With the passing of the One Big Beautiful Bill, the effective tax stamp for suppressors, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and any other weapons went to $0. The process to apply for a stamp still exists, and so does the registration, paperwork, fingerprints, and photos. The entire firearm industry knew that a wave was coming.
Free Tax Stamps: The Aftermath
The reduction to zero-dollar tax stamps has already changed the industry. Mossberg introduced a handful of factory SBS firearms at SHOT Show 2026. Short-barreled rifles are becoming more and more common. PSA went all-in on SBRs and even SBS models in the near future. Everyone has a suppressor. Hi-Point and Lyman have even released suppressors.
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The industry wisely leaned into the NFA market, and I think that’s fantastic. The effects of the tax stamp reduction were absolutely immediate. Dealers were holding suppressors for folks until the stamp went away, and people were ready to file their Form 1s immediately. The response was massive, but let’s break it down.
The January 1st Surge
On January 1st, the reduction of tax stamp cost went into effect. Predictably, the number of forms filed was massive. According to American Rifleman, the ATF sees roughly 2,500 eForms filed a day. eForms does not just cover Form 1 and Form 4s, but an entire litany of forms used by various parts of the industry.
On January 1st, the ATF received 150,000 forms. This created some immediate issues. The ATF eForms website looks like it came out of the days of AOL, and I doubt the website was built for the traffic it received. The system experienced intermittent glitches and failures that affected the industry as a whole.
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People were submitting some truly outrageous items to the Form 1 side. Famously, a potato was approved as a suppressor. This surge in odd eForms caused the ATF to add a disclaimer, making users promise that what they were filing was a legit NFA weapon or suppressor.
By the Numbers: How Many Stamps?
So, how many stamps have been filed so far? A lot, for sure, and the ATF expects to see anywhere from three to seven million tax stamps filed this year. By January 8th, the control numbers broke 1 million. By January 16th, that number hit 1.5 million.
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The ATF has now opened up eForm 4s for non-licensees, which has created a surge of individuals transferring their NFA firearms to trusts. This does not represent the purchase of new NFA items; rather, it reflects their transfer.
With that many stamps, the process of approval has slowed ever so slightly. Previously, my stamps were coming back in three to four days, but users are reporting anywhere from 10 to 25 days for new stamps. Individuals are processed faster than trusts, and Form 4s seem to be processed faster than Form 1s. We have also seen user reports on conditional approvals for Form 1s, specifically SBRs, showing that they will require an engraving. The engraving requirement is not new, but the ATF issuing conditional approval with an engraving notification is.
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I’d imagine this is simply the ATF attempting to warn the massive amount of new SBR creators that they have to engrave the gun with their name or trust name, and city and state.
Common Use and the Legal Future
There is this little thing called common use. Common use has become the Supreme Court’s yardstick for deciding which arms are protected by the Second Amendment. Common use was a big part of the District of Columbia v. Heller decision and, according to Justice Scalia, the Second Amendment protects weapons in common use at the time.
When a firearm, or something like a suppressor, becomes in “common use” is not precisely established. There is no set number of something that makes it common use. However, the firearms industry is largely relying on these free stamps to increase the rate of ownership of NFA items and to bring them into common use.
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Will this happen? That’s tough to know. If a particular item has a shot, it’s probably suppressors, as they seem to be the current hotness for NFA items. As much as we can hope, there simply is not a way to know until the court decides in one direction or another.
It seems like the future of NFA items is bright, as long as the anti-gunners do not gain control and raise the tax stamp to some astronomical figure. Get those stamps in. There is no point in waiting for the surge to subside, as I do not think it will be over anytime soon.
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