Resident Carry Permit Reciprocity: Every State Ranked by Reach
North Carolina's resident carry permit is the most widely honored, recognized in 39 of the other 50 jurisdictions. The least honored, at 26 each, are those of the District of Columbia, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island; Vermont issues no carry permit, so it is not ranked.
Your resident carry permit is a state document, and its reach is set by the states you visit — not by the state that issued it. Averaged across the 50 jurisdictions that issue one, a resident permit is honored in 33 others. Those gaps are the whole reason this site exists.
The table below ranks how far each state's resident permit travels. Every count links to a state profile, and every state pair on this site has its own page with the recognition answer, duty-to-inform rules, magazine limits, off-limits places, and the official source we verified against. If you want the picture at a glance, the interactive map colors all 50 destinations for your permit in one click.
"Honored in" counts destinations that recognize the permit itself. "+ Permitless-carry states" counts destinations that do not recognize the permit but allow eligible visitors to carry without one — a legal path, with stricter eligibility fine print. Vermont issues no carry permit, so it is left out of these figures.
How these numbers are built
Every count on this page is computed from a per-state dataset verified against official state sources only: Attorney General reciprocity pages, State Police lists, and state statutes. No aggregator data. Where an official source leaves something unclear, we store the uncertainty and say so on the page instead of guessing. Full detail on the methodology page.
Frequently asked questions
- Which resident permit is honored in the most states?
- North Carolina's resident permit is the most widely honored, recognized in 39 of the other 50 jurisdictions. Averaged across the 50 jurisdictions that issue one, a resident permit is honored in 33. Vermont issues no carry permit, so it is left out of these figures. The table on this page ranks every state's count, and each state profile lists the exact destinations.
- Does my resident permit's reach depend on where I travel?
- Yes, entirely. Recognition is decided by the destination state, not by the state that issued your permit. The same permit can be fully valid in one neighboring state and worthless in the other.
- What is a resident permit?
- A carry permit issued by the state where you actually live. Some destination states only honor out-of-state permits when the holder is a resident of the issuing state, which is why resident and non-resident permits get separate pages on this site.