NFA Approval after January 1

[AZ Gator]

What kind of source are you looking for? Go check out the tracking thread at r/NFA and see if you see a pattern. From what I've been seeing there is a pretty clear pattern, individual F4s coming in at a week or under, and trusts, even 1 RP coming in at a month +-.

The F4 I got back on a trust last week went about a month, up from a week for the one before in November and two days and 29hrs respectively for the two I did early last year.

Do what you want, but the pattern looks real enough for me to put my next one in as an individual. A month isn't too bad in the grand scheme of things, but with $0 transfers I'd rather wait a month with it in hand than a month to get it in hand.

The ATF data is behind by a month, so I didn’t know if there was a better data source. For January, individual F4 average 10 days and trust F4 averaged 11 days, according to ATF. That is for completed and correct F4s. Which is another potential source of error if folks leave that out of what they post (I know people on the internet would never mislead other people on the internet).

It seems like things really sped up by mid February, so it will be interesting to see the numbers for February and so on. I just have a hard time believing individual F4 got noticeably faster while trust F4 got way slower.

Silencer Shop published data is median, which I would rather see average.

Everyone is certainly free to choose their own path, I just haven’t seen a trend that indicates a significant benefit in time for individual.

 

[IdahoHntr]

The ATF data is behind by a month, so I didn’t know if there was a better data source. For January, individual F4 average 10 days and trust F4 averaged 11 days, according to ATF. That is for completed and correct F4s. Which is another potential source of error if folks leave that out of what they post (I know people on the internet would never mislead other people on the internet).

It seems like things really sped up by mid February, so it will be interesting to see the numbers for February and so on. I just have a hard time believing individual F4 got noticeably faster while trust F4 got way slower.

Silencer Shop published data is median, which I would rather see average.

Everyone is certainly free to choose their own path, I just haven’t seen a trend that indicates a significant benefit in time for individual.

Look at this thread. I haven’t seen a single trust being approved in less than a week while almost every individual submitted in February was just a few days. Pretty good sample there. My SOT has also said individuals are coming back significantly faster than trusts. Again, a couple weeks to a month ain’t a big deal, but it sure seems individuals are significantly faster right now.

 

[Gtscotty]

It seems like things really sped up by mid February, so it will be interesting to see the numbers for February and so on. I just have a hard time believing individual F4 got noticeably faster while trust F4 got way slower.

Things haven't sped up for trusts. Why would you have a hard time believing that individuals sped up and trusts didn't? That isn't a novel thing, there were years where that was the norm, having them come through at the same time was what was new. Do what you want, but the trends are pretty clear.

 

[AZ Gator]

Things haven't sped up for trusts. Why would you have a hard time believing that individuals sped up and trusts didn't? That isn't a novel thing, there were years where that was the norm, having them come through at the same time was what was new. Do what you want, but the trends are pretty clear.

That’s not what I said. The numbers I found, when taken with your numbers, mean ATF is processing trusts much slower, while processing individuals faster.

Hell, do what you want. I think it’s misleading to say trusts are taking weeks vs individuals are taking days., but it’s just my impression/belief. I’ve stated the numbers I’ve found and their limitations. So someone can take it or leave it based on their own judgement.

 

[BRTreedogs]

3 weeks isn’t jack in the nfa game.
Idk why anyone would say that’s significantly longer.
It used to be months longer then Individual

 

[BigMiss]

It might be small potatoes compared to years past, but it is true trusts are taking longer when looking at recent data and submissions by users of the internet. Many Form 4 trusts with 1RP or 2RP are taking 21-35 days, whereas Form 1 Individuals are taking 1-7 days. It is still not a bad wait time, but I definitely wish I'd have done an individual and transfered to a trust later on.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NFA/comments/1q3bnqs/2026_1st_quarter_approval_megathread

 

[Gtscotty]

3 weeks isn’t jack in the nfa game.
Idk why anyone would say that’s significantly longer.
It used to be months longer then Individual

A month is still significantly longer than a week, in that it's four times as long, and the wait difference between trust and individual is real and not just in the noise. It's not a long time for NFA waits in general, ignoring the past year and a half, and it's not as big of a difference as there used to be between individuals and trusts. All of that is true.

I really do not care how anyone else does their applications, but for mine, if I can do an application and it take four weeks to get my can, or do an application and it take 1 week and then do another 20 minute application at some point once I have the can in hand, I'm probably going to do the latter, why not. If it was someone's first F4, or they weren't familiar with the process I can see them perhaps just wanting to wait and do it once.

 

[BRTreedogs]

A month is still significantly longer than a week, in that it's four times as long, and the wait difference between trust and individual is real and not just in the noise. It's not a long time for NFA waits in general, ignoring the past year and a half, and it's not as big of a difference as there used to be between individuals and trusts. All of that is true.

I really do not care how anyone else does their applications, but for mine, if I can do an application and it take four weeks to get my can, or do an application and it take 1 week and then do another 20 minute application at some point once I have the can in hand, I'm probably going to do the latter, why not. If it was someone's first F4, or they weren't familiar with the process I can see them perhaps just wanting to wait and do it once.

You must be really young and impatient if you think 3 weeks is significantly longer.

Why not? You’re clogging up the system for everyone by transferring it again.
That why I wish they wouldn’t of made it free.

But I waited 2 yrs for a can once. So 3 weeks isn’t anything.

 

[BigMiss]

Why are we insulting others for stating that something taking 4 times the amount of time as something else is significant? I think we can all agree that we should not have to even go through this process at all, and any amount of time it takes, whether it is 24 hours or 24 days, is too long.

 

[Gtscotty]

You must be really young and impatient if you think 3 weeks is significantly longer.

Why not? You’re clogging up the system for everyone by transferring it again.
That why I wish they wouldn’t of made it free.

But I waited 2 yrs for a can once. So 3 weeks isn’t anything.

Lol, I'm neither, but I don't like to wait on the man longer than I have to "just cuz", and I'm in the F4 and F1 line fairly often lately.

Longest I've waited was 9 months, but I do believe I would have reached out to my congressman for an assist long before I got near 2 years that's been standard practice for well over a decade at this point.

Wishing we still had the $200 boot licking fee just because now more folks are clogging up the system with applications and pushing the wait up to a whole week for individuals is a shamefully Fudd opinion that you should have been embarrassed to type out.

I guess I'll say the obvious part out loud for you, the ATF was processing trusts and individuals in the same timeframe all of last year, the fact that they aren't now reflects a policy choice on their part, not the fact that now people are buying cans.

 

[crabcreekhunter]

Had my F4 trust approved on Wednesday, 26 days. Last one I had a few years back was right at a year.