DEPARTMENT OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL RELEASES ANNUAL FIREARM REGISTRATION STATISTICS

News Release 2026-16 from Department of the Attorney General, April 14, 2026

HONOLULU — The Hawaiʻi Department of the Attorney General released its annual “Firearms Registration in Hawaiʻi” report today detailing firearm registration statistics for calendar year 2025.

A total of 19,364 personal/private applications for permits to acquire firearms were processed statewide during 2025, marking a 14.7% increase from 16,879 applications processed in 2024. Of the applications processed in 2025, 95.3% were approved and resulted in issued permits; a record high of 3.9% were voided (canceled/rejected for technical reasons; see note below), and 0.8% were denied due to one or more disqualifying factors, tying 2014’s record-low denial rate.

The 18,451 permits issued statewide in 2025 cover a total of 44,401 firearms registered throughout the year, resulting in a 0.5% decrease from 44,624 firearms registered during 2024. Over half (25,065, for a record high proportion of 56.5%) of the firearms registered during 2025 were imported from out-of-state, with the balance accounted for by transfers of firearms that were previously registered in Hawai‘i. Rifles and shotguns comprised a record low 37.6% (16,677) and a non-record 9.1% (4,042) of total registrations, respectively. A record high of 53.3% (23,682) of all firearms registered throughout 2025 were handguns.

Firearm registration activity increased dramatically over the course of the 26 years for which these data have been systematically compiled and reported. From 2000 through 2025, the number of statewide permit applications annually processed increased by 198.4%, the number of firearms annually registered leapt by 226.1% and the number of firearms annually imported climbed 246.8%.

Conservative estimates from the late-1990s placed the number of privately owned firearms in Hawaiʻi at somewhere over one million. Adding to that during the 2000 through 2025 period, a total of 947,044 firearms were registered (including some more than once, by different owners) and 495,315 were imported, while an unknown number of firearms permanently left the state.

The report, entitled “Firearm Registrations in Hawaiʻi, 2025,” provides a range of additional state and county statistics on firearm permits and registrations; permit denials and revocations; prohibited weapon confiscations, and licenses to carry firearms for private security personnel.  Statistics on carry licenses for private citizens are published by the Department of the Attorney General in a new annual report series entitled “Licenses To Carry Handguns in Hawai‘i.”

The full report can be downloaded from the Department of the Attorney General’s Research and Statistics website at https://ag.hawaii.gov/cpja/rs/firearms/ and here.

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