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Hunting Licenses / Indiana

Indiana Hunting License: $20, $39 With a Tag

In Indiana the licence is $20 and the first deer costs $39

$20
Resident licence
Annual Hunting
$39
What the first deer costs on top
$39 for the licence and the tag together
a fixed licence year
When it stops working
licence year
7 / 10
Licences and tags read here
each one linked to the fee table it came from
The short answer

What a season in Indiana actually costs to start

Tags on topIndiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife

A resident hunting licence in Indiana is $20, sold as the Annual Hunting. Hunting a deer on it means buying the Deer Firearm as well, at $39, so the first day costs $39 rather than $20. That is 95% more than the licence price a search result would have shown. 39 of the 50 states read here work the same way. The licence itself runs a licence year with its own start and end dates, set by the state rather than by the calendar.

  • Resident licence $20, the Annual Hunting
  • Nonresident licence $90
  • First deer on top of it $39, the Deer Firearm
  • What the first morning costs $39
  • 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 1986

Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife sells it through its own licensing system, which is where a fee change appears first.

What the agency sells

Every Indiana hunting licence, at the price Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife prints

Ten tags and permits were read off Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife's own fee pages for Indiana, each one priced below with the row it sits in. A tag is a second purchase, and the licence price on its own is the first half of what a season costs.

  • Annual Hunting$20

    small game, furbearers and migratory birds, and it is not what a deer or a turkey is hunted on

    annual

    Hunting | Annual Hunting | $20 | Yes
    Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Annual Hunting$90

    small game, furbearers and migratory birds, and it is not what a deer or a turkey is hunted on

    annual

    Hunting | Annual Hunting | $90 | Yes
    Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Five-day Hunting$50

    five days of small game hunting for a nonresident

    Five-day

    Five-day Hunting | $50 | Yes
    Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Youth Consolidated Hunt/Trap$12

    hunting and trapping for a resident aged 17 or younger, including deer and turkey

    annual

    Youth Consolidated Hunt/Trap 1 | $12 | Yes
    Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Youth Annual Hunting$20

    small game hunting for a nonresident aged 17 or younger

    annual

    Youth Annual Hunting | $20 | Yes
    Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Hunting & Fishing$32

    the resident annual hunting licence and the resident annual fishing licence together

    annual

    Combination Licenses | Hunting & Fishing | $32 | Yes
    Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Disabled American Veterans Hunting & Fishing (does not include deer or turkey)$2.75

    resident hunting and fishing for a disabled American veteran, with deer and turkey excluded

    annual

    Disabled American Veterans | Hunting & Fishing (does not include deer or turkey) | $2.75
    Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
The second purchase

The tags and permits that sit on top of an Indiana licence

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.

Nothing in the Indiana fee pages read here is allocated by a draw, so the tags below are bought rather than applied for. 35 of the 50 states run a draw for at least one species, which puts the decision months ahead of the hunt.

Tags and permits read off Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife's own fee pages, dearest resident price first.
Tag or permitSpeciesResidentNonresidentHow it is issued
Deer License BundleDeer$91$550Over the counter
Deer Archery (Archery Season)Deer$39$240Over the counter
Deer FirearmDeer$39$240Over the counter
Deer Muzzleloader (Muzzleloader Season only)Deer$39$240Over the counter
Deer First Multiseason AntlerlessDeer$39$240Over the counter
Spring TurkeyTurkey$32$175Over the counter
Fall TurkeyTurkey$32$175Over the counter
BobcatFurbearer$15$120Over the counter
Game Bird Habitat Stamp PrivilegeOther$11$11Over the counter
Waterfowl Stamp PrivilegeWaterfowl$11$11Over the counter

Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife, the page this was read from, read 23 September 2026

The clock

When a Indiana hunting license expires Licence year

Indiana 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.

An Indiana annual licence runs from 1 April to the following 31 March whatever day it was bought, so one bought in February is good for about six weeks.

All annual licenses and stamp privileges are valid from April 1 of the current year through March 31 of the following year. (Example: A 2026 annual license would be valid from April 1, 2026, through March 31, 2027).
Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
The requirement people find out about at the counter

Indiana hunter education: born on or after 1986

Indiana hangs hunter education on a birth date rather than on an age: the requirement reaches anybody born after 1986. 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.

Indiana asks anyone born after 31 December 1986 for a hunter education number before it will sell them a hunting licence that is not an apprentice licence, and an apprentice licence may be bought three times in a lifetime.

Anyone born after Dec. 31, 1986, must successfully complete a DNR-offered hunter education class to purchase a hunting license. The Hunter Education Number (HED#) must be entered into the license system in order to purchase a hunting license that is not an apprentice version if the person was born after Dec. 31, 1986.
Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife, 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 Indiana resident

Indiana draws the resident line at 60 days, and the difference between the two sides of it is $20 against $90. The statutory definition is quoted below.

A resident is an individual that has established a true fixed and permanent home and primary residence in Indiana for 60 consecutive days prior to purchasing a license or permit and not claim residency for hunting, trapping, or fishing in another state or country. All others are nonresidents.
Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
How Indiana compares

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

Indiana works the way most of the country does. Of the 50 states read here, 39 sell the tag apart from the licence and 11 print it on the licence instead. Where the tag is separate, the middle state adds 95% to the licence price before anybody has left the driveway.

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 Indiana beside every other state on licence price, first tag, and the two added together.

Indiana hunting license questions

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Hunting licenses in every state

Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish & Wildlife 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 on top