ATF Moves to Cut Fingerprint Cards and Passport Photos From NFA Applications
An ATF proposed rule would cut fingerprint cards from two to one, drop passport photos, and end fingerprinting for NFA trusts. The comment window opens July 6.
Every NFA purchase comes with a ritual. You ink two fingerprint cards like it’s 1934, you hunt down a 2×2 passport photo that Walgreens will find a way to get wrong, and then you wait for the government to bless the package.
So here’s the fun part, straight from the ATF’s own filing: the FBI actually asks to see those fingerprints about 1% of the time. One percent. You’ve been performing the ritual your whole NFA life, and for 99 transfers out of 100, nobody was at the altar.
Apparently the ATF noticed too. On Monday it publishes a proposed rule, “Fingerprint and Photograph Requirements for Firearms Applications” (Docket No. ATF-2026-0397), that cuts most of the ceremony, covering 27 CFR parts 478 and 479. That’s government for Forms 4 and 1: suppressors, SBRs, the whole NFA catalog. Public comments run through October 5.
What’s on the chopping block: individuals drop from two fingerprint cards to one. The passport photo dies for everyone, replaced by a plain copy of your driver’s license, a document that has existed longer than the NFA itself. And trusts get the headline: fingerprinting gone entirely, unless the statute specifically demands prints or the ATF Director flags a particular application. Digital EFT prints get codified for eForms while they’re at it.
Who actually feels it: individual filers lose an errand, which is nice. Trust holders lose a whole category of errands, which is the story. Right now every responsible person on an NFA trust gets printed; under the proposal, nobody does. If your trust has four people on it, that’s four ink pads, four appointments, and four chances for a rejected card that all just stopped existing.
Banish 45
If this rule gets you off the fence, the Banish 45 is the do-everything can we point first-time buyers at, and Silencer Central walks your whole Form 4 through for you.
The bigger picture: this rode in under the ATF’s “New Era of Reform” initiative, six months after the suppressor tax stamp went to zero. Add it up and the NFA is having its most cooperative year since it was written. In 1934.
The caveat, because there’s always a caveat: it’s a proposed rule, not a final one. The ATF can put every requirement back before the final version drops, and nobody knows when that is.
Your move: the comment window is the one part of this process where regular people get a vote, and it closes October 5. Docket ATF-2026-0397 at regulations.gov. Go say your piece.
And if it goes through? Keep the ink pad. Souvenir.
Would you run a trust if fingerprinting goes away? Let us know in the comments below.
Got a suppressor waiting on paperwork? Sign up below and the next NFA rule change won’t catch you mid-build.
Sources
- Federal Register, proposed rule (Docket ATF-2026-0397)
- ATF, New Era of Reform initiative
- Regulations.gov, comment docket
Justin Trump is the managing editor and owner of CAT Outdoors. The son of a Vietnam veteran, he’s a Certified Glock Armorer, an avid gun enthusiast and 2A advocate. He holds two firearm patents for the CAT M4 and Talon tools. When not managing CAT Outdoors, he enjoys spending time with his family and friends, rooting for Michigan sports teams, and serving his church.