All 50 States Ranked by Number of Federal Firearm Licensees

A Federal Firearm License (FFL) is what you need if you want to do just about anything in the firearms industry. Want to receive firearms directly from manufacturers and distributors? You need an FFL. Want to sell or make guns on a commercial scale? You need an FFL. Want to collect rare, bizarre, or historical firearms? In most cases, you need an FFL.

There are several different types of FFL, from those issued to international companies to the one that your small neighborhood pawnbroker has. In a very general way, more FFLs in any given area can mean that there’s more demand for firearms in a region. However, most of the time it just means that the area has a larger overall population.

If you’ve ever wondered which states have the most active FFLs in America, we have complied the following list of all 50 states (plus some extras) using statistics from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. We also included the state’s population rank, to help lend some perspective on which states have a high number of FFLs for their population.

State	Total active FFLs	Population rank
1. Texas	10829	2
2. California	8564	1
3. Florida	7634	3
4. Pennsylvania	6325	6
5. Missouri	5437	18
6. Illinois	5239	5
7. Ohio	5087	7
8. North Carolina	4828	9
9. Virginia	4508	12
10. Michigan	4350	10
11. New York	4180	4
12. Massachusetts	3993	14
13. Georgia	3833	8
14. Tennessee	3500	17
15. Maryland	3411	19
16. Arizona	3189	15
17. Wisconsin	3161	20
18. Indiana	2983	16
19. Washington	2899	13
20. Colorado	2893	22
21. Minnesota	2720	21
22. Kentucky	2547	26
23. Oregon	2542	27
24. Oklahoma	2509	28
25. Alabama	2394	23
26. South Carolina	2243	24
27. Iowa	2188	30
28. Louisiana	2184	25
29. Arkansas	2042	32
30.Kansas	1919	34
31. Connecticut	1843	29
32. Mississippi	1562	31
33. Montana	1551	44
34. West Virginia	1518	38
35. Idaho	1423	39
36. Nevada	1406	35
37. Utah	1316	33
38. New Hampshire	1192	42
39. Nebraska	1170	37
40. New Mexico	1161	36
41. Maine	978	41
42. Alaska	975	48
43. Wyoming	896	50
44. South Dakota	817	46
45. North Dakota	663	47
46. Rhode Island	613	43
47. New Jersey	565	11
48. Vermont	544	49
49. Delaware	350	45
50. Hawaii	300	40
51. Other Territories	117	n/a
52. District of Columbia	25	n/a

Daniel Xu

I'm the knife nut that everybody is ashamed to know. My love of sharp things extends to all kinds of edged weapons, be they small, large or on a stick.