U.S. Firearms Industry Statistics

Short answer: U.S. manufacturers made 9,474,540 firearms in 2024, according to the ATF. That's down 3.0% from 2023 and about 31% below the 2021 record of 13.8 million. Ruger was the largest manufacturer, followed by Smith & Wesson and Sig Sauer. Pistols were the most-made firearm type by a wide margin.

Below is the full breakdown: production by year and type, the largest gun manufacturers, calibers, states, exports, and how concentrated the industry really is. All of it comes straight from ATF's Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Export Report (AFMER). We show our work, and you can check every number against the source files linked at the bottom.

Latest data: calendar year 2024 (ATF AFMER 2024 Final Report, released May 2026). Last updated: September 24, 2026. Next update: when ATF publishes 2025 data (typically spring, about 16 months after the year ends).

Key findings (2024 data)

• 9,474,540 firearms were manufactured and sold/distributed into commerce by U.S. licensed manufacturers in 2024, down 3.0% from 9,772,259 in 2023.
• Production peaked at 13,804,919 in 2021. 2024 was 31% below that peak but still 35% above 2019 (7,011,945).
• Pistols led with 4,025,829 (42.5% of all firearms), followed by rifles (2,823,770, 29.8%), miscellaneous firearms (1,385,424, 14.6%), revolvers (639,742, 6.8%), and shotguns (599,775, 6.3%).
• 9mm dominates: about 60% of pistols made in 2024 were in ATF's "to 9mm" caliber band.
• Ruger was #1 with 1,356,810 firearms across seven licenses. Smith & Wesson (970,160) and Sig Sauer (944,605) rounded out the top three. Together, those three made about 35% of all U.S. firearms.
• The top 10 companies made about two-thirds of all U.S. firearms; the top 20 made about 82%.
• New Hampshire produced the most firearms of any state (1,381,922). Texas had the most licensed manufacturers reporting production (529).
• Of 3,914 licenses that reported making at least one firearm, 2,172 made 10 or fewer. Just 23 licenses made 80% of the guns.
• Manufacturers exported 399,902 firearms in 2024 (about 4% of production), down 16.5% from 2023.
• The U.S. also imported 5,933,210 firearms in 2023 (latest ATF data), led by Turkey, Austria and Brazil. AFMER production figures don't include imports.
• FBI recorded 26,123,215 NICS background checks in 2025; NSSF-adjusted (closer to sales activity) was 14,612,314.
• TTB collected $807,506,000 in Firearms and Ammunition Excise Tax in FY2025 (down from $892,842,000 in FY2024).

Firearms manufactured in the U.S. by type. Sources: ATF Firearms Commerce in the U.S. Statistical Updates 2021 (1986–2012) and 2024 (2013–2023); ATF AFMER 2024 Final Report (2024). 2021 and 2022 totals are the sum of ATF's columns (see methodology).

The long-run story is simple: production roughly tripled from the late 1990s to today, with sharp spikes around 2013, 2016, and 2020–2022. Each spike lines up with a surge in consumer demand. 2023 and 2024 were a cool-down, not a collapse. Even so, 2024 production beat every year from 1986 through 2012.

"Misc." is mostly frames and receivers sold on their own (think AR-15 lowers), plus pistol-grip firearms and similar items that don't fit the other categories. That column has grown from a few thousand a year in the 1980s to more than a million a year since 2020.

Top 20 U.S. firearm manufacturers by units made and distributed into commerce in 2024. Source: ATF AFMER 2024 and 2023 Final Reports; ATF licenses grouped by company by RocketFFL. *Palmetto State Armory includes DC Machine LLC; Mossberg includes Maverick Arms. Axon Enterprise (TASER devices) excluded from the ranking.

A few things jump out. Ruger held #1 for another year, making more rifles (679,197) than anyone. Sig Sauer is still the biggest pistol maker. Anderson Manufacturing jumped from #9 to #4, almost entirely on frames and receivers (535,638 in the "misc." column). Ruger bought Anderson's assets in 2025, so expect that line to look different in future reports.

Keep in mind this ranks U.S. production, not sales. Glock, Springfield Armory, Taurus, and others import large numbers of guns that never show up in AFMER. And a lower receiver that one plant ships to another plant for assembly can be counted twice. That's how the report works, not a mistake in the ranking.

Top three companies in each AFMER category, 2024 (units in parentheses). Source: ATF AFMER 2024 Final Report; company grouping by RocketFFL.

Heritage Manufacturing (owned by Taurus) is the largest U.S. revolver maker, mostly inexpensive rimfire single-actions. Mossberg, through its Maverick Arms plant in Eagle Pass, Texas, made more than 2.5 times as many shotguns as the next company.

Pistols and revolvers manufactured in 2024 by ATF caliber band. ATF bands are upper limits ("to 9mm" includes calibers above .380 up to 9mm). Source: ATF AFMER 2024 Final Report, summary page.

AFMER only breaks out calibers for handguns, and only in broad bands. The 9mm band alone was 2,383,198 pistols. One quirk: Axon Enterprise (maker of TASER devices) reported 77,023 units in the pistol ".25" column in its license listing but zero in its pistol total, so ATF's caliber columns don't add up to its pistol total. We use ATF's totals.

Top 15 states by firearms manufactured in 2024, based on the licensee address in ATF's listings. Source: ATF AFMER 2024 Final Report. Full 50-state table in the CSV download.

State totals follow the big factories. New Hampshire is home to Sig Sauer and Ruger's Newport plant. Tennessee (Smith & Wesson in Maryville, Beretta USA in Gallatin) and Georgia (Glock, Taurus, Heritage) come next. Texas is different: it ranks fifth in volume but has far more small manufacturers than any other state, with 529 licenses reporting production.

Firearms exported by U.S. manufacturers, 2015–2024. Sources: ATF Firearms Commerce Statistical Update 2024 (2015–2023) and ATF AFMER 2024 Final Report (2024). Full series back to 1986 in the CSV download.

Top 10 exporting manufacturers, 2024. Source: ATF AFMER 2024 Final Report; company grouping by RocketFFL.

Exports are a small slice of U.S. production, about 4% in 2024. The top eight exporters shipped about 80% of the total. Note that AFMER only counts exports by licensed manufacturers; it doesn't capture exports by dealers or exporters who didn't make the guns.

Everything above this point comes from AFMER, and AFMER only counts guns made here. It doesn't count imports. A Glock made in Austria, a Taurus made in Brazil, or a Turkish shotgun never shows up in U.S. production numbers, even though they sit in the same display cases. ATF tracks imports separately (every commercial import needs an approved ATF Form 6), and they are a big share of the market: 5,933,210 firearms were imported in 2023, equal to about 61% of the 9,772,259 guns U.S. manufacturers made that year.

Firearms imported by year (1986–2023)

Firearms imported into the United States, 1986–2023. Sources: ATF Firearms Commerce in the United States, Annual Statistical Update 2024, Exhibit 3 (2013–2023) and Annual Statistical Update 2021, Exhibit 3 (1986–2012). 1986–1991 are fiscal years; 1992 is a five-quarter transition year. Download the CSV.

Imports follow the same boom-and-bust cycle as domestic production. They hit a record 9,319,846 in 2021, fell 24% to 7,070,561 in 2022 and another 16.1% in 2023. Even after that drop, 2023 imports were 49% higher than 2019 (3,986,663). Handguns are the bulk of it: 3,788,194 imported handguns in 2023 (64% of imports), compared with 4,744,571 pistols and revolvers made in the U.S. Shotguns are the one category where imports win outright: 982,574 shotguns were imported in 2023, versus 602,782 made domestically. Rifles go the other way, with 3,119,376 made here and 1,162,442 imported.

Where imported guns come from (2023)

Top 15 source countries for firearms imported into the U.S., 2023. Source: ATF Firearms Commerce in the United States, Annual Statistical Update 2024, Exhibit 7. Full list in the 2023 CSV; 2020–2023 in the multi-year CSV.

Three countries each shipped more than a million guns to the U.S. in 2023. Turkey (1,241,902) is mostly shotguns; its 662,761 shotguns were 67% of all imported shotguns. Austria (1,224,807) is almost entirely handguns (1,215,002); yes, that's largely Glock. Brazil (1,016,892) is mostly handguns (765,712), much of that Taurus. Germany, Italy and Croatia (where the HS Produkt pistols Springfield Armory sells are made) round out the top six. The top five countries supplied 75% of all imports.

A few things to know about this data. ATF doesn't split imported handguns into pistols and revolvers the way AFMER does, so imports are reported as handguns, rifles and shotguns only. Figures before 1992 are fiscal years, and 1992 covers five quarters. ATF labels its country tables by fiscal year, but the 2023 country total matches its calendar-year total exactly. ATF's 2024 import numbers haven't been published yet; they should appear in the next Firearms Commerce report. Import volume also tells you nothing about who imported the guns. That takes a Type 08 or Type 11 license, and many of the biggest foreign brands now build some guns in the U.S. as well, which land in the AFMER numbers instead.

Background checks (NICS)

AFMER tells you how many guns U.S. manufacturers made. Imports tell you how many came in from overseas. Neither tells you how busy the retail counter was. For that, people look at NICS, the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Dealers run a NICS check before transferring a firearm. In 2025 the FBI recorded 26,123,215 firearm-related NICS checks.

That number is not a sales count. States also use NICS for carry-permit applications and rechecks of active permit databases. NSSF (the firearm industry trade association) publishes an adjusted series that subtracts those permit checks and rechecks to better approximate firearm sales activity. NSSF's 2025 adjusted total was 14,612,314, down 4.1% from 15,239,011 in 2024. FBI NICS · NSSF-adjusted NICS.

FBI NICS vs NSSF-adjusted NICS

FBI NICS (raw) vs NSSF-adjusted NICS, recent years. FBI: Month/Year PDF. NSSF: published adjusted-NICS releases. Download the CSV.

Raw FBI checks and NSSF-adjusted checks move together, but the gap is large. In 2025, NSSF-adjusted checks were about 56% of the raw FBI total. The gap grew after February 2016, when NSSF also started subtracting permit rechecks. Even the adjusted figure is not "guns sold": one check can cover multiple firearms, and in states with Brady Act alternative permits some transfers never generate a separate NICS check at the counter.

FBI NICS by year (1998–2025)

Annual FBI NICS firearm background checks, 1998–2025. Source: FBI Month/Year PDF. 1998 is partial (system started Nov 30). Download the CSV.

NICS by state (2025)

Top 15 states/territories by FBI NICS checks, 2025. Source: FBI Month/Year by State PDF. Shares use that PDF's jurisdiction sum (25,164,257). Download the CSV.

By state, the raw FBI ranking is easy to misread. Illinois (2,546,739) and Kentucky (2,522,704) top the 2025 list because they run huge volumes of permit checks and rechecks through NICS. Texas (1,739,790) is third. If you want a sense of where guns are actually moving at retail, look at NSSF-adjusted national figures, not the raw state leaderboard.

A few caveats. FBI's Month/Year national total for 2025 is 26,123,215. The same year's Month/Year-by-State PDF lists jurisdiction Grand Totals that currently sum to 25,164,257; the two FBI tables do not reconcile, so state shares above use the by-state PDF total. NFA registration counts and FFL license counts live on our ATF FFL statistics page, not here. NSSF-adjusted annuals for 2023–2025 come from NSSF year-end releases; earlier years from NSSF's Historical Monthly Chart (and monthly series consistent with those releases).

Manufacturers and importers pay a federal Firearms and Ammunition Excise Tax (FAET) on the sale of firearms and ammunition. The rate is 10% of the sales price for pistols and revolvers and 11% for other firearms and for ammunition. TTB (Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau) collects it. The money goes to the Fish and Wildlife Restoration Fund for wildlife restoration and hunter education — not to ATF.

In fiscal year 2025 (October 2024–September 2025), TTB collected $807,506,000 in FAET, down 9.6% from $892,842,000 in FY2024 and well below the FY2022 peak of $1,150,842,000. TTB Tax Collections.

FAET collections by fiscal year

FAET collections by fiscal year. Amounts in the quarterly columns are thousands of dollars as printed by TTB; the last column converts the annual total to dollars. Source: TTB Final Tax Collections. Download the CSV; quarterly CSV.

FAET tracks industry dollar volume more than unit volume: price changes matter as much as how many guns and boxes of ammo ship. Collections jumped in FY2021–FY2022 with the pandemic demand surge, then eased. FY2025's $807,506,000 is still far above the mid-2000s levels (FY2004 was $215,387,000). These are fiscal-year figures from TTB's Final Tax Collections statistical releases.

FAET by quarter (FY2016–FY2025)

TTB marks these statistical releases as unofficial until the Annual Report. We use each year's Final release as published. Prior-year comparison columns in a later Final sometimes differ slightly from that prior year's own Final (TTB revisions). We always take the Final for the year being reported. FAET is not the same as NFA transfer tax, FFL fees, or Special Occupational Tax — those are different programs.

Licenses that reported manufacturing at least one firearm in 2024, grouped by volume. Source: ATF AFMER 2024 Final Report license listings.

This is the part most rankings skip. ATF counted 20,578 Type 07 manufacturer licenses (plus 496 Type 10s) at the end of fiscal 2024, but only 3,914 licenses reported making and selling at least one firearm in calendar 2024. Most of those are tiny: 2,172 reported 10 or fewer guns. Meanwhile, 23 licenses made 80% of everything.

That fits what we see every day. Plenty of people get a Type 07 FFL to do gunsmithing work that counts as manufacturing, build a handful of custom guns, work with NFA items as an SOT, or simply because it costs less than a Type 01 and allows everything a dealer license does. (The fiscal-year license count and calendar-year AFMER aren't a perfect match, so treat the comparison as directional.)

Every licensed manufacturer of firearms (Type 07) and destructive devices (Type 10) has to file ATF Form 5300.11, the Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Exportation Report, by April 1 for the prior calendar year. Even a manufacturer that made nothing has to file.

• What "manufactured" means: firearms (including separate frames or receivers, actions, or barreled actions) manufactured and disposed of in commerce during the year. Guns still sitting in the manufacturer's inventory on December 31 aren't counted. Guns made in an earlier year but sold this year are.
• What's excluded: production for the U.S. military, and imported firearms. Guns sold to domestic law enforcement and guns made for export are included.
• Why the data is two years old: ATF holds manufacturer-level data for about a year after it's filed to comply with the Trade Secrets Act. 2024 data was due April 1, 2025, and ATF's final 2024 report (data as of January 30, 2026) was released in May 2026. So in any given year, the newest numbers describe the year before last.
• Company totals: ATF reports by license, not by company. Many companies hold several licenses (Ruger reported under seven in 2024). We add up every license that clearly belongs to the same company and list those groupings in our CSV. We group Palmetto State Armory with its subsidiary DC Machine and Mossberg with Maverick Arms. We exclude Axon Enterprise (TASER devices) from the ranking but not from the national totals.
• Which ATF total we use: ATF's own documents don't always agree. For 2024, the report's summary page totals 9,474,540, while its license listings add up to 9,474,160 (a 380-unit difference). We use the summary page for national totals and the listings for company, state, and size tables. For 2021 and 2022, ATF's Commerce report prints totals exactly 2,021 and 2,022 higher than the sum of its own columns (the year appears to have been added into the total), so we use the column sums. ATF's revised 2022 AFMER report (13,520,427) also differs from the 2022 figure in its later Commerce report (13,393,009); we show the Commerce figure and note the conflict.
• Self-reported data: AFMER is what manufacturers tell ATF. ATF investigators check it during inspections, but late, missing, or amended filings happen. Numbers for a given year can change when ATF revises a report.

• ATF Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Export Report, 2024 Final Report (PDF)
• ATF AFMER 2023 Final Report (PDF) and 2022 Final Report, revised (PDF)
• ATF, Firearms Commerce in the United States: Annual Statistical Update 2024 (PDF) (production, exports and imports 2013–2023)
• ATF, Firearms Commerce in the United States: Annual Statistical Update 2021 (PDF) (production, exports and imports 1986–2012)
• ATF Data & Statistics (all AFMER years) and ATF Form 5300.11 (AFMER form and instructions)
• ATF Facts and Figures, Fiscal Year 2024 (license counts by type)
• FBI NICS Firearm Checks (monthly/yearly)
• FBI NICS Firearm Checks by State
• NSSF-adjusted background checks

Download the data (CSV): Free to use with attribution to RocketFFL and ATF.

• U.S. firearms manufactured by year, 1986 to 2024 (us-firearms-manufactured-by-year.csv)
• U.S. firearms exported by year (us-firearms-exported-by-year.csv)
• Largest firearm manufacturers, 2024 (with 2023 and 2022 ranks) (afmer-2024-top-manufacturers.csv)
• Top 50 manufacturing licenses, 2024 (afmer-2024-top-50-licenses.csv)
• Top 5 manufacturers by firearm type, 2024 (afmer-2024-top5-by-firearm-type.csv)
• Pistols and revolvers by caliber, 2024 (afmer-2024-calibers.csv)
• Firearm production by state, 2024 (afmer-2024-by-state.csv)
• Top firearm exporters, 2024 (afmer-2024-top-exporters.csv)
• Industry size distribution, 2024 (afmer-2024-manufacturer-size-distribution.csv)
• U.S. firearms imported by year, 1986 to 2023 (us-firearms-imported-by-year.csv)
• Firearm imports by source country, 2023 (us-firearm-imports-by-country-2023.csv)
• Firearm imports by source country, 2020 to 2023 (us-firearm-imports-by-country-2020-2023.csv)
• FBI NICS background checks by year, 1998 to 2025 (fbi-nics-annual.csv)
• FBI NICS vs NSSF-adjusted NICS by year, 2000 to 2025 (fbi-vs-nssf-adjusted-nics-by-year.csv)
• NSSF-adjusted NICS by year, 2000 to 2025 (nssf-adjusted-nics-annual.csv)
• FBI NICS by state, 2025 (fbi-nics-by-state-2025.csv)
• FBI NICS by month and year, 1998 to 2026 YTD (fbi-nics-by-year.csv)
• TTB FAET collections by fiscal year, FY2004 to FY2025 (ttb-faet-annual.csv)
• TTB FAET collections by fiscal quarter, FY2004 to FY2025 (ttb-faet-quarterly.csv)

How many guns are made in the U.S. each year?

U.S. licensed manufacturers made 9,474,540 firearms in 2024, the latest year ATF has published. That's down from 9,772,259 in 2023 and the 2021 record of 13,804,919. For comparison, annual production was under 4 million in most years from 1986 to 2007.

Who is the largest gun manufacturer in the United States?

Sturm, Ruger & Co. made 1,356,810 firearms in the U.S. in 2024, more than any other company. Smith & Wesson (970,160) was second and Sig Sauer (944,605) third. This ranks U.S. production only; it doesn't include imported guns.

What type of gun is made most in the U.S.?

Pistols. Manufacturers made 4,025,829 pistols in 2024, 42.5% of all firearms. About 60% of those pistols were in ATF's 9mm caliber band. Rifles were second at 2,823,770.

Which state makes the most guns?

New Hampshire, with 1,381,922 firearms in 2024 (14.6% of U.S. production), driven by Sig Sauer and Ruger. Tennessee (1,164,239) and Georgia (796,857) were next. Texas had the most manufacturers reporting production (529 licenses).

Why is ATF gun manufacturing data two years old?

Manufacturers report a calendar year by April 1 of the next year, and ATF waits about another year before publishing company-level numbers to protect trade secrets. 2024 data was filed in early 2025 and published in May 2026. ATF's 2025 data should come out in 2027.

Does this include imported guns or military production?

No. AFMER covers firearms made by U.S. licensed manufacturers and excludes production for the U.S. military. Imports are tracked separately: ATF reports 5,933,210 firearms were imported in 2023, the latest year in its Commerce report.

How many guns are imported into the U.S. each year?

ATF reports 5,933,210 firearms were imported in 2023, the latest year in its Commerce report: 3,788,194 handguns, 1,162,442 rifles and 982,574 shotguns. That's down from a record 9,319,846 in 2021. Turkey (1,241,902), Austria (1,224,807) and Brazil (1,016,892) were the largest sources.

How many NICS background checks are run each year?

The FBI recorded 26,123,215 firearm-related NICS checks in 2025, down from a peak of 39,695,315 in 2020. That is not a sales count. NSSF's adjusted series, which removes permit checks and rechecks, was 14,612,314 in 2025 and 15,239,011 in 2024.

How much firearms and ammunition excise tax does TTB collect?

TTB collected $807,506,000 in Firearms and Ammunition Excise Tax in fiscal year 2025, down from $892,842,000 in FY2024 and a recent peak of $1,150,842,000 in FY2022. Manufacturers and importers pay 10% on pistols/revolvers and 11% on other firearms and ammunition.

How many licensed firearm manufacturers are there?

ATF counted 20,578 Type 07 (firearm manufacturer) licenses at the end of fiscal 2024 and 21,367 at the end of fiscal 2025. But only 3,914 licenses reported making and selling at least one firearm in calendar 2024, and 2,172 of those reported 10 or fewer.

Want the licensing side of the industry? Our ATF FFL statistics page tracks the number of FFLs by type, by state, and by year.

Thinking about becoming one of those 20,000-plus licensed manufacturers yourself? A Type 07 FFL lets you make firearms and deal in them, and for many people it's the better license to start with. Our Get Your FFL course walks you through choosing the right license type, setting up your business (including from home), and getting through the ATF interview, step by step.