(BIVN) – The annual “Firearms Registration in Hawaiʻi” report was released on Tuesday, detailing firearm registration statistics for calendar year 2025. 

According to Hawaiʻi Department of the Attorney General, there were 19,364 applications for permits to acquire firearms processed statewide in 2025, a 14.7% increase from the 16,879 applications processed in 2024. 

“Of the applications processed in 2025, 95.3% were approved and resulted in issued permits,” the Attorney general news release stated, “a record high of 3.9% were voided (canceled/rejected for technical reasons; see note below), and 0.8% were denied due to one or more disqualifying factors, tying 2014’s record-low denial rate.” 

* The most comparable national figure is the 5.0% denial rate for the limited number of local law enforcement agencies that conducted background checks for firearm purchases in 2021 (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2025).

Hawaiʻi County continues to have the state’s highest denial rate (1.2%), although its much lower compared to previous denial rates (up to 6.9% in 2023)

From the AG news release:

The 18,451 permits issued statewide in 2025 cover a total of 44,401 firearms registered throughout the year, resulting in a 0.5% decrease from 44,624 firearms registered during 2024. Over half (25,065, for a record high proportion of 56.5%) of the firearms registered during 2025 were imported from out-of-state, with the balance accounted for by transfers of firearms that were previously registered in Hawai‘i. Rifles and shotguns comprised a record low 37.6% (16,677) and a non-record 9.1% (4,042) of total registrations, respectively. A record high of 53.3% (23,682) of all firearms registered throughout 2025 were handguns.

Firearm registration activity increased dramatically over the course of the 26 years for which these data have been systematically compiled and reported. From 2000 through 2025, the number of statewide permit applications annually processed increased by 198.4%, the number of firearms annually registered leapt by 226.1% and the number of firearms annually imported climbed 246.8%.

Conservative estimates from the late-1990s placed the number of privately owned firearms in Hawaiʻi at somewhere over one million. Adding to that during the 2000 through 2025 period, a total of 947,044 firearms were registered (including some more than once, by different owners) and 495,315 were imported, while an unknown number of firearms permanently left the state.

The report, entitled “Firearm Registrations in Hawaiʻi, 2025,” provides a range of additional state and county statistics on firearm permits and registrations; permit denials and revocations; prohibited weapon confiscations, and licenses to carry firearms for private security personnel. Statistics on carry licenses for private citizens are published by the Department of the Attorney General in a new annual report series entitled “Licenses To Carry Handguns in Hawai‘i.”

Table courtesy “Firearms Registration in Hawaiʻi” report for 2025