Ghost Gun Laws in Massachusetts: Penalties and Deadlines

Ghost gun laws in Massachusetts are among the strictest in the country. Under Chapter 135 of the Acts of 2024, signed by Governor Healey in July 2024, it is a crime to knowingly possess, make, buy, sell, or import an untraceable firearm, and the offense carries a mandatory minimum of 12 months in jail.¹ If you want to build a firearm yourself, you must first request a serial number from the Department of Criminal Justice Information Services (DCJIS), engrave that number during assembly, and register the finished gun within seven days.²

What Counts as a Ghost Gun

The statute does not use the phrase “ghost gun.” It uses two overlapping terms that together cover the same ground.

An untraceable firearm is any firearm that has never been serialized, or one whose serial number has been removed, defaced, or altered.¹ That is the category that triggers the criminal penalties. It reaches both commercial guns with obliterated numbers and home-built guns that never had numbers in the first place.

A privately made firearm is any firearm assembled by someone who is not a licensed manufacturer acting in the course of business.¹ Buy parts, build at home, and the result is a privately made firearm subject to the serialization and registration rules below.

The law also expands the definition of “firearm” to include unfinished frames and receivers. Any forging, casting, 3D print, or machined body that has reached a stage where it can readily be completed into a working frame or receiver counts, and so does anything marketed or sold to become one.¹ An “80% lower” that other states treat as unregulated metal is a firearm in Massachusetts if common tools and available instructions could finish it. Possessing one without a serial number can itself violate the untraceable-firearm ban.

What Massachusetts Prohibits

The core rule is one sentence long: no person may knowingly possess, manufacture, assemble, purchase, sell, transfer, or import an untraceable firearm.² That covers nearly every way a ghost gun could pass through your hands.

A separate provision aimed at home builders adds a procedural requirement: you cannot manufacture or assemble a privately made firearm without first getting a serial number from DCJIS, engraving it during assembly, and registering the firearm within seven days.² Building first and serializing later is not an option. The number has to be applied as you build, not after.

If You’re Building a Firearm Yourself

The steps must happen in this order:

Before you start, request a unique serial number from DCJIS through its electronic serial number request system. The request includes your personal information, the type of firearm, and how you plan to produce it.²
Engrave the assigned serial number onto the frame or receiver during assembly.
Register the finished firearm with DCJIS within seven days of completion.¹

The firearm must also comply with all state and federal safety rules, and you still need a valid License to Carry or Firearm Identification card. Building your own does not exempt you from licensing.

Deadlines for New Residents, Inherited Guns, and Existing Firearms

If you move to Massachusetts or inherit a firearm through an estate, you have 60 days to serialize and register it. Licensed dealers, gunsmiths, and manufacturers who acquire firearms through their businesses have seven days.¹

For firearms already in the state, the deadline depends on technology that is still being built. DCJIS has up to one year from the law’s effective date to launch the electronic registration system and the serial number request system. Once each system goes live, gun owners have one additional year to bring all firearms into compliance.¹ There is no single fixed calendar date; the clock starts when DCJIS opens the system to the public.

The criminal ban on untraceable firearms, however, is already in force. If you own an unserialized privately made firearm, watch for DCJIS announcements and act once the registration system opens. The requirements for new builds are also in effect now: get the number first, serialize during assembly, register within seven days.

Penalties

Knowingly manufacturing, assembling, importing, selling, transferring, purchasing, receiving, or possessing an untraceable firearm carries imprisonment of not less than 12 months and not more than two and a half years.¹ The 12-month floor is a mandatory minimum, meaning a judge cannot sentence below it. Possession alone is prima facie evidence of a violation; the prosecution does not have to prove you built or bought it, only that you had it.

Possessing an untraceable firearm while committing or attempting a felony raises the floor to not less than two and a half years.¹

Failing to register a firearm, or failing to report a sale, loss, or theft, is penalized on an escalating scale:

First offense: fine up to $1,000.
Second offense: fine up to $7,500, up to six months in jail, or both.
Third or subsequent offense: fine up to $10,000, one to five years in prison, or both.¹

Any registration violation can also trigger suspension or permanent revocation of your LTC, FID card, or firearms permit. That consequence is often underestimated. Even a first-offense fine can cost you your license, which effectively strips your ability to possess any firearm in the state. On conviction, the firearm itself is forfeited and sent to the Colonel of the State Police for destruction.

The Knowledge Defense

Because possession is prima facie evidence of a violation, you carry the initial burden of explanation. You can rebut the presumption with evidence that you had no knowledge the firearm was untraceable or no guilty knowledge of the violation.¹

The defense is most plausible when a third-party seller misrepresented the gun’s status, as in a private sale where the seller claimed the firearm was properly serialized. It is much harder to argue if you assembled the firearm yourself or if the serial number was obviously missing or defaced. Courts look at the totality of circumstances, and claiming ignorance while holding a clearly homemade receiver is unlikely to work.

How Federal Law Differs

Federal law is looser than Massachusetts law on ghost guns, and following federal rules alone will not keep you legal here.

Under federal rules, a private individual who builds a firearm for personal use is not required to serialize or register it.³ Federal serialization kicks in only when a privately made firearm enters the commercial stream, as when a licensed dealer acquires one and must mark it within seven days. Massachusetts rejects that hands-off approach. State law requires a serial number before you begin building, and relying on the federal personal-use exemption will get you charged in Massachusetts.

The two systems also define unfinished receivers differently. The ATF’s 2022 rule treats a frame or receiver as including partially complete components and parts kits that can readily be completed, considering any jigs, templates, tools, or instructions sold with the kit.⁴ Massachusetts covers the same completion-readiness ground and adds a marketing prong: even if the blank is not far along mechanically, if the seller advertises it as a future firearm frame, the state treats it as one.¹

Bringing a Firearm Into Massachusetts

Federal law gives you a transportation safe harbor between states, but only if you can lawfully possess the firearm at both ends of the trip. The gun must be unloaded, and in vehicles without a separate trunk both the firearm and the ammunition must be in a locked container other than the glove compartment or console.⁵

The lawful-possession requirement is where ghost guns fail. Because Massachusetts bans untraceable firearms outright, you cannot legally bring an unserialized firearm into the state even if your home state permits it. The federal safe harbor protects continuous transit, but an extended stop or overnight stay in Massachusetts erodes that protection. If Massachusetts is your destination, the firearm must be serialized and registered before or promptly after arrival.

1
General Court of Massachusetts. Session Law – Acts of 2024 Chapter 135
2
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Part I, Title XX, Chapter 140, Section 121C
3
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Privately Made Firearms
4
eCFR. 27 CFR 478.12 – Definition of Frame or Receiver
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 926A – Interstate Transportation of Firearms