Do Tax Stamp Approval Times Vary?
Tax stamp approval times can vary from applicant to applicant, to even the type of tax stamp application being used to apply for the NFA Firearm. If two applicants are applying for the same NFA firearm at the same time, one applicant might receive an approved tax stamp before the other applicant. This is due to many factors some of which are internal ATF factors. However, more consistent are the approval times based on the application type.
ATF eForm 1 - Average approval time of 32 days, with the pending research phase varying from 2 days to 3 weeks.
ATF Form 1 / ATF Form 4 - Average approval time of 6 to 11 months
ATF Form 5 - Average approval time of 2 to 3 months.