NFA firearm category definitions and current transfer/making tax
The National Firearms Act regulates six firearm categories -- short-barreled rifle, short-barreled shotgun, any other weapon (AOW), machine gun, silencer, destructive device -- each defined by its own measurement threshold in ATF's regulations at 27 CFR 478.11 and 479.11. Separately, and recently changed: the federal transfer tax and making tax on those items dropped from $200 per item to $0 for every category except machine guns and destructive devices, under section 70436 of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Pub. L. 119-21, signed 2025-07-04), which amended 26 U.S.C. 5811(a) and 5821(a). ATF states the change took effect on January 1, 2026, and issued a final rule on 2026-05-08 (ATF No. 2025R-45F, 91 FR 25112) conforming 27 CFR 479.61, 479.62, 479.81, 479.82 and 479.84 to the new rates. Each record is one NFA category, giving its defining measurement threshold and its current and prior transfer/making tax, each quoted verbatim from the regulation or from ATF's own rulemaking. Two things vendor pages routinely get wrong: the paperwork did not change (Form 1/Form 4, fingerprints and the background check are all unchanged), and the AOW transfer tax went from $5 -- not $200 -- to $0. One nuance not carried per-record: the short-barreled rifle and shotgun definitions here are 27 CFR 478.11's, which are the ones that name those terms; the NFA's own list at 27 CFR 479.11(b) and (d) states the 'weapon made from a rifle/shotgun' prong slightly more broadly, as an overall length under 26 inches OR a barrel under 16 (rifle) / 18 (shotgun) inches. Answers 'what barrel length makes a rifle an SBR', 'how much is an ATF tax stamp in 2026', 'is the NFA tax still $200'.
The data
| NFA category | Defining threshold | Barrel length | Bore diameter | Overall length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Any other weapon | Any weapon or device capable of being concealed on the person from which a shot can be discharged through the energy of an explosive, a pistol or revolver having a barrel with a smooth bore designed or redesigned to fire a fixed shotgun shell, weapons with combination shotgun and rifle barrels 12 inches or more, less than 18 inches in length, from which only a single discharge can be made from either barrel without manual reloading | 12 inches or more, less than 18 inches in length | ||
| Destructive device | any type of weapon by whatever name known which will, or which may be readily converted to, expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or other propellant, the barrel or barrels of which have a bore of more than one-half inch in diameter, except a shotgun or shotgun shell which the Director finds is generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes | more than one-half inch in diameter | ||
| Machine gun | Any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. | |||
| Short-barreled rifle | A rifle having one or more barrels less than 16 inches in length, and any weapon made from a rifle, whether by alteration, modification, or otherwise, if such weapon, as modified, has an overall length of less than 26 inches. | less than 16 inches | less than 26 inches | |
| Short-barreled shotgun | A shotgun having one or more barrels less than 18 inches in length, and any weapon made from a shotgun, whether by alteration, modification, or otherwise, if such weapon as modified has an overall length of less than 26 inches. | less than 18 inches | less than 26 inches | |
| Silencer | Any device for silencing, muffling, or diminishing the report of a portable firearm, including any combination of parts, designed or redesigned, and intended for the use in assembling or fabricating a firearm silencer or firearm muffler, and any part intended only for use in such assembly or fabrication. |
Where this came from
Every record above links the page it was taken from and quotes the sentence that states it. These are the 5 sources this dataset was assembled from.
- govinfo.govhttps://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-05-08/html/2026-09155.htm
- ecfr.govhttps://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-27/chapter-II/subchapter-B/part-479/subpart-B/section-479.11
- ecfr.govhttps://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-27/section-479.82
- ecfr.govhttps://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-27/section-479.61
- ecfr.govhttps://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-27/chapter-II/subchapter-B/part-478/subpart-B/section-478.11
Machine-readable
- data.jsonThe whole dataset — every record with its source URL and source quote.
- Open Knowledge Format bundleOne JSON object per line — every record's frontmatter and quoted span exactly as it is held here, in one fetch.
- How this is made and checkedWhat "verified against source" does and does not mean.
From your own code
Same records, same quotes, without scraping the page: refsource is on PyPI and npm. Each value comes back carrying the URL it was read from and the sentence on that page that states it — .source and .quote sit on the value itself rather than in a side channel, so the checking step is available instead of skipped.
pip install refsource
refsource lookup nfa-firearm-category-definitions-and-transfer-tax nfa_category="Any other weapon"
npx -y refsource lookup nfa-firearm-category-definitions-and-transfer-tax nfa_category="Any other weapon"