What Happens If You Don’t Register Your Gun in Illinois?

If you didn’t register your gun in Illinois under the Protect Illinois Communities Act, possessing that firearm without a valid endorsement affidavit is a Class A misdemeanor the first time and a Class 4 felony for any offense after that. The exposure stacks quickly: up to one year in jail on a first charge, up to three years in prison and a $25,000 fine on a second, FOID card revocation, permanent seizure of the weapon, and, if the second charge sticks, a lifetime federal ban on owning any firearm. The portal for late endorsement affidavits is still open, so for most owners the answer to “what now” starts there.¹

Which Guns the Registration Requirement Covers

PICA took effect on January 10, 2023. Only firearms the statute classifies as “assault weapons” or .50 caliber rifles needed to be registered through a FOID endorsement affidavit by owners who had them before that date. The definition is feature-based and sweeping: semi-automatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns with any of a long list of features (pistol grip, threaded barrel, folding stock, barrel shroud, detachable or oversized fixed magazines, and so on), plus more than 60 models listed by name.²

Two boundaries worth knowing. Ordinary handguns, bolt-action rifles, and other firearms outside the statute’s definition don’t require any PICA affidavit; standard FOID rules cover them. Large-capacity magazines are restricted under a separate section of PICA but do not require registration, so there is no missed-deadline problem for those alone.¹

Criminal Penalties for an Unregistered Assault Weapon

A first offense of possessing a covered firearm without the endorsement affidavit is a Class A misdemeanor in Illinois, punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.³

A second or subsequent offense is a Class 4 felony. That carries one to three years in the Illinois Department of Corrections, three to six years for an extended term, and a fine of up to $25,000.⁴ Charges can be filed per firearm, so three unregistered weapons may mean three separate counts.

How aggressively any of this gets prosecuted depends on the local State’s Attorney. Illinois has 102 counties, and prosecutors in each one decide independently. The appetite in a rural county can look very different from the appetite in Cook County, but the statute reads the same everywhere.

Your FOID Card Is Also at Risk

A felony conviction automatically revokes your FOID card under Illinois law. A misdemeanor conviction can trigger revocation too, under the provision covering anyone “prohibited from acquiring or possessing firearms or firearm ammunition by any Illinois State statute.”⁵

Losing the FOID card reaches far past the single firearm that caused the problem. Without a valid card you cannot legally own, possess, or buy any firearm or ammunition in Illinois. Every gun in your safe becomes a problem, not just the unregistered one.

The Firearm Itself

An unregistered PICA-covered firearm is contraband. Police will seize it when they find it, and there is no legal route back to private possession for that specific weapon. Even owners who registered on time face strict location rules: a registered assault weapon can only be kept on your own private property, on someone else’s property with permission, at a licensed range, at a gun shop for repair, or in transit between those places, unloaded and in a case.²

Federal Consequences If You Catch a Felony

A second PICA offense is punishable by more than one year in prison. That crosses the threshold for the federal firearms prohibition under 18 U.S.C. § 922, which permanently bars anyone convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than one year from possessing any firearm or ammunition, anywhere in the United States.⁶

The federal ban doesn’t care what sentence a judge actually hands down. If the offense was punishable by more than a year, you’re prohibited even if you got probation. The prohibition covers every firearm you own, not just the one the Illinois case was about. A first PICA offense is a misdemeanor under a year and doesn’t trigger the federal ban by itself, but it still shows up on background checks and can complicate future FOID renewals.

The Late-Registration Portal Is Still Open

For most people who missed the January 1, 2024 deadline, this is the practical path. The Illinois State Police has kept the FOID endorsement affidavit portal open indefinitely, and the ISP has stated there are “not separate fines or penalties for late submissions.”¹

The affidavit asks for your FOID number, a sworn statement that you owned the firearm before the law took effect (or inherited it from someone who did), and the make, model, caliber, and serial number of each weapon. Falsifying any of that is perjury and grounds for losing your FOID card, so be accurate.²

One warning the ISP includes in the same guidance: “the relevant jurisdiction could deem a late endorsement affidavit submittal to be invalid or insufficient.”¹ The state police will accept your late filing, but a local prosecutor could still argue the late submission doesn’t cure the earlier violation. That argument hasn’t been tested in court. Filing late is still a much better posture than not filing at all.

If You Won’t Register, You Have Three Legal Exits

The statute lays out ways to come into compliance without filing the affidavit.²

Transfer the firearm to an out-of-state buyer or to a federally licensed dealer. Federal rules require interstate rifle and shotgun transfers to go through an FFL with a Form 4473 and NICS check, and you must notify the Illinois State Police of the transferee’s name and address within 10 days.⁷
Transfer the firearm to an heir. The heir then has 60 days to file their own endorsement affidavit and is limited to the same transfer options going forward.
Surrender the firearm to a local police department or sheriff’s office.

A fourth route sits in the statute’s definitions. A firearm that has been made permanently inoperable is no longer an assault weapon under PICA. Some owners also strip the specific features that put a gun inside the definition in the first place, such as a pistol grip or an adjustable stock. If none of the listed features remain, the firearm falls out of the category and doesn’t need registration. Getting that analysis wrong leaves you still in possession of an unregistered assault weapon, so this one belongs in a conversation with a firearms attorney, not a weekend workbench project.

Don’t Count on the Law Being Thrown Out

PICA was challenged almost immediately. A trial court initially blocked it in Caulkins v. Pritzker, but the Illinois Supreme Court reversed and ruled the statute enforceable statewide.¹ Federal challenges have continued, and PICA remains in full effect. Waiting for the law to disappear is a bet made with your own criminal record.

1
Illinois State Police. Assault Weapons
2
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 720 ILCS 5/24-1.9 – Manufacture, Possession, Delivery, Sale, and Purchase of Assault Weapons, .50 Caliber Rifles, and .50 Caliber Cartridges
3
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 730 ILCS 5/5-4.5-55 – Class A Misdemeanors Sentence
4
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 730 ILCS 5/5-4.5-45 – Class 4 Felony Sentence
5
FindLaw. Illinois Statutes Chapter 430 Public Safety 65/8
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts
7
eCFR. Subpart F – Conduct of Business