Maine Drops Permit Reciprocity For Four States

Update (November 3, 2026): The Four States Are Back, and West Virginia Is In

Well, that didn’t last long.

Maine has put Arkansas, Indiana, South Dakota, and Tennessee back on its reciprocity list. Maine once again honors resident permits from all four, with no age condition on any of them.

Maine also added a new state: West Virginia. Maine honors West Virginia resident permits for holders 21 and older. West Virginia now honors Maine permits, both resident and nonresident, so the two states recognize each other.

Nothing changed on the other side for the original four. Arkansas, Indiana, South Dakota, and Tennessee never stopped honoring Maine permits.

A few things to know:

• If you’re 18 to 20 with a resident Indiana or South Dakota permit, your permit works in Maine again. That’s the group the September change hit hardest.
• If you’re a West Virginia resident 21 or older, Maine now recognizes your permit. If you’re 18 to 20, it doesn’t, and a Maine nonresident permit is still your path unless you fit the military exception.
• If you’re 21 or older from any of these states, you could carry in Maine under permitless carry the whole time. Plan to inform an officer during any stop.
• The resident-only rule hasn’t changed. Maine still only honors permits issued by your home state. Nonresident permits don’t count.

Just like the removal, the reversal came with no public explanation that I’ve been able to find. The list simply changed back. If you needed proof that reciprocity is a moving target, here it is. Check the destination state’s official page close to your travel date, every time.

The original article from September follows below.

Maine recently decided it wasn’t going to honor permits from 4 states that historically it has. I admit I’m having a hard time following the logic of this decision. We are going to break it down and in the process address the obvious question relating to Constitutional Carry.

Sorry Arkansas, Indiana, South Dakota, and Tennessee

Maine recognizes permits from other states under 25 M.R.S. 2001-A(2)(f). It isn’t complicated. It says that Maine will honor a permit from any state that honors the Maine permit.

So perhaps you are thinking that these 4 states must have stopped honoring the Maine permit. Nope. In fact each of those 4 states unversally honors all permits from all states including Maine.

The Maine State Police reciprocity page, which is built on research from the Maine Attorney General’s Office, no longer includes Arkansas, Indiana, South Dakota, or Tennessee. So, for an unknown reason, the Maine Attorney General and/or the Maine State Police decided to drop these 4 states against Maine’s own law and without any explanation or justification for doing so.

I know, I know… Permitless Carry Right

Many of you reading this are thinking that the entirety of this article is silly. Afterall, who cares what permits Maine honors given that Maine has constitutional carry (or permitless carry if that is the term you prefer).

Well, that is fair and being aware of permitless carry laws and their implications is valuable in these circumstances; but deciding you can ignore or not worry about reciprocity any more because the place you are traveling has constitutional carry can also be problematic.

In Maine for example, those who do not have a valid honored permit have to declare their firearm to law enforcement upon official contact while those with an honored permit do not.

Additionally, Maine allows those with a permit to carry inside state parks while those carrying only with constitutional carry authority may not.

Then of course there is the school zone concern as well.

Perhaps those specific restrictions aren’t a big deal to you and that’s fine; but the point is to be aware of that kind of thing and for those in four states whose reciprocity was just dropped you now for sure should be aware of those things if you travel to Maine.

In Summary

I don’t know why this change was made, and it probably won’t impact a lot of people in any practical sense but for the crowd that likes to travel to Maine from Arkansas, Indiana, South Dakota, or Tennessee I guess you have just a few new restrictions you need to keep in mind.

A reminder that you can find gun law information for any state, generate up to date reciprocity maps for any combination of permits, and keep up with legal topics like Constitutional Carry in our gun law resource library we call the law hub.