No, a felony conviction alone does not expire after 10 years, and there is no federal rule that lets a convicted felon buy a gun simply because a decade has passed. Under federal law, a felony conviction creates a lifetime prohibition on possessing firearms or ammunition. The 10-year figure that circulates online comes from a proposed federal relief program and from certain state restoration schemes, not from any automatic clock. To legally own a gun again, you generally need affirmative legal action: an expungement, a pardon, a qualifying restoration of civil rights, or relief through the federal program the Department of Justice proposed in 2025.
Why Time Alone Doesn’t Lift the Ban
The Gun Control Act makes it illegal for anyone convicted of “a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” to possess a firearm or ammunition.1Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Identify Prohibited Persons That covers nearly every felony in the country, violent or not. Tax fraud, drug possession, and writing bad checks all trigger the same lifetime ban as assault.
The prohibition turns on the sentence you could have received, not what you actually served. If the maximum possible sentence exceeded one year, you are federally prohibited, even if the judge gave you probation with no jail time. That surprises people who assume a light sentence means the conviction wasn’t “serious enough” to cost them their gun rights.
There is no waiting period built into the ban. Ten years, twenty years, or forty years after your case closes, the prohibition still applies unless a specific legal action removes it.
Where the 10-Year Figure Comes From
The 10-year number people hear about traces to two different things, and neither is an automatic restoration.
The first is the federal relief-from-disabilities program the Department of Justice proposed to revive in 2025. For decades, Congress blocked the ATF from spending money to process individual relief applications, and that funding restriction still applies to ATF.2Federal Register. Application for Relief From Disabilities Imposed by Federal Laws With Respect to the Acquisition, Receipt, Transfer, Shipment, Transportation, or Possession of Firearms In March 2025 the Attorney General pulled that authority away from ATF and proposed handling applications directly through DOJ. In July 2025 the department published a proposed rule to reestablish the program.
Under the proposal, any person prohibited under the federal firearms ban could apply to the Attorney General for relief. Applications would be submitted online or by mail with an estimated fee of $20, and fee waivers would be available for people who cannot afford it.3Regulations.gov. Application for Relief From Disabilities Imposed by Federal Laws With Respect to the Acquisition, Receipt, Transfer, Shipment, Transportation, or Possession of Firearms Applicants convicted of drug distribution or other designated serious offenses would need to wait at least 10 years after completing their entire sentence, including supervised release, before applying. For all other offenses the waiting period would be 5 years. Applications filed before those thresholds are met would be presumptively denied unless the applicant shows extraordinary circumstances.
As of mid-2025, this rule remains a proposal. It has not been finalized, and even after 10 years pass, relief would not be automatic; the Attorney General still has to grant the application. Check the DOJ page for updates before relying on it.
The second source of the 10-year figure is state law. A handful of states restore firearm rights on their own after a waiting period of five or ten years. That state-level restoration is real, but it does not automatically lift the federal ban, and this is where people get into serious trouble.
The State Restoration Trap
Federal and state gun laws operate on parallel tracks. You can be in full compliance with your state’s firearm law and simultaneously committing a federal felony by possessing a gun.
Federal law says a conviction “shall not be considered a conviction” if the person has been pardoned, had the conviction expunged, or had civil rights restored, but only if the relief does not expressly prohibit firearm possession.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 921 – Definitions The Supreme Court held in Beecham v. United States that you look to the law of the jurisdiction where the conviction occurred to determine whether civil rights have been restored.5Legal Information Institute. Beecham v United States
In practice, federal authorities look at whether the state has restored the core civil rights felons typically lose: voting, holding public office, and serving on a jury. The state restoration must also not carry any firearm restriction. If a state restores your voting rights but keeps a firearms restriction in place, or limits you to possessing a gun only at home, the federal ban remains fully intact. The Department of Justice has taken the position that a state restoration document that is absolute on its face should be given effect.6United States Department of Justice Archives. Criminal Resource Manual 1435 – Post-Conviction Restoration of Civil Rights
The takeaway: a state saying you can have a gun after 10 years is not the same as federal law saying so. Before you buy anything, you need to know whether your state’s restoration meets the federal test.
Pathways That Actually Restore Your Rights
To legally own a gun again, you need a legal action that either wipes out the conviction or restores your civil rights in a way federal law recognizes.
Expungement or Set-Aside
Expungement erases the conviction. Under federal law, an expunged conviction no longer counts as a disqualifying offense, provided the expungement order does not expressly restrict your right to possess firearms.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 921 – Definitions Some states offer similar relief called a set-aside or vacatur that removes the legal disabilities of the conviction, and these work the same way for federal purposes as long as they fully remove the conviction’s effects.
Not every conviction is eligible. Most states exclude violent felonies, sex offenses, and certain drug crimes. Eligibility rules, waiting periods, and filing procedures vary significantly by jurisdiction. Filing fees run in the range of a few hundred dollars in most places, and attorney fees add substantially to that cost.
Pardon
A governor’s pardon can lift a state conviction’s effects, and a presidential pardon does the same for federal convictions. For a pardon to restore gun rights, it must not contain any firearm restriction. A pardon that says “all civil rights are restored except the right to possess firearms” leaves the federal ban in place.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 921 – Definitions
For federal convictions, the route is a presidential pardon through the Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney. Regulations require a waiting period of at least five years after release from confinement, or five years after the conviction if no prison sentence was imposed, before you can file a petition.7eCFR. 28 CFR 1.2 – Eligibility for Filing Petition for Pardon You generally cannot apply while still on probation, parole, or supervised release. Pardons are discretionary and relatively rare.
Civil Rights Restoration
Some states automatically restore civil rights when a felon completes their sentence. Whether this restoration lifts the federal ban depends on whether it covers the core civil rights federal authorities look for and whether it stays silent on firearms rather than expressly restricting them. If your state’s restoration mentions guns at all, read it carefully with a lawyer before assuming anything.
Convictions That May Not Trigger the Ban
Federal law carves out a few categories of offenses that don’t count as disqualifying convictions, even though they technically carry sentences over one year. If your conviction falls into one of these, you may not need to pursue restoration at all.
- Federal and state convictions for antitrust violations, unfair trade practices, restraints of trade, and similar business-regulation crimes are excluded from the firearms ban entirely.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 921 – Definitions
- If your state classified the offense as a misdemeanor and the maximum possible sentence was two years or less, it does not count as a disqualifying crime under federal law, even though the sentence exceeds one year.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 921 – Definitions
These exceptions are narrower than they sound. The business-regulation exclusion applies only to offenses whose core purpose is regulating commercial activity; a fraud conviction that happens to involve a business transaction does not qualify. The state-misdemeanor exception hinges on how your state formally classifies the offense.
Penalties for Getting It Wrong
Guessing wrong about your eligibility carries steep consequences. A person convicted of violating the felon-in-possession law faces up to 15 years in federal prison.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 924 – Penalties The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act raised this maximum from 10 years in 2022, so older information often understates the risk.
For people with three or more prior convictions for violent felonies or serious drug offenses, the Armed Career Criminal Act imposes a mandatory minimum of 15 years. Judges have no discretion to go below that floor. Someone with a serious criminal history who is found with a single round of ammunition in their car can face a 15-year sentence with no lighter option available.
Figuring Out Where You Actually Stand
Before pursuing any restoration path, nail down these facts about your own situation. The wrong assumption at any step can lead to a federal felony charge.
- Identify your conviction precisely: the exact statute, whether it was state or federal, and the maximum possible sentence. If the maximum was one year or less, or if it was a state-classified misdemeanor punishable by two years or less, the federal ban may not apply to you at all.
- Determine when your sentence ended completely, including probation, parole, and supervised release. Most restoration pathways and waiting periods run from this date, not from the conviction date or release from prison.
- Research the expungement and pardon laws where you were convicted. The convicting jurisdiction is the one with authority to expunge the record or grant a pardon for that offense.
- Check what your state has already restored. Some states automatically restore civil rights on sentence completion. Find out whether yours has, and whether the restoration includes or excludes firearm rights. A restoration silent on firearms is treated differently than one that expressly restricts them.
- Watch for the federal program. If the DOJ’s proposed relief-from-disabilities rule is finalized, it would create a direct federal pathway with 5-year or 10-year waiting periods after sentence completion.
Given the criminal exposure, consulting a firearms attorney before buying or possessing any weapon is the single most cost-effective decision you can make. The interaction between federal law, state restoration, and the pending federal program creates enough complexity that even well-informed people misjudge their own eligibility.