What Is a Title 2 Firearm? Categories, Tax Stamp, and Transfers

A Title 2 firearm is any weapon or device regulated by the National Firearms Act (NFA), the 1934 federal law that singled out certain especially dangerous or concealable items for extra control. Six categories fall under it: machine guns, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, suppressors, destructive devices, and a catch-all group called “any other weapons.” Each one must be entered in a federal registry, and you need ATF approval before you can take possession. Possessing an unregistered NFA item is a federal felony carrying up to ten years in prison, so the rules here are worth knowing before you buy or build anything that might qualify.

The Six Categories

The NFA uses “firearm” in a narrower and stranger way than everyday speech. It doesn’t mean any gun. It means a specific list of weapons and devices that carry federal requirements beyond what applies to ordinary rifles, shotguns, and handguns.

Machine Guns

A machine gun is any weapon that fires more than one shot with a single trigger pull without manual reloading. The definition reaches further than complete guns. It also covers the frame or receiver of such a weapon, any part designed solely to convert a gun into a machine gun, and a collection of parts from which one could be assembled.¹ Civilian ownership is frozen to guns registered before May 19, 1986, discussed further below.

Short-Barreled Rifles and Shotguns

A short-barreled rifle (SBR) has a barrel under 16 inches or an overall length under 26 inches. A short-barreled shotgun (SBS) follows the same logic with an 18-inch barrel threshold.¹ The law also covers weapons “made from” a rifle or shotgun that hit those measurements after modification. Cutting down a sporting shotgun creates an NFA item the moment the barrel crosses the line.

Suppressors

Suppressors, often called silencers, are devices that reduce the sound of a gunshot. The NFA regulates them as firearms in their own right even though they aren’t weapons by themselves.¹

Destructive Devices

Destructive devices split into two groups. One is explosive ordnance: bombs, grenades, rockets with a propellant charge over four ounces, missiles with an explosive charge over a quarter ounce, and mines. The other is firearms with a bore diameter greater than half an inch, which sweeps in large-caliber anti-materiel weapons. Shotguns that the ATF recognizes as suitable for sporting purposes are exempt from the bore-size rule.¹

Any Other Weapons

The AOW category is the catch-all. It covers concealable weapons that fire using explosive energy but don’t fit elsewhere. Pen guns, cane guns, and smooth-bore pistols made to fire shotgun shells all land here, as do combination shotgun-and-rifle barrel weapons between 12 and 18 inches. Standard pistols and revolvers with rifled bores are specifically excluded, as are weapons designed to be fired from the shoulder.¹

What the Tax Stamp Costs Now

Every NFA transfer or new build has historically required a federal excise tax, evidenced by a “tax stamp.” On January 1, 2026, that changed. Machine guns and destructive devices still carry a $200 tax per item. Everything else covered by the NFA, including suppressors, SBRs, SBSs, and AOWs, dropped to $0.²

The same split applies to making an NFA firearm yourself. Building your own SBR or suppressor now carries a $0 making tax; machine guns and destructive devices still cost $200.³ The registration and approval process still applies in full. You still need ATF approval before you take possession or start assembling. The change eliminated the cost, not the paperwork.

How to Acquire One

Buying or building a Title 2 firearm requires ATF approval before you can take possession. The process depends on whether you’re acquiring an existing item or making one.

Buying From a Dealer or Private Seller

To buy an NFA firearm, you submit ATF Form 4 (Application for Tax Paid Transfer and Registration of a Firearm).⁴ The application takes your fingerprints on an FD-258 card and a photograph and triggers a background check. The statute is explicit: the transferee must be identified by fingerprints and photograph, and the ATF must approve the transfer before the buyer takes possession.⁵ The ATF will deny the application if the transfer would put you in violation of any law, including a state ban on the item.

Making One Yourself

If you want to build an NFA firearm, for example by putting a stock on a pistol to make an SBR, you submit ATF Form 1 (Application to Make and Register a Firearm) before doing any of the work.⁴ The same fingerprints, photo, and background check apply. As of January 1, 2026, the ATF removed the requirement to send a copy of the Form 1 to your local chief law enforcement officer.

Processing Times

Both forms go through the ATF’s eForms system. As of early 2026, individual eForm 4 applications report a median approval time of around 4 days. Trust-filed eForm 4 applications run a median of about 24 days. Times fluctuate with ATF workload, so treat these as estimates.

Trusts and Shared Possession

When you register an NFA item as an individual, only you can legally possess it. No one else can store it, transport it, or use it unless you’re physically present to supervise. That’s a real problem for families and shooting partners.

An NFA trust is a legal entity that can own NFA firearms and let multiple people, listed as co-trustees or responsible persons, possess, transport, and use those items without the creator being there. If you want a spouse, adult child, or shooting partner to have independent access to your suppressor or SBR, a trust solves it. Each responsible person named on the trust goes through their own background check whenever the trust acquires a new item.

Trusts also simplify inheritance. When an individual owner dies, transferring the items to heirs means running the NFA process again. A trust can be structured so surviving trustees already have legal possession, avoiding a gap where no one can lawfully hold the guns.

The Machine Gun Freeze

Machine guns sit in their own corner of the NFA. The Firearm Owners’ Protection Act of 1986 made it illegal to transfer or possess any machine gun not lawfully registered before May 19, 1986.⁶ The only exceptions are transfers to or by government agencies and guns already lawfully possessed before that date.⁷

The supply of transferable machine guns is permanently frozen. No new ones enter the civilian market. Scarcity has pushed prices for basic models into the tens of thousands of dollars, and a registered pre-1986 M16 routinely sells for $30,000 or more. The $200 transfer tax is trivial next to the purchase price, but the registration and approval process still applies to every transfer of these pre-ban guns.

State Law and Interstate Transport

Federal registration doesn’t override state law. Several states ban certain NFA items outright, and possessing a federally registered suppressor or SBR in a state that prohibits it is still a state crime. Roughly eight states and the District of Columbia prohibit civilian possession of suppressors. Machine gun restrictions vary even more. Check your state’s law before you buy.

Moving an NFA item across state lines usually requires advance ATF approval through Form 5320.20 (Application to Transport Interstate or Temporarily Export Certain NFA Firearms).⁸ This applies to individuals, not licensed dealers. Crossing a state line with a registered SBR or machine gun without that approval is a federal violation even when both states allow the item.

Penalties

The prohibited acts most likely to catch ordinary gun owners are possessing an NFA firearm not registered to you, possessing one that was never registered at all, and making an NFA firearm without prior approval.⁹ Other violations include transferring an NFA item outside the proper process, altering or removing serial numbers, and lying on an application.

The penalty for any NFA violation is a fine of up to $10,000, up to ten years in federal prison, or both.¹⁰ There is no NFA equivalent of a traffic ticket. Not knowing you needed to register isn’t a recognized defense, and the ATF does pursue people who didn’t realize they’d created or possessed an unregistered NFA item.

Constructive Possession

A fully assembled illegal weapon isn’t required for charges. Under the doctrine of constructive possession, owning the parts needed to assemble an unregistered NFA firearm can be enough when those parts have no other lawful use in their current combination. Prosecutors and courts weigh the totality of circumstances: whether you had all the components, how close together they were stored, your purchase history, and whether the parts had any non-NFA purpose. Keeping an AR-15 pistol and a rifle buttstock in the same safe, for instance, raises questions that the same parts in different configurations would not. This is where well-meaning gun owners most often get in trouble, particularly when they buy parts “for later” without realizing the combination itself can constitute an unregistered NFA item.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 5845 – Definitions
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 5811 – Transfer Tax
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 5821 – Making Tax
4
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. eForms Applications
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 5812 – Transfers
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 922 – Unlawful Acts
7
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. National Firearms Act
8
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Application to Transport Interstate or Temporarily Export Certain NFA Firearms – ATF Form 5320.20
9
GovInfo. 26 USC 5861 – Prohibited Acts
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 5871 – Penalties