A BILL to amend and reenact § 18.2-308.03 of the Code of Virginia, relating to concealed handgun permit fees.
HB106 would reduce the fees associated with applying for or obtaining a concealed handgun permit in Virginia. Under current law, the clerk’s processing fee is $10, the local law-enforcement background investigation fee may be up to $35, the State Police may charge up to $5, and the total fee may not exceed $50. The bill lowers the local law-enforcement investigation fee cap from $35 to $10 and reduces the overall maximum total fee from $50 to $25, while leaving the clerk’s fee and the State Police fee structure otherwise unchanged.
The bill also preserves existing fee waivers for certain retired public safety and law-enforcement personnel. Those who qualify include retired magistrates, Virginia and federal law-enforcement officers, Coast Guard boarding personnel, correctional officers, and probation and parole officers, subject to the service-length and age requirements already in the statute. In practical terms, the bill would make concealed handgun permits less expensive for most applicants and maintain free issuance for the listed retired professionals.
HB106 would amend § 18.2-308.03 of the Code of Virginia, directly changing the statutory fee schedule for concealed handgun permit applications. It would cap the local background-investigation fee at $10 instead of $35 and reduce the total amount that may be charged for processing a permit application from $50 to $25. The bill would therefore reduce revenue collected by local law-enforcement agencies and, potentially, the State Police to the extent their processing costs are affected by the lower total fee cap. The existing fee exemptions for specified retired officers and related personnel would remain in place.
The available legislative context suggests the bill was introduced as a pro-permit-cost-reduction measure and then left in the House Committee on Public Safety without recorded votes or committee testimony. Because there are no transcripts or vote tallies, there is no documented opposition or support in the provided materials, but the bill’s structure indicates a generally favorable posture toward lowering costs for permit applicants and preserving exemptions for retired public safety personnel.
The main policy issue is the reduction in fees paid by concealed handgun permit applicants, which may be viewed positively by gun-rights supporters and applicants but negatively by local governments and law-enforcement agencies that rely on fee revenue to cover background-check and processing costs. Another point of potential contention is whether lowering the fee cap could affect the ability of agencies to recover the full cost of investigations, especially if actual processing expenses exceed the new cap. No specific objections or amendments are recorded in the provided committee materials.