Carry & reciprocity
Allows permitless (constitutional) carry for qualifying residents and, per its own rules below, often visitors too.
Minimum carry age: 16
Vermont has NO concealed-carry permit system: it issues no permits and requires none, so reciprocity is inapplicable — any person, resident or visitor, who may lawfully possess a firearm may carry it concealed. The full section list of 13 V.S.A. ch. 85 (Weapons) contains no carry-licensing provision; 13 V.S.A. 4003 punishes carrying a dangerous weapon only 'with the intent to injure another.' 13 V.S.A. 4008: a child under 16 may not possess a pistol/revolver without parental consent, so 16 is the state-law floor. honorsAll is set true because no permit is needed, not because Vermont evaluates other states' permits. Federal age limits and Vermont's prohibited-places rules still apply.
VT 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.
Vermont has never had any state permit requirement for carrying a handgun, open or concealed — the longest-standing 'constitutional carry' state in the country. Vermont issues permits only for out-of-state reciprocity purposes, not as a domestic legal requirement.
Source (2026-09-01) →Vermont has no statute prohibiting firearms in places of worship; carry there is a property-owner decision.
Source (2026-09-01) →Vermont requires no permit to carry and is widely understood to have essentially no locational carry restrictions, but a direct fetch of the relevant statute (13 V.S.A. § 4016) failed (SSL error), and I have no other confirming source from this session's research. Marking conditional rather than asserting a confirmed yes.
Source (2026-09-01) →Vermont is a constitutional-carry state with, by design, one of the shortest prohibited-place lists in the country, and a CCW-law summary site describes no boat/vessel restriction. However, I could not independently verify this against Vermont's primary statute (13 V.S.A. and related 2023-24 school-safety amendments) within this research, so I'm treating the secondary source as corroboration rather than confirmation.
Source (2026-09-01) →13 V.S.A. §4016 bars carrying a firearm inside a courthouse (as designated by the Vermont Supreme Court) without authorization from the court — courthouses are off-limits absent that authorization. Separately, a Vermont Department of Buildings & General Services administrative rule (Admin. Rule 10-050-003) bans firearms in 'State Buildings' generally, which would reach a state-run office like a state DMV counter. Neither provision reaches a purely municipal building like a city hall, which is not restricted at the state level (Vermont has essentially no statewide CCW permit system — anyone who can legally possess a firearm may carry it).
Source (2026-09-01) →No Vermont statute bans campus carry directly; state law affirmatively authorizes colleges/universities to ban all weapons from campus, and as of Feb. 2024 every Vermont public and private institution (including UVM) had exercised that authority to prohibit concealed carry.
Source (2024-02-01) →Vermont has never required a permit to carry concealed for residents or visitors (State v. Rosenthal, 1903, and current practice), and has no gun-specific business-signage statute. A property owner may exclude a carrier under ordinary trespass law (13 V.S.A. § 3705), but carry is presumptively lawful absent that notice. Vermont does issue permits solely for reciprocity purposes with other states.
Source (2026-09-01) →No VT statute requires advance owner consent; general unlawful-trespass law (13 V.S.A. 3705) requires notice before presence becomes unlawful (opt-out default). Constitutional-carry state (no permit needed for carry at all).
Source (2026-09-01) →No Vermont source I found lists airports among restricted locations; Vermont's list (per usacarry.com) is short — school buses/buildings/property, courthouses, and US federal buildings — consistent with Vermont's status as one of the most permissive carry states in the country (no permit required at all for residents 18+). That's suggestive of 'yes' but not an affirmative confirmation for airports specifically.
Source (2026-09-01) →Vermont has never had a carry-license system — no permit is required to carry openly or concealed anywhere in the state, including in a vehicle. The one carve-out: a LOADED rifle or shotgun (not handguns) in/on a motor vehicle within a public highway right-of-way is prohibited, with exceptions for law enforcement and permitted disabled hunters.
Source (2026-09-01) →Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 13, §4023 prohibits knowing possession of a firearm in a hospital. I was unable to independently pull the Vermont legislature's own statute page (repeated certificate error) so this rests on Giffords' quoted statutory text rather than a page I read directly — worth a follow-up direct check of legislature.vermont.gov before publishing as certain.
Source (2026-09-01) →Vermont has never required a permit for in-state concealed carry. Its weapons-in-schools statute (13 V.S.A. §4004) is limited to school buildings, buses, and school property; the only vehicle-related firearm restriction found elsewhere is a ban on loaded rifles/shotguns in vehicles on the public highway right-of-way (handguns unaffected). No rest-area-specific restriction found. Verified against the statute text directly.
Source (2026-09-01) →Vermont has no concealed-carry permit requirement and no statute found requiring disclosure of concealed carry to law enforcement.
Source (2026-09-01) →Vermont issues no concealed carry permit to anyone, resident or non-resident — it has never had a licensing system ("Vermont carry"), so there is nothing to apply for. Any adult who may lawfully possess a firearm, resident or visitor, may carry openly or concealed without any permit.
Source (2026-09-01) →Vt. Stat. tit. 13 §4004(a) bans knowingly possessing a firearm within a school building or on a school bus; no exception is identified for a permit holder — Vermont in any case has no traditional statewide concealed-carry licensing/verification scheme of its own (it is longstanding permitless-carry), so there generally isn't a Vermont-issued license that could satisfy the federal §922(q) verification-based exception in the first place. School boards may authorize firearms for specific instructional occasions.
Source (2026-09-01) →No Vermont-specific firearms-signage criminal statute is known to me, and I could not confirm the notice requirements of Vermont's general unlawful trespass statute (13 V.S.A. § 3705) in this session.
Source (2026-09-01) →24 V.S.A. § 2295 broadly preempts municipal regulation of carrying/possession, and Burlington's 2013 assault-weapon/magazine ordinance was effectively blocked as preempted (never enforced). BUT Burlington is a real, named, recurring exception fight: the statute itself cross-references municipal authority under 24 V.S.A. § 2291(8), and Burlington has repeatedly sought special charter authority from the legislature to regulate firearms locally (e.g., a 2015 charter change on guns in bars/domestic-violence situations, and a 2025 bill, S.131, that Governor Scott moved to veto) — so whether Burlington specifically can impose stricter local rules has been an unsettled, live political/legal question rather than fully closed.
Source (2026-09-01) →13 V.S.A. § 4027(a)(1) (enacted 2024): 'A person shall not knowingly possess a firearm at a polling place or on the walks leading to a building in which a polling place is located on an election day.' Also applies to the town clerk's office during early voting. No exception found for permit holders (Vermont does not have a general CCW licensing regime — carry is permitless — making this a flat location ban).
Source (2024-01-01) →10-round limit for long guns, 15-round limit for handguns (13 V.S.A. § 4021, enacted 2017, effective April 11, 2018), with a grandfather clause for magazines lawfully possessed before enactment. Exemptions for lever/bolt-action, antiques/curios, and .22 rimfire tubular magazines.
Source (2023-12-31) →Extreme Risk Protection Order, 13 V.S.A. § 4051 et seq. (2018). Petitioners: a State's Attorney, the Office of the Attorney General, or a family/household member (the State's Attorney is substituted as plaintiff once an order issues or before the hearing).
Source (2026-09-01) →No Vermont statute bans civilian possession of suppressors, SBRs, SBSs, or machine guns; 13 V.S.A. § 4010 restricts unlicensed manufacture/importation of suppressors, not simple possession. A 2022 law legalized using a suppressor while hunting. Machine guns: no general possession ban, but Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 10, § 4704 bars using/carrying a machine gun while hunting (a use restriction); federal law further limits civilians to pre-May 19, 1986 machine guns. No extra Vermont license or registration beyond the federal NFA process for any category.
Source (2026-09-01) →No SYG statute, but the Vermont Supreme Court in State v. Hatcher, 167 Vt. 338, 348, 706 A.2d 429 (1997) held that where a person honestly and reasonably believes deadly force is immediately necessary, "the law does not require him to retreat" — reflected in the Vermont Model Criminal Jury Instructions. No duty to retreat anywhere lawfully present.
Source (2026-09-01) →Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 13, § 4019 (enacted 2018, effective April 11, 2018; tightened in 2022 to close the 'Charleston loophole' by requiring a NICS confirmation number or a 7-business-day wait before transfer) requires most private firearm transfers to be processed through a licensed dealer for a background check; exceptions for law enforcement and immediate family transfers.
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.