New Mexico Hunting License: $25, $78 With a Tag
In New Mexico the licence is $25 and the first deer costs $78
What a season in New Mexico actually costs to start
A resident hunting licence in New Mexico is $25, sold as the Game-Hunting License. Hunting a deer on it means buying the Private-Land Only Deer License, Standard as well, at $53, so the first day costs $78 rather than $25. That is 212% 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 $25, the Game-Hunting License
- Nonresident licence $90
- First deer on top of it $53, the Private-Land Only Deer License, Standard
- What the first morning costs $78
- The licence runs runs a licence year with its own start and end dates, set by the state rather than by the calendar
New Mexico Department of Wildlife sells it through its own licensing system, which is where a fee change appears first.
Every New Mexico hunting licence, at the price New Mexico Department of Wildlife prints
Eleven tags and permits were read off New Mexico Department of Wildlife's own fee pages for New Mexico, 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.
- Game-Hunting License$25
small game, and it is the licence a big game or turkey licence is bought on top of
annual
Game-Hunting License 1 $25 $90
New Mexico Department of Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source - Game-Hunting License$90
small game, and it is the licence a big game or turkey licence is bought on top of
annual
Game-Hunting License 1 $25 $90
New Mexico Department of Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source - Temporary Game-Hunting License (4 days)$40
small game for four days, and the agency prints that it does not allow a big game or turkey licence to be bought
4 days
Temporary Game-Hunting License (4 days)*, 1 Not Issued $40 * Does not enable purchase of big-game or turkey licenses.
New Mexico Department of Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source - Junior Game-Hunting License$10
small game for a hunter 17 or younger, resident rate shown, nonresident rate is in the same row
annual
Junior Game-Hunting License 1 $10 $15
New Mexico Department of Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source - Senior or Disabled Game-Hunting License$15
small game at a reduced rate for a resident 65 or older
annual
Senior or Disabled Game-Hunting License 1 $15 Not Issued
New Mexico Department of Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source - Game-Hunting & Fishing License$42
small game and fishing, residents only
annual
Game-Hunting & Fishing License 2 $42 Not Issued
New Mexico Department of Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source - Disabled Veteran Game-Hunting & Fishing License$10
small game and fishing for a resident disabled veteran card holder
annual
Disabled Veteran Game-Hunting & Fishing License 2, 3 $10 Not Issued
New Mexico Department of Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
When a New Mexico hunting license expires Licence year
New Mexico 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.
New Mexico runs a fixed licence year that opens on 1 April, so a licence bought late in that year still stops on the following 31 March whatever day it was bought.
April 1 2026–27 license year begins. All 2025–26 licenses are no longer valid.New Mexico Department of Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
Hunter education in New Mexico
New Mexico requires hunter education, and it sets the requirement without a birth year cutoff, so the test is what the applicant has done rather than when they were born. 29 of the 50 states read here use a birth year instead, and those years run from 1949 to 1986.
New Mexico sets the requirement by age rather than by a birth year: hunters 17 and younger must hold a hunter education number or a New Mexico mentor youth number before a Game-Hunting License is bought, and hunters of any age on White Sands Missile Range and Fort Bliss must show proof of a state certified course.
Before purchasing a Game-Hunting License, all hunters 17 years of age and younger must obtain a Hunter Education number issued by New Mexico or another state or possess a New Mexico mentor-youth number.New Mexico Department of Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
Who counts as a New Mexico resident
New Mexico draws the resident line at 90 days, and the difference between the two sides of it is $25 against $90. The statutory definition is quoted below.
A United States citizen who has resided in New Mexico for a period of not less than 90 days immediately preceding the date of application (or purchase) for the license, has been domiciled in New Mexico, and has not claimed residency elsewhere for any purpose.New Mexico Department of Wildlife, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
39 of 50 states sell the animal separately from the right to hunt it
New Mexico 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 New Mexico beside every other state on licence price, first tag, and the two added together.
New Mexico hunting license questions
More for New Mexico
Hunting licenses in every state
New Mexico Department of 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