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Expired or late firearm licence renewal

This is the most serious situation in this guide, and the worst thing you can do about it is nothing. Read this before you decide how to handle it.

Missed the 90 days but not yet expired

If you are inside the 90-day window, the licence has not expired but you are past the deadline for lodging, go to your Designated Firearm Officer now, with everything ready, and lodge. Explain honestly why you are late. Being a few days inside the expiry with a complete pack is a very different conversation from arriving after the date.

Already expired: apply for a new licence

A licence that has expired cannot be renewed. But since the Constitutional Court's judgment in Minister of Police v Fidelity Security Services (27 May 2022), you may apply for a new licence for the same firearm. Renewing and applying are different processes, and missing the renewal does not stop you from applying. SAPS issued a procedure for it:

1. Get your competency in order first. It is a new application, so you need a valid competency for that type of firearm. If it lapsed with the licence, deal with that first.
2. Take the firearm and a copy of the expired licence to your Designated Firearm Officer at your nearest police station. The DFO inspects it and issues a verification certificate, which you and the DFO both sign. Keep your copy.
3. The firearm goes home with you, into your safe. A verified firearm stays in your possession while the application is processed, but you may not use it until the new licence is issued.
4. Apply for a new licence on the SAPS 271, with the same documents and motivation as any new application.

SAPS must accept and process the application, but it does not have to grant it. A complete application with a strong motivation matters as much here as anywhere. There is no amnesty at present; the last one ended on 31 January 2021.

Do not leave it. Until the firearm has been verified by the DFO, you are holding it without a licence. Go soon, and do not carry the firearm anywhere except to the police station for the inspection.

Why people end up here

Almost never carelessness. The usual causes are:

• The competency was forgotten. A competency stays valid for as long as the licence it relates to, so both run out on the same date. People renew the licence and forget that the competency has to be renewed alongside it.
• Nobody was reminded. SAPS does not send renewal reminders. If the date is not in a system that will shout at you, it will pass.
• A licence inherited or transferred whose paperwork was never properly updated.
• A move without a SAPS 521(b) change of address, so correspondence went to an old address.

If a late application is refused

You have 90 days from the refusal to lodge an appeal on the SAPS 530. That window is hard and it runs whether or not you have decided what to do. How to appeal →

Making sure it does not happen again

Record the expiry date of every licence and every competency you hold, and put them somewhere that will actively remind you rather than somewhere you would have to remember to look. Firearm License Pro SA does this free, four months ahead of each date, which leaves you a comfortable month before the 90-day deadline. More on reminders →

This is general information about South African firearm law and SAPS procedure, not legal advice, and we are not SAPS. Where your situation is unusual, a past conviction, a pending case, a firearm inherited from a deceased estate, speak to a firearms attorney.

Frequently asked questions