-barreled rifle from a dealer. That is two applications. Each responsible person files the specified form with fingerprints and a photograph for each application, so the trust submits 3 x 2 = 6 responsible-person packages. Neither item is a machinegun or a destructive device, so under section 5821(a)(2) the making tax on the suppressor is $0 and under section 5811(a)(2) the transfer tax on the rifle is $0, for a total tax of $0. Before January 1, 2026 the same two applications would have carried $200 + $200 = $400. Everything else about the two applications is identical.

What a gun trust actually does

• More than one person can lawfully possess the registered firearm, because the registrant is the trust and each responsible person acts for it.
• Succession is written into the document, so the registrant does not die and there is no application to file at the settlor's death.
• It keeps a regulated item out of probate, which is a public process and a slow one.
• The document can name who takes over, in what order, and on what conditions, which a registration in one person's name cannot.

What it does not do, and what it costs

• It is no longer a way around a chief law enforcement officer. That requirement was eliminated for everyone in 2016.
• Every responsible person is fingerprinted and photographed for every application, which the individual route requires only of the applicant.
• It saves no tax. The tax is set by statute according to the type of firearm, not according to who is applying.
• Adding a co-trustee later adds a person to the identification requirement on the trust's next application.
• It is a real trust with a real document, and a poorly drafted one creates ambiguity about who may possess what, which is not a good ambiguity to have.
• Federal regulation already provides an estate route, so the estate-planning case for one is a case about convenience and timing rather than about possibility.