What this page is and is not #
This is about record-keeping. It does not tell you whether a particular item is regulated, whether you may build or possess one, or how any court ruling applies to you. The law in this corner moved several times in 2026 and is still moving. Every statement below carries the date it was true; treat none of it as current without checking.
The classes and the forms #
The National Firearms Act covers six classes: short-barreled shotgun, short-barreled rifle, any other weapon, machinegun, silencer and destructive device (26 U.S.C. § 5845(a)).
Antique firearms are excluded from these definitions, as is a device — other than a machinegun or destructive device — that has been officially found to be primarily a collector’s item and not likely to be used as a weapon. An unserviceable firearm, by contrast, is still an NFA firearm (26 U.S.C. § 5845(a), (g), (h)).
The paperwork is where a record actually lives:
- Form 1 (ATF 5320.1) — making and registering an item yourself.
- Form 4 (ATF 5320.4) — a tax-paid transfer, the ordinary dealer purchase.
- Form 5 (ATF 5320.5) — a tax-exempt transfer, including to a lawful heir.
- Form 23 (ATF 5320.23) — the responsible person questionnaire for a trust or entity.
- Form 20 (ATF 5320.20) — application to transport interstate, which applies to machineguns, SBRs, SBSs and destructive devices; suppressors and AOWs are not covered by it.
Which form an item arrived on determines what your file has to contain years later, which is why form type belongs in the record next to the serial number rather than in a drawer.
The tax stamp, and a documented contradiction #
Effective January 1, 2026, the making and transfer tax for suppressors, SBRs, SBSs and AOWs is $0; for machineguns and destructive devices it remains $200. The term tax stamp survived the change — the approved form with the stamp printed on it is still called that.
Worth knowing before you quote a figure at somebody: ATF's own NFA overview page still stated $200 throughout, and even that the tax had not changed since 1934, on a page dated February 4, 2026. The statute and the final rule published on May 8, 2026 are what govern. This is a good reason to keep the amount you actually paid in your own record rather than reasoning from a published rate — items acquired before 2026 were taxed at $200 and your file should say so.
Waiting times #
ATF reported a median of 11 days for individual eForm 4 applications in January 2026. Dealer reporting through 2026 described approvals commonly in the 3 to 10 day range for electronic filings, with paper filings much slower. Those dealer figures are vendor-published and should be read as an order of magnitude, never as a promise — and the surge that followed the $0 change makes wider spread likely. What is genuinely useful in a record is the date you filed, so you can count days against your own history instead of somebody's average.
Individual or trust #
A trust holds the item, which allows more than one trustee to possess and use it and simplifies what happens to the item on death. The old headline advantage is gone: since ATF rule 41F took effect in 2016, every responsible person of a trust or entity files a Form 23 with fingerprints and a photograph. Beneficiaries who have no power of disposition are not responsible persons. The chief law enforcement officer step is a notification, not an approval.
For a record this means a trust item needs more than the item: the trust's name, the trust document itself, and the list of responsible persons as it stood at filing.
The obligation that makes any of this urgent #
A person possessing a registered firearm must retain proof of registration and make it available to any ATF officer upon request (27 CFR § 479.101(e)). Common practice is to carry a copy of the approved form when the item travels.
That is a document-availability problem, not a database problem, and it is worse than it looks because ranges frequently have no mobile signal. A copy that lives in a cloud drive you cannot reach is not available. Storage that works offline, on the phone in your pocket, is the point.
Litigation is not a filing strategy #
In Silencer Shop Foundation v. ATF (N.D. Tex., No. 6:25-cv-00056-H, judgment August 5, 2026), the court held the registration requirements unconstitutional as applied to untaxed NFA firearms, reasoning that the statute rested on the taxing power and the tax had gone to zero. The relief was party-specific, not nationwide. The government obtained no stay, so the injunction took effect on August 13, 2026, and in September 2026 the administration said it would not appeal. Machineguns and destructive devices were not affected; background checks and state prohibitions were not affected.
On October 9, 2026 ATF went further. In an open letter and FAQ it announced that it will no longer require approval, registration or a tax stamp for suppressors, SBRs, SBSs and AOWs — for anyone, not only the plaintiffs; a federal court has since described it as a nationwide enforcement policy. The National Firearms Act and ATF's regulations are unchanged, and the policy can be withdrawn. Machineguns and destructive devices are unaffected; background checks, ATF approval (Form 5320.20) for taking an SBR or SBS to another state, and state law still apply. ATF keeps processing NFA forms, because many states require registration.
Before that letter, the American Suppressor Association's advice was blunt: unless you had specific confirmation that you were covered, keep filing your Forms 1 and 4. Where your state ties possession to federal registration, that advice still holds. And the record-keeping consequence stands — anyone relying on a ruling or on an enforcement policy needs evidence of how and when an item was acquired and what was filed. The paperwork got more important, not less.
How Waffenschrank helps #
Waffenschrank keeps an NFA record next to the item: class, form type, filing and approval dates, stamp number, tax actually paid, registrant — individual, trust or corporation — and the trust name and engraving where they apply. A pending item counts the days since filing. Approved forms, trust documents and receipts go into encrypted document storage that opens without a network connection.
What the app will not do is tell you that an item needs no stamp, or that a ruling covers you. It records what you enter, carries a dated note about the state of the law, and leaves the legal conclusion where it belongs. More about the app.