A dealer's FFL shows an old expiration date

When the ATF renews a license, it issues a new license number. Only the middle code changes, which is the expiration year and month; the last five digits stay the same. For example, 9-91-011-07-5F-13336 expired June 1, 2025 and its renewal is 9-91-011-07-8F-13336, good through June 1, 2028.

Your FFL list gets renewals from the ATF list on its own, so you do not need to change license numbers yourself. Both licenses stay on the list: the old one and the renewal.

Why the old one can come up

• The renewal carries the dealer's trade name. The ATF often lists the renewal under the name the dealer does business as. A search for the legal name (AL AMMO LLC) finds only the old license, while the renewal is listed as ALX ARMS.
• The renewal was switched off in your list. If someone unticked Active on that dealer in FFL Management, it does not come up in searches until it is ticked again.

Pick the current license on an order

1. On the order, search the FFL box by the last five digits of the license number (13336 in the example) and the dealer's state.
2. Pick the result with the current expiration date.

The order page search now does this for you: when an expired license has a renewal on the ATF list, the search shows the renewal instead, labeled with both names, for example ALX ARMS (AL AMMO LLC). If there is no renewal on the list, the old license still shows, and you can still use it: an expired license never stops an order.

Note: If you switched a dealer off on purpose, the order page search can still offer its renewal, because it is the same licensee. Customers at checkout only see dealers that are switched on.

More help

• Firearm orders and the customer FFL