Skip to content
Hunting Licenses / Arkansas

Arkansas Hunting License Cost: $10.50 and Up

Arkansas prints the tags on the licence rather than selling them separately

$10.50
Resident licence
Resident Wildlife Conservation License (HNT)
Nothing
What the tags add
one of 11 states printing the tags on the licence
a fixed licence year
When it stops working
licence year
8 / 7
Licences and tags read here
each one linked to the fee table it came from
The short answer

What a season in Arkansas actually costs to start

Tags includedArkansas Game and Fish Commission

A resident hunting licence in Arkansas is $10.50, sold as the Resident Wildlife Conservation License (HNT). Arkansas is one of eleven in this reading where the tags come with the licence rather than on top of it, which makes the price on the fee page the price of the hunt. 39 of the 50 states are built the other way, and in those the licence is the smaller half. Arkansas bundles the tags into the licence: a resident pays $25 for a Sportsman's License that already carries six deer tags, two turkey tags and a bear tag, a nonresident pays $410 for deer and buys turkey at $100 and bear at $300 on top, and every one of them expires on 30 June.

  • Resident licence $10.50, the Resident Wildlife Conservation License (HNT)
  • Nonresident licence $410
  • The licence runs runs a licence year with its own start and end dates, set by the state rather than by the calendar
  • Hunter education required of anyone born on or after 1968

Arkansas Game and Fish Commission sells it through its own licensing system, which is where a fee change appears first.

What the agency sells

Every Arkansas hunting licence, at the price Arkansas Game and Fish Commission prints

Everything an Arkansas licence holder needs for the species it names is in the licence itself. That is unusual: 39 of the 50 states read here sell the animal separately from the right to hunt it, and Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont and West Virginia do not.

  • Resident Wildlife Conservation License (HNT)$10.50

    small game and furbearers plus one deer, with a single deer tag included

    Valid through June 30

    Resident Wildlife Conservation License (HNT) Entitles the holder to hunt all small game species and furbearers, and take one deer. Valid through June 30. One deer tag is included with this license. | $10.50
    Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Resident Sportsman’s License (RS)$25

    all game species in season with six deer tags, two turkey tags and one bear tag included, plus furbearers

    Expires June 30

    Resident Sportsman’s License (RS) Entitles the holder to hunt all game species during open seasons and to take a total bag limit of deer, turkey and bear. Also includes six deer tags, two turkey tags and one bear tag with the license. Also allows the holder to hunt furbearers. Expires June 30. | $25
    Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Nonresident Annual Small Game Hunting License (NRH)$110

    small game and furbearers only, no deer

    Expires June 30

    Nonresident Annual Small Game Hunting License (NRH) Entitles the holder to hunt all species of small game and furbearers. Nonresident Trapper’s Permit required to trap furbearers. Expires June 30. | $110
    Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Nonresident Annual All Game Hunting License (NBG)$410

    deer and small game with six deer tags included, but not bear, turkey, alligator or elk without a further permit

    Expires June 30

    Nonresident Annual All Game Hunting License (NBG) Entitles the holder to hunt deer and small game using modern gun, muzzleloader or archery, and to take a total bag limit of deer. Also allows the holder to hunt furbearers. Six deer tags are included with this license. Nonresident Trapper’s Permit required to trap furbearers. Nonresidents hunting bear, turkey, alligator or elk require additional permit (see below). Expires June 30. | $410
    Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Nonresident 3-Day Hunting License (AG3)$225

    three specified days of deer hunting with six deer tags included

    the three-day period specified

    Nonresident 3-Day Hunting License (AG3) Entitles the holder to hunt deer for the three-day period specified. Six deer tags are included with this license. | $225
    Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • 65-Plus Lifetime Hunting License$25

    the Resident Sportsman privileges for life for a resident aged 65 or over

    lifetime

    65-Plus Lifetime Hunting License Entitles Arkansas residents 65 or older to the privileges of the Resident Sportsman’s License. ... Customers must be an Arkansas resident for at least one year to purchase. | $25
    Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Combination Sportsman’s License (CS)$35.50

    the resident sportsman hunting privileges with deer, turkey and bear tags, plus sport fishing

    Expires June 30

    Combination Sportsman’s License (CS) Entitles the holder to hunt all game species during open seasons and to take a total bag limit of deer, turkey and bear. Also includes six deer tags, two turkey tags and one bear tag. Also allows the holder to hunt furbearers and to fish the waters of the state with sport fishing tackle. A Resident Trout Permit also must be purchased to retain trout or to fish in certain waters. Expires June 30. | $35.50
    Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Nonexpiring Lifetime Resident Hunting and Fishing Sportsman’s Permit$1,000

    the resident hunting and fishing privileges for life, with trout, leased land, alligator, elk, waterfowl stamp and WMA permit fees waived

    nonexpiring

    Nonexpiring Lifetime Resident Hunting and Fishing Sportsman’s Permit Entitles purchasers of any age to the privileges of the Resident Sportsman’s License (hunting) and the Resident Fisheries Conservation License (fishing). Fees for trout permits, leased lands permits, alligator permits, elk permits, state waterfowl stamps and wildlife management area permit hunts are waived with this license. | $1,000
    Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
The second purchase

The tags Arkansas covers, and the few it still prices separately

A tag is attached to one animal of one species, and the last column is the part that decides a calendar rather than a budget. Over the counter means it can be bought on the way to the woods. A draw means the application closed months ago.

Arkansas allocates elk by draw, which means the application closes long before the season and the tag is awarded by lot rather than sold. What is over the counter and what is drawn is set out beside each tag below.

Tags and permits read off Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's own fee pages, dearest resident price first.
Tag or permitSpeciesResidentNonresidentHow it is issued
Arkansas Waterfowl StampWaterfowl$7$50Over the counter
Private Land Elk Permit (PLE) and Nonresident Elk Permit (NRE)Elk$5$300Both
public land elk permitElk$5 nonrefundable application feeNone printedDraw
Nonresident Bear Permit (NRB)BearNone printed$300.00Over the counter
Nonresident Alligator Permit (NRG)OtherNone printed$300.00Over the counter
Nonresident Turkey Tag (NRTT)TurkeyNone printed$100.00Over the counter
Nonresident 3-day WMA Waterfowl Permit (NW3)WaterfowlNone printed$40Over the counter

Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, the page this was read from, read 23 September 2026

The clock

When a Arkansas hunting license expires Licence year

Arkansas runs a licence year with its own start and end dates, set by the state rather than by the calendar. The year turns on a date the state picked, usually in the spring or early autumn, so what a licence is worth depends on where in that year it was bought. The sentence the state uses is quoted below and links to the page it came from.

Arkansas annual hunting licences all end on 30 June whatever day they were bought, so the licence year runs 1 July to 30 June and a licence bought in spring lasts only a few months.

Resident Sportsman’s License (RS) Entitles the holder to hunt all game species during open seasons ... Expires June 30. ... Only 500 of these licenses are issued per fiscal year (July 1-June 30), and they are filled on a first-come, first-served basis.
Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
The requirement people find out about at the counter

Arkansas hunter education: born on or after 1968

Arkansas hangs hunter education on a birth date rather than on an age: the requirement reaches anybody born after 1968. Every state that publishes a cutoff publishes a different one, and across this reading they run from 1949 to 1986, which is why a national answer to this question is always wrong somewhere.

Arkansas requires hunter education certification of anyone born after 1968, and a hunter of 16 or over who is not certified may use a free Deferred Hunter Education Code and hunt under direct supervision.

Anyone born after 1968 must be hunter education certified to hunt in Arkansas. There is no specific age requirement to enroll in hunter education.
Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
A wide shallow wetland on a clear November morning, ducks scattered across the open water, a cottonwood in yellow leaf on a small island beside a low wooden viewing deck, and a flat brown horizon under a pale blue sky
Waterfowl is the clearest case of what these pages are about. The state licence is the first line on the receipt, and a duck morning adds a state stamp, a federal stamp and a harvest survey registration on top of it, none of which the licence price includes. “Llano Seco Unit (2024)-L1006548”, Frank Schulenburg, CC BY-SA 4.0
Which price applies

Who counts as a Arkansas resident

Arkansas draws the resident line at 60 days, and the difference between the two sides of it is $10.50 against $410. The statutory definition is quoted below.

A resident is any person who physically inhabits a bona fide residence within Arkansas for at least 60 days and declares themselves a full-time resident of Arkansas.
Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
How Arkansas compares

39 of 50 states sell the animal separately from the right to hunt it

Arkansas is one of 11 states in this reading that print the tags on the licence, which is why its fee page price is the price of the hunt. In the other 39, the licence is the first of two purchases and the number a search result shows is the smaller half.

Resident licences across these states run from $10 to $64.54, and nonresident licences from $50 to $410, which is the widest spread on any licence this site has read. 25 states run a licence year of their own, 9 give a full year from the day of sale, and 9 end it on 31 December whatever month it was bought.

The national table puts Arkansas beside every other state on licence price, first tag, and the two added together.

Arkansas hunting license questions

Advertisement

More for Arkansas

Arkansas fishing licenseThe same agency, the other licence, and an expiry rule that works differently again.Arkansas tick activityWhat the woods are doing this week, measured against the years behind it.Arkansas first snowWhen the weather that ends most of these seasons usually arrives.Arkansas unattended vehicle lawWhat the state says about a truck left running at a trailhead on a cold morning.

Hunting licenses in every state

Arkansas Game and Fish Commission read 23 September 2026, with every licence price, tag price, expiry rule and hunter education cutoff above linked to the page it came from. Fees are set by statute or by a commission and change between seasons, so the agency page beside each figure is what governs on the day. Tags included