Getting Your Gun Rights Back After a Felony: What Changed in 2026 (California)

For 34 years there was no working way for a person with a felony conviction to ask the federal government for gun rights back. The law said you could apply. Congress just stopped paying anyone to read the applications. That changed this year, and California changed its own rule 8 months before that. Neither change opens the door for a California felony conviction, and that is the part most of the coverage is leaving out.

Last reviewed: August 2026

The short version

Two things happened this year.

• January 1, 2026, California. A new law lifted the lifetime gun ban for some people whose felony came from another state. The felony has to be nonviolent, and that state has to have already wiped it out or pardoned it and given the gun rights back. A California felony gets nothing from this.
• August 20, 2026, the federal government. The Justice Department published a final rule building a real application process. It takes effect September 21, 2026. The public window opens November 4, 2026, and only the first 5,000 people get in.

Here is the honest summary for most people reading this. If your felony is a California felony, neither change helps you, and the old answers still apply. Those answers are getting a wobbler dropped to a misdemeanor, or getting a pardon from the Governor. Both are real and people do get them. Neither is new.

My view, because this page should be worth something to you. If you have a California felony, answer the Penal Code 17(b) reduction question first. Treat the federal application as a separate project for later. Federal relief on its own still leaves you unable to legally own a gun here.

One caution on that, because it is the kind of thing that gets missed. Taking the 17(b) reduction can shut off the certificate of rehabilitation route for good. There is a trap in how the two statutes fit together, and it is explained below.

Why there are two bans and not one

This is the part that trips everyone up, so it is worth being slow about.

The federal ban is 18 U.S.C. 922(g). It lists 9 kinds of people who cannot have a gun anywhere in the country. Felony convictions are first on the list.

California’s ban is Penal Code 29800. It is a separate law, passed by a separate government. It applies to you whether or not the federal ban does, and it has no expiration date. It reaches anyone “convicted of a felony under the laws of the United States, the State of California, or any other state, government, or country.”

So you can be clear under one and a felon in possession under the other. California prosecutes California’s ban. Nothing the Justice Department does takes that away.

The federal rule says so itself. Under 28 C.F.R. 107.30(a), federal relief “does not extend to independent state law firearms disabilities.” The Justice Department’s own decision page is blunter. It says the program “cannot remove a state firearm rights prohibition.”

It does not work in the other direction either. The Justice Department says a state restoring your rights on a state conviction “also may not remove federal disabilities.” Two locks, two keys.

What California changed on January 1, 2026

The bill was A.B. 1078. It added subdivisions (d), (e) and (f) to Penal Code 29800, and it built two separate exceptions, not one. Both are only for felonies from another state.

Exception one, subdivision (d): the other state got rid of the conviction. Two things have to be true.

• The felony was nonviolent, using the statute’s own narrow definition. It compares your out-of-state offense against California’s serious and violent felony lists.
• That state vacated, set aside, expunged or dismissed the conviction. And if the conviction banned you from guns there, the relief has to have given those rights back under that state’s law.

Read that second half closely. If the other state never took your guns, there is nothing for the relief to restore, and the condition is met. If it wiped the conviction but kept you banned, California keeps you banned too.

Exception two, subdivision (e): the other state’s governor pardoned you. Three things have to be true here.

• The felony was nonviolent, same definition.
• You got a full and unconditional pardon from that state’s governor, and the pardon restored civil rights including firearm rights.
• You were never convicted of a felony involving the use of a dangerous weapon. Ever, anywhere. This one is absolute, and it comes up again below.

That last condition sits in the pardon exception only. It is not in the vacatur exception. Most write-ups of this law stack all the conditions together, which makes the new relief look narrower than it is.

Where the change came from: on February 28, 2024, Judge James Donato of the Northern District of California granted summary judgment in Linton v. Bonta. The 3 plaintiffs had old nonviolent felonies from other states, all vacated or set aside, with firearm rights restored where the case happened. He held California had violated their Second Amendment rights. The Legislature wrote that result into the statute the next year, and the Governor signed it in October 2025.

Read more: Penal Code 29800, subdivision by subdivision

Section 29800 was last amended by Stats. 2025, chapter 570 (A.B. 1078), section 19, effective January 1, 2026. The structure now runs like this.

(a)(1) is the ban itself. “Any person who has been convicted of a felony under the laws of the United States, the State of California, or any other state, government, or country, or of an offense enumerated in subdivision (a), (b), or (d) of Section 23515, or who is addicted to the use of any narcotic drug, and who owns, purchases, receives, or has in possession or under custody or control any firearm is guilty of a felony.”

(a)(2) catches a person with 2 or more convictions for brandishing under Penal Code 417(a)(2).

(a)(3) catches a person who knows there is an outstanding warrant against them for one of the listed offenses.

(b) applies the same prohibition to a juvenile who was certified for prosecution as an adult and convicted.

(c) limits how federal convictions count. Subdivision (a) does not apply to a federal felony conviction or warrant unless either the comparable California offense could only be punished as a felony, or the person was sentenced to a federal facility for more than 30 days, fined more than $1,000, or both. So a minor federal conviction with no real sentence may not trigger California’s ban at all. Have a lawyer look at this one, because “comparable elements” is a legal comparison and not a common sense one.

(d) is the first new exception. Subdivision (a) does not apply to a nonviolent felony from another state if the conviction “has been vacated, set aside, expunged, or otherwise dismissed under the laws of the state where the defendant was convicted,” and if, where the conviction “resulted in a firearms prohibition under the laws of the state where the defendant was convicted,” that relief “restored firearms rights under the laws of that state.”

(e) is the second new exception. Subdivision (a) does not apply to a nonviolent felony from another state if the person “received a full and unconditional pardon by the Governor of the other state for the felony conviction and the pardon restores civil rights that include firearms rights,” and the person “was never convicted of a felony involving the use of a dangerous weapon, as that phrase is used in Sections 4852.17 and 4854.”

(f)(1) defines “nonviolent felony” as an out-of-state offense that does not include comparable elements to an offense listed in Penal Code 667.5(c), 1192.7(c), 1192.8(a), 23515, or 29905. Those are the serious and violent felony lists.

(f)(2) and (f)(3) close a gap most summaries miss. An attempt, a conspiracy or a solicitation to commit one of those offenses is not a “nonviolent felony.” Neither is aiding or abetting one. So an attempt conviction can put you outside both new exceptions even though nobody was hurt.

Separately, Penal Code 29900 puts a second, overlapping ban on people with prior convictions for the violent offenses listed in Penal Code 29905. It is a felony, and if the court grants probation or suspends sentence, the person still has to serve at least 6 months in county jail. A dismissal under Penal Code 1203.4a does not erase the prior conviction finding for that section.

What the federal government changed, and when

The federal application process lives in 18 U.S.C. 925(c). Congress wrote it in 1968. It lets the Attorney General lift the federal ban on someone who shows they “will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety” and that relief “would not be contrary to the public interest.”

Then in 1992 Congress attached a line to the budget. ATF could not spend money processing these applications. Congress renewed that line every year after. The right to apply stayed in the law. The person who was supposed to read the applications was defunded. For more than 30 years people mailed in applications that nobody was allowed to decide.

One detail from that stretch is worth sitting with. The defunding hit applications from people. It did not stop ATF from granting relief to companies, and ATF kept doing it, publishing the grants in the Federal Register the whole time. A firearms importer could get its federal privileges restored in 2019. A person could not.

The Justice Department started deciding individual cases before it built the form. It granted relief to 10 people in April 2025, to 22 more in February 2026, and to 4 more in May 2026. Every name goes in the Federal Register, because the statute requires it.

That is 36 people in 16 months. Hold that number next to the 5,000 spots opening in November.

How the federal application works

The Justice Department runs it at justice.gov/ffrr. Applications go to the Office of the Pardon Attorney now, not to ATF. Here is what the government has published.

• September 25, 2026: the application opens to invited candidates only.
• November 4, 2026: it opens to the public. First 5,000 people, first come first served.
• January 4, 2027: 500 more spots, and the $30 fee begins. Before that date there is no fee. The fee can be reduced or waived if you cannot afford it.
• Your criminal records, going back 25 years or to your 18th birthday, whichever is shorter. You need them for every state you have lived in and every state you were arrested in.
• Your court file: the charging document, the judgment, and an official document showing the date you finished the last piece of your sentence. That includes restitution and community service, not just custody.
• Every conviction disclosed, even the ones that are gone. The rule says you must disclose past convictions “even if they were expunged, pardoned, set aside, or similarly amended.”
• 3 character references. No relatives by blood or marriage. They have to have known you at least 3 years. And they cannot be prohibited from having a gun themselves.
• Fingerprints, but not yet. You get them after you submit the first part of the online application and receive a QR code by email. They have to be taken at a participating U.S. Post Office.
• Your local police chief or sheriff gets notified and can tell the Justice Department what they think about giving you your rights back.

Two things about the references catch people. Your references are the ones swearing under penalty of perjury, not only you. They have to affirm 7 separate things about you. The list covers no crimes in 5 years, no unlawful drug use, no regular alcohol abuse, and no threatened or attempted violence or suicide in 5 years.

And if a reference never fills out the form, nobody emails you about it. You have to check your application status page yourself. Ask all 3 people before you put their names down.

Who the federal rule says no to first

The rule sorts people into groups before anyone looks at the merits. Being in a group does not end it. It means you have to show what the rule calls extraordinary circumstances.

There are 5 groups, and the difference between them matters more than most coverage suggests.

• Presumed no, permanently. Felonies involving death, rape or sexual abuse, human trafficking, kidnapping, domestic violence, burglary, robbery, extortion, carjacking, arson, violent racketeering, gang offenses, maiming, assault or battery, stalking, escape, terrorism, or witness tampering. Also any offense carrying more than a year where you fired a gun or used an explosive. Attempts and conspiracies count the same.
• Presumed no for 10 years after you finish the last piece of your sentence. Drug trafficking, threats of violence, explosives offenses, certain federal firearm offenses, weapons on school grounds, and animal abuse. Also misdemeanor domestic violence.
• Presumed no for 5 years after you finish your sentence. Any other felony, and misdemeanor assault, battery, stalking or threatened violence.
• Presumed no while a status lasts. Awaiting sentencing, in custody, serving any part of a sentence, in a diversion program, a fugitive, unlawfully in the country or here on a nonimmigrant visa, under a restraining order for harassment or stalking or threats, using illegal drugs, or registering as a sex offender for the offense that caused the gun ban.
• Presumed no if you have been turned down before, either under a permanent category or on an application in the last 5 years.

Three points buried in those lists are worth pulling out.

The status group is not permanent. The Justice Department says if you were denied because of a status, “wait until that status changes to reapply.” A lot of coverage puts fugitives and drug users in with the permanent bans. They do not belong there.

“Serving any part of a sentence” is broader than jail. The rule defines a sentence to include probation, parole, unpaid fines and restitution, community service, treatment programs, and electronic monitoring. If you still owe restitution on a 15 year old case, you are presumptively denied.

An arrest with no conviction can cost you 10 years. If you get arrested for a felony, for misdemeanor domestic violence, or for anything involving violence or brandishing a gun, that is a presumptive disqualifier, and it resets the 10 year clock. You do not have to be convicted.

One California carve-out is worth knowing. The drug user category expressly excludes people whose only unlawful use is marijuana. Given how many Californians that describes, it is a bigger exception than it looks.

What counts as extraordinary circumstances is not defined. The Justice Department said it would weigh the seriousness of the offense, your age when it happened, “the level of remorse and atonement shown for the offense,” and whether there has been “an exceptionally long period of non-criminal conduct since.” Even a clean application can be denied, because the statute makes it discretionary. Nobody is entitled to this.

If you are denied, you can ask a federal judge to review it. The rule points you to the United States district court where you live.

If your conviction is from California, here is what actually works

Two paths, and they have been there for years.

One: get the felony reduced to a misdemeanor. This only works if your offense was a wobbler, meaning the law allowed it to be charged as either a felony or a misdemeanor. If a judge reduces it under Penal Code 17(b), you are no longer a person convicted of a felony, so the lifetime ban stops applying to that conviction.

The Court of Appeal put it directly in Gebremicael v. California Com. on Teacher Credentialing (2004) 118 Cal.App.4th 1477, 1484 to 1485: “a person whose felony conviction is reduced to a misdemeanor will no longer be classified as one convicted of a felony within the meaning of Penal Code section 12021.” Section 12021 was renumbered as 29800 in 2012, so that is the same ban. Check the misdemeanor separately, though, because some misdemeanors carry their own ban.

Two: get a pardon from the Governor. Most people get there by first petitioning for a certificate of rehabilitation, which is a court finding that you have lived an honest life since. It doubles as an application to the Governor.

The certificate alone does not give gun rights back. The pardon does. Under Penal Code 4852.17, a full and unconditional pardon based on a certificate of rehabilitation restores “the right to own, possess, and keep any type of firearm that may lawfully be owned and possessed by other citizens.” Under Penal Code 4854, a pardon granted directly restores gun rights only if the Governor says so in the pardon. It is not automatic.

Pardons are rare. Certificates are more common but slow, and the waiting period is longer than most people expect.

Read more: the certificate of rehabilitation and pardon path, step by step

The certificate lives in Penal Code 4852.01 and the sections after it. The California Supreme Court described it in People v. Ansell (2001) 25 Cal.4th 868 as having the effect of “recommending that the Governor grant a full pardon to the petitioner.” People v. Parker (2006) 141 Cal.App.4th 1297 adds the part people underestimate: the decision to grant the petition is discretionary, the standards for rehabilitation are high, and the pardon decision rests with the Governor.

How long you have to wait. Penal Code 4852.03 sets the period of rehabilitation at 5 years of California residence plus more time depending on the offense. So the real waiting periods are 7 years for most offenses, 9 years for murder, kidnapping, train wrecking, assault by a life prisoner, explosives offenses under section 18755 or anything carrying a life sentence, and 10 years for an offense requiring sex offender registration. The clock starts when you are discharged from custody or released on parole, supervision or probation, whichever comes first.

Penal Code 4852.06 adds a separate requirement. You cannot file until you have lived in California continuously for at least 5 years right before filing, counted from when you left prison or jail.

Who cannot file at all. Under Penal Code 4852.01(c), the whole chapter does not apply to people serving mandatory life parole, people under a death sentence, people in military service, or people convicted of certain sex offenses, including sections 269, 286(c), 287(c), 288, 288.5, 288.7 and 289(j). Subdivision (d) still lets the Governor pardon that last group where there are extraordinary circumstances. Being shut out of the certificate is not being shut out of clemency.

If your conviction is a section 290 registrable sex offense, subdivision (b) is the narrow way in, and for a felony it requires that the case was already dismissed under Penal Code 1203.4.

It does not reach an out-of-state conviction. A California court cannot issue a certificate of rehabilitation for a conviction from another state. If your felony is from elsewhere, this whole path is closed to you and the new subdivisions (d) and (e) of section 29800 are where to look instead.

And the 17(b) trap applies here. A felony reduced to a misdemeanor is no longer a felony, so the person can no longer petition for a certificate at all. People v. Moreno (2014) 231 Cal.App.4th 934.

What happens. You file a petition in superior court in the county where you live. The DA gets notice. There is a hearing. If the court grants it, the certificate goes to the Governor and counts as an application for a pardon.

What it does not do. By itself, nothing for guns. People v. Miller (2018) 23 Cal.App.5th 973 makes the point that a dismissal under 1203.4 “does not, however, completely restore a felon’s civil rights in the way that a pardon does.” The certificate is a recommendation. Until the Governor acts, the ban stands.

If you have 2 or more felony convictions, article V, section 8(a) of the California Constitution requires a written recommendation from the California Supreme Court, with 4 justices concurring, before the Governor can pardon you at all.

And the dangerous weapon exception applies at the end of all of it. People v. Ratcliff (1990) 223 Cal.App.3d 1401 says a person whose prior conviction involved the use of a dangerous weapon “may never, for the rest of his life, have under his control or possession, including in his own home or any other private place, a firearm.” That is with a certificate and a full pardon in hand.

Read more: why expungement does not give gun rights back, and what it does do

This is the most common misunderstanding in this area, and the statute settles it in one sentence. Penal Code 1203.4(a)(2) says: “Dismissal of an accusation or information pursuant to this section does not permit a person to own, possess, or have custody or control of a firearm or to prevent conviction under Chapter 2 (commencing with Section 29800).”

So a dismissal that releases you from “all penalties and disabilities” still leaves the gun ban standing. The Legislature carved firearms out of that release on purpose. The Court of Appeal held exactly that in People v. Frawley (2000) 82 Cal.App.4th 784, which reversed a trial court that had dismissed a felon in possession charge on those grounds.

There is a bit of history here worth knowing, because it explains why the statute reads the way it does. In 1960, People v. Taylor (1960) 178 Cal.App.2d 472 held the opposite, that a 1203.4 dismissal did release the gun ban. The Legislature amended section 1203.4 in the very next session to say it did not. The Supreme Court in People v. Bell (1989) 49 Cal.3d 502 noted that the Legislature had “settled the matter” that way. So the rule comes from the statute, not from a case.

Expungement is still worth doing. It helps with private employers, with licensing in many cases, and with how your record reads. It is the wrong tool for this one problem. Our guide to expungement under Penal Code 1203.4 covers what it does reach, and the expungement checker will tell you whether you qualify.

One general caution. Record relief comes in several forms in California now, including relief the Department of Justice grants automatically every month without anyone filing anything. Each remedy is written in its own statute, and each statute says what it does and does not restore. Do not assume the one that applied to you restored gun rights. Read the section, or have someone read it for you.

Worth knowing for the federal side too: the federal application makes you disclose convictions even when they were expunged, pardoned or set aside. An expungement does not make the conviction disappear from that form.

Read more: misdemeanor gun bans, and why 273.5 is not a 10-year problem

Penal Code 29805 puts gun bans on people convicted of a long list of misdemeanors. This runs on its own, separate from the felony ban. Two things follow. A felony reduced to a misdemeanor can still leave you banned if the misdemeanor is on the list. And for many people on the list, the answer is time rather than a filing.

The 10 year list, at subdivision (a)(1). It includes assault and battery under sections 240, 241, 242, 243 and 245, criminal threats under 422, stalking under 646.9, brandishing under 417, violating a protective order under 273.6, and roughly 30 more sections. Later subdivisions added more, each with its own start date: sections 25100, 25135 and 25200 from 2020, section 273a and elder abuse under 368(b) and (c) from 2023, animal cruelty under 597(a) from 2025, and a further list from 2026.

Domestic violence under section 273.5 is the exception, and almost every page on the web gets it wrong. Section 273.5 does appear on the 10 year list at (a)(1). But subdivision (b) says a person convicted of misdemeanor 273.5 “on or after January 1, 2019” who “subsequently” possesses a firearm commits a public offense. There is no 10 year cutoff in that sentence. For a conviction on or after January 1, 2019, misdemeanor 273.5 is a lifetime California gun ban.

Convictions before that date fall under the 10 year rule. If your 273.5 conviction is from 2019 or later, waiting does not fix it, and this is worth confirming before you plan around a date.

Early relief is narrow. Penal Code 29855 has a petition, and it will not apply to most readers. It is only for peace officers described in sections 830.1, 830.2, 830.31, 830.32, 830.33 or 830.5 whose livelihood depends on carrying a gun, only for convictions under sections 273.5, 273.6 or 646.9, and it can be filed once. The court has to find by a preponderance of the evidence that the person is likely to use a firearm safely and lawfully, that they are not prohibited under some other section, and that they have no prior 29805 conviction. Counseling is a required condition of relief.

Mental health holds and findings. Welfare and Institutions Code 8103 is a whole separate track. It bans people found to be a danger to others, people found not guilty by reason of insanity, people found incompetent to stand trial under sections 1370 to 1370.1, people under a conservatorship under section 5350, people admitted after a 5150 hold, and people certified for intensive treatment under 5250, 5260 or 5270.15.

A 5150 hold carries a 5 year ban. More than one hold within the year before the latest one makes it a lifetime ban. A 5250 certification carries 5 years.

These have their own petitions and their own burdens. After a single 5150 hold, you petition the superior court and the People carry the burden of showing by a preponderance of the evidence that you would not use a firearm safely. On a lifetime ban from multiple holds, you can petition again no sooner than 5 years after the hearing, and the burden shifts to you. For the most serious insanity findings listed in section 8103(b), including murder, mayhem, rape, arson of a dwelling and first degree burglary, the statute provides no way back at all.

A pardon does not fix a mental health ban. Different statute, different proceeding. And if you are federally prohibited because of a mental health finding, the federal rule expects you to use your state’s relief program first. Under 28 C.F.R. 107.60, not applying to an available state program is itself a reason to deny you.

Nobody knows how this plays out, and anyone who says otherwise is guessing

The federal process is brand new. The first public applications will not be filed until November 2026. There is no track record. Here is what is honestly unknown.

• How hard the Justice Department will be. The standard is whether you are likely to be dangerous and whether relief is against the public interest. Those words do not tell you much until a few hundred decisions exist.
• How long it takes. No published processing time.
• What happens when the 5,000 spots fill. The published schedule adds 500 in January 2027 and stops. Whether more windows open is a decision nobody has announced.
• Whether the rule survives a lawsuit. A commenter on the rule argued that reviving the process violates the appropriations laws that defunded ATF and barred moving its functions elsewhere. The Justice Department’s answer was that section 925(c) itself gives the Attorney General the authority. It did not really engage the rider argument. A court might.
• Whether California ever recognizes any of it. The Department said it “plans to work with state partners” and “encourage their recognition of the federal process.” California has not done that. Until the Legislature amends Penal Code 29800 or a court orders otherwise, a federal grant does nothing to the state ban.

So do not buy a gun on the strength of a federal approval letter. Not in California. Get your state status answered separately, in writing, before you go near a dealer.

What to do now

• Find out what your conviction actually is. Felony or misdemeanor, which code section, which state, and what the sentence was. Get your California DOJ record, and if the case was elsewhere, that state’s record too. Everything below depends on this.
• If it is a California felony, ask whether it was a wobbler. That is the first question, because a 17(b) reduction is the fastest real path there is.
• If it is from another state, find out whether that state already restored your gun rights, or whether it ever took them. If the offense was nonviolent and the conviction is gone, California’s new subdivisions may already cover you as of January 1, 2026.
• If it is a federal conviction, have someone check Penal Code 29800(c) against it. A small federal conviction with a short sentence and a small fine may not trigger California’s ban at all.
• If it is a misdemeanor on the 29805 list, find the conviction date. For most of that list you are counting to 10 years. For a 273.5 from 2019 or later, counting does not help.
• Check whether you have finished your sentence, all of it. Unpaid restitution or an open fine is enough to make the federal application a presumptive denial.
• If you want a federal application, line up records and references now. Criminal records for every state you have lived in, your court file, and 3 people who are not relatives and have known you 3 years. Fingerprints come later, after you start the form.
• If there is a dangerous weapon felony anywhere in your history, get advice before you spend money. That fact ends the California analysis no matter what else is true.

Do I need a lawyer?

For a 17(b) reduction, plenty of people file their own and it works, especially on an old case with a clean record since.

Get help for the rest of it. A certificate of rehabilitation is a contested hearing with a DA on the other side. The out-of-state analysis under the new subdivisions is a comparison of one state’s elements to California’s lists, which is exactly the kind of question that looks easy and is not. And the federal application is close to a one-shot filing, with a 5 year presumption against you if it gets denied for the wrong reason.

One more reason, and it matters more here than in most areas. Being wrong about this is a new felony. If you own a firearm believing you are clear and you are not, the charge is possession, and your good faith belief is not much of a defense. This is a bad place to guess.

If what you are really trying to fix is your record rather than your gun rights, start with the expungement guide or, if you were arrested but never convicted, the guide to sealing an arrest record.

Last reviewed: August 2026. This area is moving fast and the federal process has no track record yet.

This is general information about California and federal law as of August 2026, not legal advice. The federal rule takes effect September 21, 2026 and the application windows open later, so dates and requirements may change. Talk to a California attorney about your situation.