Carry & reciprocity
Honors permits from 33 other states specifically — not a blanket "any state" policy.
Minimum carry age: 21
BCA list, reviewed annually (Minn. Stat. 624.714 subd. 16 — no requirement that the permit come from your state of residence). Per-state limits: ID, MS, MT, SD and TN ENHANCED permit only; ND Class 1 license only; CO and MA only if issued or renewed on/after 8/1/24. Expressly NOT valid in MN: AL, AZ, FL, GA, IN, IA, ME, NH, OR, PA, UT, VA, WA, WI, WY. No permitless carry. WATCH: SF352/HF17/HF2805 (94th MN Legislature, 2025-2026) would create a right to carry without a permit; introduced and in committee as of this reading, not passed.
MN official source →Reciprocity status reviewed August 2026.
Tap any answer to jump to its full write-up and source, below.
23 specific questions, each with its own answer and, where one was found, a real source.
Reviewed September 2026. First-pass research: sourced per answer below, not yet independently re-verified line by line.
Minn. Stat. §624.714 (official Revisor of Statutes citation) requires a Permit to Carry to carry a pistol in public; the statute does not distinguish open from concealed, so a permit holder may choose either, but no one may carry a handgun in most public places without that permit at all (a handful of narrow exceptions exist, e.g., at one's own home/business, hunting). So: open carry is allowed, but only for permit holders, same as concealed — not permitless.
Source (2026-09-01) →Minnesota's general 'reasonable request' notice statute (Minn. Stat. §624.714) would normally require specific signage/personal notice for a private establishment to exclude a permit holder — but in Edina Community Lutheran Church v. State, 745 N.W.2d 194 (Minn. Ct. App. 2008), courts held that applying the standard signage/notice procedure to churches unconstitutionally burdens religious exercise, so churches are exempt from those procedural requirements and may prohibit carry more informally. Net effect: still owner/congregation discretion, just via a different mechanism than other businesses.
Source (2008-01-01) →No Minnesota statute was found restricting carry-permit holders from restaurants/bars by location. Minn. Stat. § 624.7142 (the on-point alcohol statute I could confirm) only bars carrying while under the influence (tiered at 0.04/0.10 BAC) and contains no location clause — but I did not review the entire weapons chapter, so I'm not confident there's no separate location restriction elsewhere. Marking conditional rather than a confirmed yes.
Source (2026-09-01) →Minnesota's permit to carry (Minn. Stat. § 624.714) authorizes carry statewide; no boat/vessel/waterway restriction was found in Minnesota statute in this research, and none is referenced on the DPS permit-to-carry page.
Source (2026-09-01) →Minn. Stat. §609.66 makes it a felony to possess a dangerous weapon within a courthouse complex UNLESS the person holds a Minnesota permit to carry and has given the county sheriff notice of intent to do so — an unusual notice-based exception rather than a flat ban. It separately bans weapons in Capitol Area state buildings outright (except the National Guard armory). Many individual judicial districts have also issued their own court orders banning carry regardless of the statutory notice exception, and those orders have been read to cover contiguous county offices/libraries under the same roof. Ordinary city/county buildings outside the Capitol Area and unconnected to a courthouse complex are not covered by this statute.
Source (2026-09-01) →Minn. Stat. § 624.714, subd. 18(b)-(c): a public post-secondary institution MAY restrict carrying by its OWN students/employees inside its buildings, but generally may NOT prohibit lawful carry by the general public, and may never prohibit carry in campus parking areas for anyone. So the answer depends on whether the carrier is affiliated with the school and whether they're indoors vs. in a parking area.
Source (2026-09-01) →Minn. Stat. § 624.714, subd. 17-18 makes it a petty misdemeanor to carry on premises after 'notice' (posted sign or personal communication) is given; absent notice, carry is lawful. Minnesota's 2023 reforms focused on background checks/red-flag law, not business carry defaults.
Source (2026-09-01) →Verified: Minn. Stat. 624.714, subd. 17 ('Carrying firearm - Posting - Trespass') establishes the posting/personal-notice framework by which a private-property owner may exclude a permit holder — i.e., an opt-out model where carry defaults to allowed absent a posted sign or personal notice, confirmed by the Minnesota Revisor's own statute index.
Source (2003-01-01) →No Minnesota source I found lists airports among the state's fairly extensive prohibited-places list (schools, courthouses, state buildings, correctional facilities, etc.). Absence suggests it may not be restricted, but I found no statute or second source confirming this.
Source (2026-09-01) →Minnesota requires a permit to carry to have a pistol in a motor vehicle (Minn. Stat. §624.714) — carrying without one is a gross misdemeanor. Without a permit, a firearm may still be transported in a vehicle if it's unloaded and in a closed, fastened case, gun box, or securely tied package.
Source (2026-09-01) →No Minnesota statute prohibits firearms in hospitals.
Source (2026-09-01) →Minnesota requires a permit to carry. Minn. Stat. §624.714 does not itself enumerate a sensitive-places list (that's handled by private posting and specific facility statutes) and expressly allows carry in 'a motor vehicle' under a valid permit; no rest-area restriction found. Verified against the statute text directly.
Source (2023-08-01) →Minn. Stat. § 624.714, subd. 1b(d) (confirmed directly via revisor.mn.gov): "Upon the request of a peace officer, a permit holder shall disclose to the officer whether or not the permit holder is currently carrying a firearm." Purely reactive — no proactive duty.
Source (2026-09-01) →Minn. Stat. § 624.714 subd. 2(a): "Applications by Minnesota residents for permits to carry shall be made to the county sheriff where the applicant resides. Nonresidents, as defined in section 171.01, subdivision 42, may apply to any sheriff."
Source (2026-09-01) →Minn. Stat. §609.66 subd. 1d(a) bans firearms on school property; subd. 1d(d) explicitly extends the ban to permit-to-carry holders as well — the only exceptions are lawfully storing a firearm in a vehicle or directly placing/retrieving it from the trunk. No general campus carry even with a valid Minnesota carry permit.
Source (2026-09-01) →Minn. Stat. § 624.714, subd. 17-18 explicitly addresses this: a permit holder carrying where a possessor has prohibited it 'may be ordered to leave the premises,' and it is only a person who 'fails to leave when so requested' who 'is guilty of a petty misdemeanor' — capped at a $25 fine for a first offense. Entering past the sign itself is not a criminal act; the firearm is also explicitly exempted from forfeiture.
Source (2026-09-01) →Minn. Stat. § 471.633: firearm regulation is "reserved to the state legislature," expressly preempting home-rule charter cities (including Minneapolis and St. Paul); localities may only regulate discharge or adopt ordinances identical to state law.
Source (2026-09-01) →No enacted Minnesota statute bars firearms at polling places. HF 132 (2025-2026 session), which would prohibit open or concealed carry within 100 feet of designated polling places, was introduced Feb. 10, 2025 and has seen no committee action since Feb. 24, 2025 — it has not passed.
Source (2025-02-24) →Minnesota has no magazine capacity law. Multiple bills to cap magazines at 10 (or 17) rounds were introduced in the 2026 session (e.g., HF 3402, HF 5160, SF 3714), but the legislature adjourned March 17, 2026 without passing any gun-control legislation.
Source (2026-05-18) →RECENT: Extreme Risk Protection Order law, Minn. Stat. § 624.7171 et seq., effective Jan. 1, 2024. Petitioners: family/household members, a chief law enforcement officer, a city/county attorney, or a guardian.
Source (2026-09-01) →Suppressors: legal with no separate state permit — Minn. Stat. §609.66, subd. 1a criminalizes only a suppressor 'not lawfully possessed under federal law.' Short-barreled rifles: no Minnesota restriction beyond federal NFA compliance found. Machine guns and short-barreled SHOTGUNS are treated differently: Minn. Stat. §609.67 presumptively prohibits both UNLESS the Minnesota BCA superintendent has affirmatively determined the specific item to be a collector's item/relic/curiosity, and the owner then files a written report with the BCA within 10 days of acquiring it — an extra Minnesota-specific administrative step on top of the federal NFA process for those two categories only.
Source (2026-09-01) →Minn. Stat. § 609.065 authorizes deadly force to prevent a felony in the actor's own place of abode (castle-doctrine home exception, reinforced in State v. Glowacki, 630 N.W.2d 392 (Minn. 2001)). Outside the home, Minnesota case law reads a duty to retreat if reasonably possible into the 'necessity' element of self-defense (e.g., State v. Basting, 572 N.W.2d 281 (Minn. 1997)). No duty at home; duty in public if reasonably possible. Home provision confirmed via the official Minnesota Revisor's statute text; the public-duty case citation is a secondary-source summary not independently re-verified — confirm against the current Minnesota CRIMJIG before operational use.
Source (2026-09-01) →Minn. Stat. § 624.7132 (2023 Omnibus Public Safety bill, effective Aug. 1, 2023) prohibits private transfer of pistols and semiautomatic 'military-style assault weapons' without a firearms-eligibility background check on the recipient. Traditional long guns (ordinary hunting rifles and shotguns) are NOT covered. Also exempt: transfers among immediate family (spouse, parent, sibling, grandparent, etc.) and temporary loans between hunting companions.
Source (2026-09-01) →This is information, not legal advice, and it can be wrong or out of date — carry law changes without notice and varies by locality in ways a single page can't fully capture. Verify anything load-bearing against the official source linked above and each answer's own citation before you rely on it.