Every ATF NFA Form, Explained: What Each One Does and Who Files It
If you run Class 3 at your shop, you already know the hard part of NFA isn’t the guns. It’s knowing which piece of paper goes with which movement of which serial number — and being able to prove it two years later when an IOI is standing at your counter.
The $0 tax stamp that took effect January 1, 2026 made this busier, not simpler. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Pub. L. 119-21 § 70436) amended 26 U.S.C. §§ 5811 and 5821 to zero out the making and transfer tax on suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and AOWs. Machine guns and destructive devices still carry the $200. What it did not do is remove a single form, fingerprint card, photo, or registration requirement. The paperwork is identical. The volume is not.
So here’s the whole family, form by form: what it is, who files it, what activity triggers it, and where dealers get burned.
Not legal advice. This is a working reference written for licensees. NFA law is federal, state law stacks on top of it, and the forms get revised — twice in the last year alone. Verify against the current form and your counsel before you rely on it.
Quick reference
| Form | Official name | Who files | Triggering activity | Tax (2026) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Form 1 (5320.1) | Application to Make and Register NFA Firearm | Non-SOT individual, trust, or entity | Making/building an NFA firearm | $0 silencer/SBR/SBS/AOW · $200 DD |
| Form 2 (5320.2) | Notice of Firearms Manufactured or Imported | Class 2 manufacturer / Class 1 importer SOT | Manufacturing or importing NFA firearms | None (notice, not application) |
| Form 3 (5320.3) | Application for Tax-Exempt Transfer of Firearm and Registration to SOT | Transferring SOT | Dealer-to-dealer / distributor-to-dealer | None |
| Form 4 (5320.4) | Application to Transfer and Register NFA Firearm (Tax-Paid) | Transferor (usually you, the dealer) | Retail sale to a customer | $0 silencer/SBR/SBS/AOW · $200 MG/DD |
| Form 5 (5320.5) | Application for Tax-Exempt Transfer and Registration | Transferor, executor, or agency | Gov’t transfers, estates, unserviceable | None |
| Form 9 (5320.9) | Application and Permit for Permanent Exportation | Exporting licensee | Permanently exporting an NFA firearm | None |
| Form 10 (5320.10) | Registration of Firearms Acquired by Certain Gov’t Entities | State/local agency or official police org | Agency acquires by forfeiture/abandonment | None |
| Form 20 (5320.20) | Application to Transport Interstate or to Temporarily Export Certain NFA Firearms | Registered owner (non-licensee) | Taking an SBR/SBS/MG/DD across state lines | None |
| 5320.23 | NFA Responsible Person Questionnaire | Each RP of a trust/entity | Attaches to a Form 1, 4, or 5 filed by an entity | None |
| 5630.7 | Special Tax Registration and Return (NFA) | Every SOT | Annual — your Class 1/2/3 stamp | $500 dealer · $500–$1,000 mfr/importer |
The two questions that pick the form
Before you memorize anything, internalize this. Almost every NFA transfer resolves on two questions:
- Is the receiving party a qualified SOT? If yes, the transfer is tax-exempt and it’s a Form 3. If no, it’s a Form 4.
- Is a government entity involved, is this an estate, or is the firearm unserviceable? If yes, it’s a Form 5, regardless of who the parties are.
Everything else — Form 1, Form 2 — is about creating a registered firearm rather than moving one. Form 9, 10, and 20 are edge cases you’ll touch a few times a year at most.
One important thing that is not on that list: sending a gun out for repair. More on that below, because most shops get it wrong in the expensive direction.
Form 1 (5320.1) — Application to Make and Register NFA Firearm
What it does: Grants advance permission to create an NFA firearm. Approval must land in your hand before a single cut is made.
Who files it: A non-SOT — an individual, a gun trust, an LLC, a corporation. If you’re a licensed manufacturer paying Class 2 SOT, you do not use Form 1. You manufacture first and file a Form 2 after.
The activity: Threading and pinning a barrel below 16″, assembling an SBR from a pistol lower, building a suppressor from a solvent-trap kit, converting a shotgun to an SBS. The classic customer question — “can I just cut this down?” — is a Form 1 question.
What’s attached: Fingerprints (FD-258 cards or Electronic Fingerprint Transmission through eForms), a 2×2 passport-style photo, and a CLEO notification copy for every responsible person. Trusts and entities add a 5320.23 for each RP.
2026 tax: $0 for a silencer, SBR, SBS, or AOW. $200 for a destructive device. Civilians cannot Form 1 a machine gun — 18 U.S.C. § 922(o) closed the registry in 1986.
Where dealers get burned: Customers show up wanting you to “do the Form 1 for them.” You can help them file, but the applicant is the maker, and the maker has to mark the firearm themselves under 27 CFR 479.102 — and that rule is more than a name. It requires a unique serial number, the maker’s name, city and state, the model if one is designated, and the caliber or gauge. Markings must be at least .003 inch deep, with the serial number no smaller than 1/16 inch print. If your shop does the engraving, you’re doing it under their application. Confirm the full string against the approved form before the laser fires.
Form 2 (5320.2) — Notice of Firearms Manufactured or Imported
What it does: Registers NFA firearms that a qualified manufacturer or importer has already made or brought in. It is a notice, not an application. Nobody approves it. You file it, and the gun is registered.
Who files it: Licensed manufacturers who’ve paid Class 2 SOT, and licensed importers who’ve paid Class 1.
The activity: Manufacturing a suppressor, an SBR, or a machine gun for a government or dealer-sample market. Reactivating a firearm. Releasing imported NFA firearms from Customs.
Deadlines that will bite you: Manufacturers file a separate notice for everything made in a single day by the close of the next business day (27 CFR 479.103). Importers file per import permit, no later than 15 days from release from Customs custody (27 CFR 479.112). These deadlines are real and they are the most common Form 2 violation in an inspection.
Where dealers get burned: Class 3 dealers who occasionally “build” something. If you are a Class 3 dealer only, you are not qualified to manufacture. Threading a customer’s barrel is gunsmithing; making a suppressor tube is manufacturing, and it needs an 07 FFL and a Class 2.
Bro, did ya know…
Your Form 3s could be tracking themselves.
Every pending form, every serial, every status — on one board instead of a whiteboard and a prayer.
Form 3 (5320.3) — Tax-Exempt Transfer to a Special Occupational Taxpayer
What it does: Moves a registered NFA firearm from one qualified SOT to another with no transfer tax.
Who files it: The transferring SOT. If you’re buying from a distributor, they file — but you’re the one waiting on it, so you’ll be the one calling.
The activity: Your inventory. Distributor to your shop. Your shop to another dealer. Manufacturer to distributor. Every can on your wall got there on a Form 3.
What’s attached: Copies of both parties’ FFLs and SOT stamps. No fingerprints, no photos, no CLEO — this is a licensee-to-licensee transaction.
Turnaround: Historically the fastest form in the system, and eForms Form 3 approvals have often come back in days rather than weeks. The whole queue is heavier post-January 2026, so build slack into your restock cycle rather than promising a customer a date.
Where dealers get burned: Two ways. First, you cannot take possession before approval — inbound NFA sitting in your back room on a pending Form 3 is unlawful possession, not a paperwork problem (27 CFR 479.86). Second, your SOT must be current on the date of the transfer (27 CFR 479.88). A Form 3 that lands the week after your 5630.7 lapsed is a bad transfer, and unwinding one is miserable.
Form 4 (5320.4) — Application to Transfer and Register NFA Firearm (Tax-Paid)
What it does: Transfers a registered NFA firearm to somebody who is not an SOT. This is the retail sale.
Who files it: The transferor — your shop, for a counter sale. For a private party sale it’s the individual seller.
The activity: Selling a suppressor to a customer. Selling an SBR to a trust. A private individual selling their registered can to another individual. Any movement of an NFA firearm to a non-licensee.
What’s attached: This is the heavy one. Fingerprints and a 2×2 photo for the transferee (and for every responsible person if the transferee is a trust or entity), CLEO notification, and a 5320.23 per RP.
Watch the photo window. The December 2025 revisions of Forms 5320.1 and 5320.4 both call for a 2×2 frontal photograph taken within six months prior to the date of the application. The regulation at 27 CFR 479.85 still reads one year, and you will find plenty of older guidance repeating it — but the operative instruction is the one printed on the form you’re actually submitting. Use six months and you’re safe either way.
2026 tax: $0 for silencers, SBRs, SBSs, and AOWs. Still $200 for transferable machine guns and destructive devices.
Where dealers get burned:
- The 4473 at pickup. An approved Form 4 does not complete the transfer. When the customer walks in to take the can home, you run a 4473 like any other over-the-counter transfer (27 CFR 478.124(a)). It is not optional and it gets logged.
- NICS is exempt for individuals — not for trusts. For an individual transferee, 18 U.S.C. § 922(t)(3)(B) removes the ATF-approved NFA transfer from the NICS requirement, and you mark the exemption on the 4473. For a trust, LLC, corporation, or estate, the NFA Handbook (§ 9.12.1) is explicit: the authorized person picking up on behalf of the entity completes the 4473 with their personal information and undergoes a NICS check. Same counter, same day, different answer. A second exception: if the NFA firearm goes out attached to or together with a GCA firearm, run NICS.
- Trust pickups. The responsible person taking physical possession should be an RP who was vetted on the application. Handing a trust’s suppressor to the customer’s brother-in-law because “he’s on the trust” without checking the RPQ set is how shops get written up.
- Interstate. ATF will not approve a Form 4 to a non-licensee in a different state than the transferor. Out-of-state customer means the gun goes to a dealer in their state on a Form 3 first, then a Form 4 from that dealer.
- The bound book. The NFA firearm is still a firearm under the GCA. It gets an acquisition entry when it arrives and a disposition entry when it leaves, per 27 CFR 478.125, on top of the NFA registration trail.
Bro, did ya know…
Day 301 and still pending? You should know that before the customer calls.
Per-serial day counters, long-wait flags, trust vs. individual at a glance, and a pickup alert the moment a stamp lands.
Form 5 (5320.5) — Tax-Exempt Transfer and Registration
What it does: Moves an NFA firearm without tax in the specific situations Congress and ATF carved out.
Who files it: The transferor, or the executor/administrator in an estate case.
The three scenarios you’ll actually see:
- Government transfers. Selling to a federal, state, or local agency — a PD, a sheriff’s office, a corrections department. Also the agency transferring back out.
- Estates. A registered owner dies and the firearm passes to a lawful beneficiary. Tax-exempt, and it’s the answer to the “what happens to my cans when I die” question every trust customer asks. Note the limit: 27 CFR 479.90a covers a transfer to a beneficiary. If there are no beneficiaries, or none want the firearm, the executor is disposing of it outside the estate and that’s a Form 4, not a Form 5.
- Unserviceable firearms. A firearm permanently rendered incapable of firing, transferred as a curio or ornament (27 CFR 479.91).
The repair myth — read this one twice. Sending a customer’s registered suppressor back to the manufacturer for service is not a transfer at all. 27 CFR 479.11 expressly excludes “the temporary conveyance of a lawfully possessed firearm to a manufacturer or dealer qualified under this part for the sole purpose of repair, identification, evaluation, research, testing, or calibration and return to the same lawful possessor.” No transfer, no transfer application, and 27 CFR 478.124(a) exempts it from the 4473 too. ATF recommends a Form 5 as documentation and plenty of manufacturers require one as a matter of policy — but if you’ve been telling customers a repair legally requires a stamp and a wait, you’ve been costing them months for nothing. What you do need is documentation showing the conveyance was for repair and return to the same possessor. Keep it in the file.
Where dealers get burned: Estate work. Executors don’t know the timeline, and an unregistered NFA firearm found in an estate is contraband that cannot be lawfully registered after the fact. Get the executor to ATF’s NFA Division early, and file during the reasonable period of estate administration — not after the estate closes.
Form 9 (5320.9) — Permanent Exportation
What it does: Authorizes the permanent export of an NFA firearm and clears the transfer tax.
Who files it: The exporting licensee.
The activity: Shipping registered NFA product out of the country permanently. This lives alongside your ITAR/DDTC obligations, not instead of them. If you’re not an exporter, you will never see this one.
Form 10 (5320.10) — Registration of Firearms Acquired by Certain Governmental Entities
What it does: Registers an unregistered NFA firearm that a qualifying government entity has acquired by seizure, forfeiture, abandonment, or a similar route.
Who files it: Narrower than people assume. 27 CFR 479.104 covers any State, any political subdivision of a State, or any official police organization of such a government entity engaged in criminal investigations. Federal agencies are outside its scope.
The catch: A Form 10 registration is marked for official use only, and that firearm can afterward only be transferred to another government entity. It never enters the commercial market. If a PD customer asks whether they can trade one in, the answer is no.
Form 20 (5320.20) — Application to Transport Interstate or Temporarily Export
What it does: Gives a non-licensee owner advance permission to take certain NFA firearms across state lines, or temporarily out of the country.
Who files it: The registered owner. If the firearm is registered to a trust or LLC, the entity name goes on the form.
Which firearms: Short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, machine guns, and destructive devices (27 CFR 478.28). Suppressors and AOWs are exempt — your customer can drive a can to another state without asking anyone. This is the single most common NFA misconception at the counter.
How it works: File before the trip. The form authorizes transport only during the period specified in Item 3, and the customer designates the firearms and the destination. Many owners request a longer standing window rather than filing per trip; ATF has approved extended periods in practice, but the CFR sets no fixed ceiling, so treat what you tell a customer as “request the window you need” rather than quoting a hard limit.
Where dealers get burned: Not a form you file, but a form you should be mentioning. A customer who buys an SBR from you and drives it to a match in the next state has committed a felony they didn’t know existed. Put it on your NFA delivery checklist.
Form 5320.23 — NFA Responsible Person Questionnaire
What it does: Identifies and vets each responsible person behind a trust or legal entity applicant. It’s not a standalone filing — it rides along with a Form 1, Form 4, or Form 5.
Who files it: Every RP. A responsible person is anyone with authority to direct the management and policies of the trust or entity as it relates to the NFA firearm — trustees, LLC members and managers, corporate officers.
What’s attached to each one: Fingerprints, photo, and a CLEO copy per RP. Four trustees means four complete packets.
Where dealers get burned: Customers who don’t understand that adding trustees multiplies the paperwork and the wait. Have the conversation before they file, not after their spouse’s prints come back rejected and the whole application resets.
Form 5630.7 — Special Tax Registration and Return (NFA)
What it does: This is your SOT. It’s the annual special occupational tax that makes you a Class 1 importer, Class 2 manufacturer, or Class 3 dealer of NFA firearms.
Who files it: Every licensee who wants to deal in NFA.
The dates that matter: The NFA special tax year runs July 1 through June 30 (27 CFR 479.31). Your return and payment are due by July 1 for the year ahead. Filing became available through eForms in the fall of 2025, which is a meaningful improvement over mailing a check and hoping.
The rate — and the part everyone gets wrong:
- Class 3 dealers pay a flat $500 under 27 CFR 479.32. There is no reduced rate and no higher rate. Gross receipts don’t matter.
- Class 2 manufacturers and Class 1 importers pay $1,000, reduced to $500 if gross receipts for the most recent income tax year were less than $500,000 (27 CFR 479.32a). Note “less than” — exactly $500,000 does not qualify.
Where dealers get burned: This is, without exaggeration, the most damaging clerical failure in Class 3. A lapsed SOT does not just cost you a stamp. Every Form 3 you accept while lapsed is an unlawful transfer, your dealer samples become a problem, and your ability to hold NFA inventory disappears overnight. Put July 1 on a recurring reminder with a 60-day lead, and check it against your license expiration separately — the two dates are unrelated and shops routinely conflate them.
Bro, did ya know…
$0 stamp. Same paperwork. Already built for it.
Form 4 journey mapping with statutory citations, a 51-state rules matrix, and P.L. 119-21 pricing baked in since day one.
The paperwork that isn’t a 5320
Three things that aren’t NFA forms but will absolutely come up in an inspection:
- FD-258 fingerprint cards. Still accepted on paper, but Electronic Fingerprint Transmission through eForms is faster and rejects less. Bad prints are a leading cause of Form 4 delays.
- CLEO notification. Since the 41F rule, this is a notification, not a certification (27 CFR 479.63(c), 479.85(c)). Nobody has to sign off. The applicant just has to send a copy to the chief law enforcement officer. Customers still show up believing their sheriff can veto them.
- ATF Form 4473. Required at delivery of any NFA firearm to a non-licensee out of your inventory — with the NICS split described above.
And underneath all of it: your A&D bound book. NFA firearms get acquisition and disposition entries like everything else, and the NFA registration paperwork sits on top of — never in place of — your 27 CFR 478.125 records.
What’s still moving
Two sections of this guide are under active rulemaking as of this writing. On May 8, 2026 ATF published proposals that would eliminate the CLEO notification requirement entirely and remove the Form 20 advance-approval requirement for trips of 365 days or less. Both are proposed only — nothing has changed yet, and the comment period runs into August 2026. File under “watch this,” not “act on this.”
FAQ
Did the $0 tax stamp eliminate any forms?
No. Forms 1 and 4 were revised in December 2025 and ATF amended the tax regulations in May 2026, but the applications, fingerprints, photos, RPQs, CLEO notifications, and registration all remain exactly as they were.
Do machine guns still cost $200?
Yes. Machine guns and destructive devices were carved out of the 2026 reduction. Everything else — silencers, SBRs, SBSs, AOWs — is $0.
Can I take possession of a Form 3 before it’s approved?
No. Possession before approval is unlawful possession of an NFA firearm not registered to you. Wait for the stamp.
My customer is out of state. Can I just Form 4 it to them?
No. Form 3 it to a dealer in their state, and that dealer runs the Form 4.
Does a suppressor need a Form 20 to cross state lines?
No. Suppressors and AOWs are exempt. SBRs, SBSs, machine guns, and destructive devices are not.
Does a repair require a Form 5?
Legally, no — a temporary conveyance for repair and return to the same possessor isn’t a transfer under 27 CFR 479.11. Many manufacturers still want one as a matter of policy. Ask before you ship, and document either way.
Do I run NICS when a trust picks up a suppressor?
Yes. The § 922(t)(3)(B) exemption covers individual transferees. The person picking up for a trust or entity completes a 4473 with their own information and gets a NICS check.
What happens to registered NFA firearms when the owner dies?
Form 5, tax-exempt, to a lawful beneficiary, filed during estate administration. If no beneficiary takes it, the executor sells it out of the estate on a Form 4.
Keeping it straight
The forms themselves aren’t complicated. What’s complicated is that a mid-size Class 3 shop is running Form 3s inbound, Form 4s outbound, occasional Form 5s for the local PD, an annual 5630.7, and a bound book that has to reconcile against all of it — while the $0 stamp has pushed noticeably more volume through every one of those pipes.
That’s the problem NFA-BRO was built to solve. Form tracking by status and serial, SOT renewal alerts before July 1, RPQ packet tracking per responsible person, and NFA entries wired straight into the same A&D bound book that handles your regular inventory — so the registration trail and the 478.125 record never drift apart.
If you’re still tracking pending Form 3s on a whiteboard, the 2026 volume is going to find you.
Sources: ATF NFA Handbook Ch. 9; ATF eForms; 27 CFR Parts 478 and 479; 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(o), 922(t)(3)(B); 26 U.S.C. §§ 5811, 5821; Pub. L. 119-21 § 70436; ATF Forms 5320.1 and 5320.4 (rev. Dec. 2025). Current as of July 2026 — verify against the live form before filing.