ATF eForm 1: Form 1 eFile NFA Tax Stamp Process

If you want to manufacture or modify a firearm for commercial or non-commercial purposes within the United States, you will need to have it registered as an NFA item with the ATF. You will need to eFile ATF Form 1 to have your firearm registered with the agency.

ATF will require yours as well as the firearm’s details to process necessary formalities to have it registered as an NFA item. ATF eForms are a great way to fast forward your ATF application through the digital route; however, the agency also makes paper forms available if you wish to do it that way.

In order to access ATF’s new eForm system, you will need to create an ATF eForm account. All you need to do is open the new eForm system by clicking the following URL: eForms.atf.gov and it should take you to ATF eForm login/registration page.

You can skip the registration step if you are an existing user of the ATF eForm system and follow the next steps to continue your eForm 1 NFA tax stamp process. If you have not created an ATF eForms account yet, simply scroll down and click the Register button located at the bottom of the page in order to register yourself and create an account. On clicking the URL provided above.

Fill out all the information required by the form, create a password as per the minimum password complexity instructions given above the password field and enter a PIN. Your user name is generated automatically, which will also be sent to you with a confirmation email.

Upon successful registration, you will be taken back to the ATF eForms login page. Since you have successfully created your ATF eForms account, click on the Login button in order to login and accept the conditions mentioned in the “Standard Warning Banner” that appears upon clicking the Login button. It is recommended to read the disclaimers and conations provided in the banner before you start using the ATF eForm system.

Enter your user ID and password and click on the Sign-in button to continue. Upon successful login, the “Rules of Behavior” page appears, which contains certain conditions and your responsibilities as a user of the eForms system. You will need to accept these conditions and responsibilities in order to continue, denying them will disallow you to use the system.

If you accept the “Rules of Behavior”, the following ATF eForms system screen should appear.

To begin a new eForm 1 process, select the ATF form 1 icon on the screen. Going forward, the process is more or less similar to the eForm 1’s paper version, i.e. you will see an electronic version of the ATF Form 1 paper form and you can fill different items by selecting corresponding fields, boxes, buttons, and dropdowns.

In this step, you get to select what type of applicant you are – an individual or an NFA gun trust. If you are applying as an individual, you will need to fill out details such as your county sheriff’s name & address, and some details of the NFA item you are going to build/modify. You will also have to upload a digital photo (up to 3MB) in JPG and JPEG or GIF format.

In case you are filing as an NFA gun trust, you will need to fill out and upload Responsible Party Forms (ATF Form 5320.23). You will also have to upload a digital photo (of not more than 3 MB) of each responsible party (trustee).

On selecting your application type, the following screen will appear.

Read the information and click next to go to the next step.

In this step, you get to indicate the type of application. The type of application will determine your tax liability. Most application types will be tax paid and will have to pay $200 through tax stamp. Government entities, however, can apply as tax-exempt. To apply as tax-exempt, you will need to use the ATF 5320.5 eForm.

You do not need to fill out the Internal control number and click next to advance to the next step.

The applicant page is where you will indicate your information as an individual applicant and the makers’ questions that are normally located on page two of the paper ATF Form 1  application. Your first name, middle initial, last name, and address should populate automatically. If you’re making a firearm at a different address than what is indicated, you can type that in here as well.

You may need to indicate your cadence if applicable. The title of the submitter of the application for an individual applicant will simply be owner or maker. After that box is completed, you can scroll down to answer the makers’ questions. You will answer each question by selecting the answer from the drop-down menu located next to each question. The options are either yes or no.

If you are filing as a gun trust, additional information needs to be submitted. The applicant page is where you will indicate your information as a gun trust applicant. The title of the submitter of the application for a gun trust applicant will be Trustee, Settlor/Grantor, etc.

Depending on your gun trust, the trust name will need to be your gun trust name. Your country address line one and line two zip code plus four for the zip code, city, county, state telephone, and email address should all be automatically completed. If you’re making a firearm at a different address than what is indicated you can type that in here as well.

• Manufacture, import, or deal in National Firearms Act (NFA) firearms
• Import firearms, ammunition, or defence articles; or
• File the annual report required of federally licensed manufacturers

To submit forms as or on behalf of an FFL, you will need to request the association of your user ID (which you received upon registration) to the specific Federal Firearms License (FFL) and Employer Identification Number (EIN) (if applicable) or Arms Export Control Act registration. Processing association requests may take 2-3 days and you shall receive a notification email when it is done.

On this screen, you get to provide your CLEO(Chief Law Enforcement Officers) information. The agency or department name is the CLEO’sagency name or department. For example, in Cooper County Sheriff’s Office, the name of the agency official will be the CLEO’sname. The title of agency official is the CLEO’stitle in our example, this will be Sheriff, we will lastly fill in the mailing address of the CLEO.

You will need to write in the mailing address of your CLEO and their zip code. When you enter the zip code of your CLEO, the state city and county fields should populate based on the entered zip code. You don’t need to enter in the +4 for the zip code that isn’t required. Once this is completed, you can click the Next button to go to the next step.

On the responsible person page, you can enter your information as an individual if you are filing as an individual. Normally, you will start left to right completing each column one at a time. There are 22 different columns that you will need to go through the last column is UPIN. In order to see the last column, you may need to use the scroll bar that is located at the bottom of the table or zoom out to see the columns. The columns are self-explanatory.

If you need to add more responsible persons you can select the actions button located above the table and click Add responsible person that will add another row in the table. You can then enter in the information for your responsible person as you did for yourself. Once completed, you can scroll through the table to verify your information was entered correctly. If you need to upload a new photo, ATF form 5320.23 You can do so at this time. After you have verified your information, you can click Next.

The line item page is where we will add the firearm that you’re going to make. For example, for a silencer, you will start by clicking the Add firearm button located above the table and to the left. This will load a new window where the information from the firearm will be added to the Form 1 application. We will start by selecting to search by manufacturer code.

After filling in the manufacturer details, click Verify manufacturer. Once your manufacturer has been validated successfully, you can click OK in the new window to proceed. We will then select the manufacturer or country and click Next. The second screen will load the firearm details, we will click the product type drop-down and select silencer. Once selected, this will then load the available models.

Once the drop-down is loaded, you can select a model name and caliber from the already manufactured list of available model numbers and caliber options. If you’re looking for a specific model name, you can scroll through the list. You can also skip some scrolling if you type the first letter of the name.

If you want to make your own model name and caliber that isn’t available in the dropdown. Then you can select my item description that is not in the list to create a new item but know when this box is selected. Your application will go into the pending research phase and will need to be manually reviewed by the ATF, which can extend the timeline for your application.

Clicking “My item description is not in the list, create new item” radio button may take a minute to load and will eventually unlock the model caliber and unit of measure and you can then write in the information that is specific for the silencer that you are going to make.

The Electronic Documents page is where you can upload additional documents that are relevant to your application. This is most commonly used for corporations, trusts, and other legal entities. If you are applying as a corporation, trust, or other legal entity, you will need to upload the corporation trust or other legal entity documents.

For example, if you are applying with a gun trust, please note that documents that you upload on the electronic documents page are limited to 3MB in size. To upload the scanned copy of your notarized gun trust, you can select the Choose File to explore and select the digitally scanned copy of your gun trust.

ATF now accepts digital submissions in which you can send your fingerprint EFT file for your FD-258 fingerprint cards, digital photograph, and the CLEO copy of your ATF form 5320.1 by attaching them with an email. The uploaded EFT file must meet the FBI specifications and the file extension must be “EFT”. The file size should not exceed 12 megabytes.

The Certify page is where you will need to certify pay for your application and sign and submit your application. If you didn’t select “My item description is not in the list, create new item” on the line item page then you should see a green checkmark stating that the application has been validated successfully.

If you did select the “My item description is not in the list, create new item” on the line item page then you should see a yellow triangle stating that the model or manufacturer that you have indicated is either unknown or is not listed in the ATF reference tables.

ATF will have to validate the information that you provided prior to rendering a decision on your application. This makes them the average processing time for this application. Both will allow you to proceed if you don’t have any application errors. If you have any application errors you will also be told this here with red links to the pages that need to be fixed.

If you have no errors, you can select the radio button next to Certify. Next, you will need to click the Pay button. This will open up a pay.gov pop-up that you will use to pay for the $200 tax stamp. You can use a credit or debit card to pay for the tax stamp.

Once your payment is done, you will see a window indicating that your payment has been successfully submitted and that you can now close the payment window. This will then allow you to click the Sign and Submit button. He will lastly need to confirm your submission by typing in your ATF e forms account password.

After submitting your application to the ATF, the agency will email your cover sheet and your ATF Form 1. If your application had a yellow triangle on the certified page, then your application will start in the pending research status. This means that your ATF Form 1 that was emailed to you will be watermarked “Draft” and the cover sheet will not have a valid control number or serial number. In this case, you will need to wait for the ATF to review your application.

Once your application is reviewed, the ATF will change your application status from “Pending research” to “Submitted”. At this time you will receive another email from the ATF with your ATF Form 1 watermarked as “Submitted” and a valid cover sheet. This will be the time that you will be able to mail your cover sheet, fingerprint file to the ATF and mail your CLEO paperwork to your CLEO.

This can take the ATF up to 150 days to change your status from “Pending research” to “Submitted”. If your application had a green checkmark on the certified page, then your application will start in the Submitted status. Your cover sheet will have a valid control number and serial number.