What is a firearms identification card: a state-by-state breakdown
A firearms identification card is a permit to acquire. It is the document a state makes you hold before a dealer may transfer a gun to you, and it sits in front of the federal background check rather than replacing it. It is not a carry permit, it is not a licence to own what you already have, and in most states that use one it says nothing about where you may take the gun afterwards.
In the great majority of the country no such card exists. You walk in, fill out the federal form, the dealer runs the check and you leave. The states below are the exceptions, and the terminology changes at every state line, which is why this question gets asked so often.
New Jersey: the FID card proper
New Jersey is where the phrase is used most literally. The firearms purchaser identification card covers rifles and shotguns and is good indefinitely once issued. Handguns need something extra: a separate permit to purchase for each handgun, with a one-handgun-per-30-days limit. Both are issued by the chief of police where you live, or by the State Police in towns without a full-time department, and both require fingerprinting on a first application and an approved safety course. The detail, with current fees and timelines, is in New Jersey gun laws.
The other permit-to-acquire states
- Massachusetts. Two documents. A firearms identification card covers non-large-capacity rifles and shotguns; a licence to carry is what you need for handguns, and it doubles as the carry permit. Issued by local police.
- Illinois. The firearm owner's identification card, universally called the FOID. Required to possess as well as to acquire, which makes it broader than a New Jersey FID. Issued by the state police.
- Connecticut. A handgun eligibility certificate or pistol permit for handguns, and a long gun eligibility certificate for rifles and shotguns.
- Maryland. The handgun qualification licence, needed before a regulated firearm transfer. Long guns are handled differently.
- Hawaii. A permit to acquire, issued per firearm for handguns.
- New York. A pistol licence for handguns, issued county by county, with New York City running its own scheme on top.
- North Carolina, Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska, Rhode Island. Various handgun purchase permits or safety certificates, several of which can be satisfied instead by holding that state's concealed carry permit.
- California. A firearm safety certificate rather than a permit, but the effect at the counter is the same: no certificate, no transfer.
Treat that list as a map, not as authority. These schemes are amended frequently and several have been through the courts in recent years. Before you act, check your own state police or attorney general, which is the only source that is current by definition.
What it means when you order online
The card never travels with the gun. An online order ships to a licensed dealer in your state, and the card is produced at that counter, along with your identification, when you go to collect. That is the point in the process where a permit-to-acquire state differs from the rest of the country: the federal form and background check happen either way, and the card is an extra gate in front of them.
Buying into New Jersey specifically is walked through step by step inbuying a gun in High Bridge.
General information, not legal advice. Permit schemes change often. Check your state's own published requirements before you apply or buy.
