What do the digits in the FFL numbers mean?

Federal Firearms Licenses, or commonly known as FFLs, are documents that give an individual permission to engage in activities that involve firearm and ammunition transactions, whether within or in-between states. It has various purposes depending on the identification code written on the document. 

You can determine the FFL’s purpose and validity spot-on without checking it on an official government website. FFL Numbers are 15-digit unique codes that specifically identify someone or an organization, sub-divided into six series. These FFL numbers are designed in a way that would follow this pattern:

0-00-000-00-0X-00000

Where 0’s can be substituted with numbers, and the X is represented by another letter from A to M, except I.

Digit 1: The FFL’s Regional Location

The first fragment of the FFL number is only composed of a single digit representing the region where the FFL is located. The table below shows the numbers and their representations; note that digits 2 and 7 are not included. Take it as a red flag if you have encountered an FFL number 1 (Southwest) if they are in New York. 

Table 1. Representations of the first digit in an FFL 

Digits 2 & 3: The IRS District

The next group of numbers in your FFL is two digits representing the IRS District where the FFL is located. This also serves as a safeguard for its accuracy because the IRS District number has to match the region the first digit represents. 

Digits 4 to 6: FIPS Code

The third section represents the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) number of where the FFL is located. There is nothing to cross-check on this one, though, as FIPS can be changed anytime.

Digits 7 & 8: FFL Type

The seventh and eighth digits of the FFL Number indicates its Type -- what the license could be permissible of doing. The table below shows the different FFL Types and their descriptions:

Table 2.FFL types and their descriptions. 

It is worth noting that ATF intentionally skipped Type 04 and Type 05. Therefore, mark it as a red flag if the FFL you have encountered has 04 or 05 in their seventh and eighth digits.

Digits 9 & 10: FFL Expiration Date

This section of the FFL number shows the expiration year and month of the license. Character #9 represents the last digit of the coming expiration year. For example, if today is 2021 and Character #9 is 3; therefore the expiration year would be 2023. FFL Licenses are only valid for three years, so it is unnecessary to know what decade it would be.

Meanwhile, Character #10 signifies a month of the year based on the table below. Combined, the number and the letter corresponds to the expiration date of an FFL in year/month format.

Table 3. Character representations of the tenth digit in an FFL 

Digits 11 to 15: The Unique RDS Key

Finally, there will be a set of five numbers that will represent an FFL’s RDS key, which is unique to all FFLs. This is the identifier of the FFL and separates it from others.