How to Sell a Gun in Illinois

Illinois puts the duty on you, the seller. Under 430 ILCS 65/3(a-10), before transferring a firearm to another private party you must either run the transfer through a federally licensed dealer, or contact the Illinois State Police with the buyer’s Firearm Owner’s Identification card number to confirm that the card is valid. There is no third option, and “he showed me his card” is not one of them.

The check is done through the person-to-person transfer function on the ISP FOID/CCL Card Verification Portal at verify.ispfsb.com. You supply your own FOID card or Illinois driver license, plus the make, model and serial number of the firearm; your buyer supplies their FOID. If the card is valid, ISP returns an approval number, and that approval is good for 30 days.

Understand what that check is and is not. The Illinois State Police say so in capitals in their own guidance: the check on the person-to-person portal is not a background check. It confirms that a FOID card is valid, and nothing more. If you want an actual NICS check run on your buyer — and on a private sale to someone you do not know, you should want one — the way to get it is to route the transfer through a dealer instead.

Then there is the 72-hour rule, which lives in the criminal code rather than the FOID Act and catches people out for that reason. Under 720 ILCS 5/24-3(A)(g) it is an offense to deliver a firearm incidental to a sale without withholding delivery for at least 72 hours after the application to purchase is made. The provision is written as “a person,” not “a dealer,” so it reaches you. The listed exceptions are narrow — law enforcement, licensed dealers, certain out-of-state mail order, and long guns at sanctioned competitive shooting events — and there is no exception for family and none for FOID holders generally.

You must keep a record for ten years. 430 ILCS 65/3(b) requires the transferor to keep, for ten years from the date of transfer, the date, a description and serial number of the firearm, the buyer’s FOID number, and the approval number ISP gave you. The buyer does not keep this record — a person who receives a firearm under (a-10) instead lodges a record of the transfer with a licensed dealer within ten days. The ten years are yours.

The family exemption is a gift exemption, and the distinction is the whole thing. 430 ILCS 65/3(a-15)(2) exempts transfers made as a bona fide gift to a listed relative: husband, wife, son, daughter, stepson, stepdaughter, father, mother, stepfather, stepmother, brother, sister, nephew, niece, uncle, aunt, grandfather, grandmother, grandson, granddaughter, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law or daughter-in-law. A sale to any of those people is not a gift and is not exempt. If your son hands you $400 for the rifle, you are back under (a-10) and you owe the ISP check. Cousins and in-laws beyond those listed are not on the list at all. Note too that the exemption waives the check in (a-10); it does not mention the ten-year record in (b).

A FOID card itself costs $10 and is valid for ten years, subject to automatic renewal in some circumstances.