Three states run a tax-free weekend for guns and ammo in 2026: Mississippi (August 28–30), Louisiana (September 4–6), and South Carolina (November 27–28). Mississippi and Louisiana waive state and local sales tax on firearms, ammunition, and a long list of hunting supplies. South Carolina waives tax only on the firearm itself. Nothing about these holidays touches federal excise tax, background check fees, or dealer transfer charges.
Mississippi: August 28–30, 2026
Mississippi’s Second Amendment Sales Tax Holiday runs from 12:01 a.m. on the last Friday in August through midnight the following Sunday. The exemption covers firearms, ammunition, and hunting supplies with no price cap, and both state and local sales taxes are waived.
Mississippi reads “hunting supplies” broadly. Archery equipment, firearm and archery cases, hearing protection, holsters, belts, slings, scopes, mounts, suppressors, and reloading supplies all qualify. Toy guns, BB guns, paintball gear, knives, hunting clothing, tree stands, blinds, decoys, and animal feed do not. Layaway purchases are excluded.
Louisiana: September 4–6, 2026
Louisiana’s Second Amendment Weekend falls on the first Friday through Sunday of September and waives state and local sales and use tax on firearms, ammunition, and hunting supplies.
Louisiana’s qualifying list is the widest of the three states. Along with guns and ammo, it covers archery equipment, camouflage clothing, hunting boots, firearm cases and accessories, rifle scopes and binoculars, range finders, decoys, tree stands, blinds, hearing protection, holsters, and even pirogues and deer corn. Knives, chairs, and similar dual-use items only qualify if they are “manufactured and marketed as being primarily for use in hunting.”
South Carolina: November 27–28, 2026
South Carolina’s Second Amendment Weekend starts at 12:01 a.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving and ends at midnight the following Saturday. That is a 48-hour window, not a full three-day weekend.
The exemption is narrower than the name suggests. Only handguns, rifles, and shotguns are tax-free. Ammunition, optics, parts, cleaning supplies, cases, magazines, black powder, sights, locks, targets, and sporting clays all remain taxable when bought on their own. An accessory only rides along with the exemption if it comes pre-packaged with the firearm as a single retail unit. A rifle sold with a factory-installed scope counts as one firearm transaction. The same scope bought separately at the same register does not.
What Qualifies in Each State
- Handguns, rifles, and shotguns qualify in all three states. Mississippi and Louisiana also cover muzzleloaders.
- Ammunition, shotgun shells, and reloading supplies qualify in Mississippi and Louisiana. South Carolina explicitly excludes ammunition.
- Archery equipment (bows, crossbows, arrows) qualifies in Mississippi and Louisiana.
- Scopes, sights, holsters, slings, hearing protection, and cases qualify in Mississippi and Louisiana. In South Carolina, they qualify only when pre-packaged with a firearm.
- Camouflage clothing, hunting boots, and hunting safety gear qualify in Louisiana. Mississippi and South Carolina do not exempt hunting apparel.
Gun safes are taxable in every state. So are toy guns, BB guns, air rifles, paintball equipment, and general-purpose gear like backpacks, sunglasses, and ATVs, even if you intend to use them for hunting.
Federal Excise Tax Still Applies
The holiday only removes the sales tax added at the register. A separate federal excise tax is built into the shelf price of every firearm and every round of ammunition, and no state can waive it. Under 26 U.S.C. § 4181, manufacturers pay a 10% excise tax on pistols and revolvers and an 11% tax on all other firearms, shells, and cartridges, and that cost is passed to buyers year-round. Your actual savings during the holiday equal your state and local sales tax rate on qualifying items, nothing more.
Other Costs the Holiday Does Not Cover
A background check through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System is still required, and some states charge their own fee on top. If you buy online and ship to a local dealer, you owe a transfer fee to the Federal Firearms Licensee who processes the paperwork, generally $15 to $100 depending on the dealer. Age restrictions, waiting periods where applicable, and all documentation requirements apply exactly as they would in any other week.
Timing Rules That Can Cost You the Exemption
The sale has to be completed inside the holiday window. You need to pay in full and the seller needs to accept the order before it ends. For online purchases, place and pay for the order while the holiday is active. Delivery can happen after the holiday closes in Mississippi and Louisiana as long as the delay is not something you caused.
Layaway does not qualify in any of the three states. Picking up a layaway firearm during the holiday weekend does not make it tax-free, and you cannot cancel a prior purchase and rebook it during the holiday to avoid tax.
Rain checks cut one way in South Carolina. A rain check issued before the holiday and redeemed during it for an eligible firearm gets the exemption. A rain check issued during the holiday but redeemed after it ends does not.
States That Do Not Have a 2026 Holiday
Florida ran its first Second Amendment sales tax holiday in late 2025, and the governor’s 2026–2027 budget proposal recommended a second one beginning September 7, 2026, but that had not been enacted into law at the time of writing. Tennessee considered a firearms tax holiday for July 2026, but the bill received a negative recommendation in committee and stalled. Neither state currently offers a scheduled 2026 holiday you can plan a purchase around.