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Hunting Licenses / North Dakota

North Dakota Hunting License: $20, $55 With a Tag

In North Dakota the licence is $20 and the first deer costs $55

$20
Resident licence
Small Game License (age 16 or older)
$35
What the first deer costs on top
$55 for the licence and the tag together
a fixed licence year
When it stops working
licence year
4 / 14
Licences and tags read here
each one linked to the fee table it came from
The short answer

What a season in North Dakota actually costs to start

Tags on topNorth Dakota Game and Fish Department

A resident hunting licence in North Dakota is $20, sold as the Small Game License (age 16 or older). Hunting a deer on it means buying the Deer Gun (1st lottery) as well, at $35, so the first day costs $55 rather than $20. That is 175% 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 Small Game License (age 16 or older)
  • Nonresident licence $150
  • First deer on top of it $35, the Deer Gun (1st lottery)
  • What the first morning costs $55
  • 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 1961

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

What the agency sells

Every North Dakota hunting licence, at the price North Dakota Game and Fish Department prints

Fourteen tags and permits were read off North Dakota Game and Fish Department's own fee pages for North Dakota, 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.

  • Small Game License (age 16 or older)$20

    upland and small game plus waterfowl, once the certificate and the general game and habitat license have also been bought

    annual

    Small Game License (age 16 or older) | $20 | *Fishing, Hunting, Furbearer Certificate $2 | *General Game and Habitat License $20 | Waterfowl Restoration Stamp $5 (if hunting waterfowl)
    North Dakota Game and Fish Department, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Small Game (ages 16 and older)$150

    upland and small game for a fixed number of days rather than a whole season, on top of the certificate and the general game and habitat license

    14 consecutive days, or two 7 consecutive day periods

    Small Game (ages 16 and older) - a nonresident must choose between a 14-consecutive-day or two 7-consecutive-day license periods and may purchase more than one license per year. | $150 | *Fishing, Hunting, Furbearer Certificate $5 | *General Game and Habitat License $20
    North Dakota Game and Fish Department, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Combination License (ages 16 and older)$62

    fishing, the general game and habitat license, small game and furbearer in one purchase

    annual

    Combination License (ages 16 and older) - includes fishing, general game and habitat, small game and furbearer licenses. | $62 | *Fishing, Hunting, Furbearer Certificate $2 | Waterfowl Restoration Stamp $5 (if hunting waterfowl)
    North Dakota Game and Fish Department, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Veteran Combined Hunting (requires 50% or higher service-related disability)$10

    the general game and habitat license, small game and furbearer for a qualifying disabled veteran

    annual

    Veteran Combined Hunting (requires 50% or higher service-related disability) includes general game and habitat, small game, and fur-bearer licenses | $10 | *Fishing, Hunting, Furbearer Certificate $2 | Waterfowl Restoration Stamp $5 (if hunting waterfowl)
    North Dakota Game and Fish Department, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
The second purchase

The tags and permits that sit on top of a North Dakota 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.

North Dakota allocates antelope, deer, elk, moose, other and turkey 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 North Dakota Game and Fish Department's own fee pages, dearest resident price first.
Tag or permitSpeciesResidentNonresidentHow it is issued
Pronghorn (age 16 or older)Antelope$35None printedDraw
Deer Gun (1st lottery)Deer$35$355Draw
Deer Bow (age 16 or older)Deer$35$350Both
Elk (age 16 or older)Elk$35None printedDraw
Moose (age 16 or older)Moose$35None printedDraw
Bighorn Sheep (age 16 or older)Other$35$600Draw
Federal Waterfowl Stamp (Duck Stamp)Waterfowl$25 + $4 mailing$25 + $4 mailingOver the counter
Furbearer (ages 16 and older)Furbearer$20$50Over the counter
General Game and Habitat LicenseOther$20$20Over the counter
Wild Turkey, spring and fall (ages 16 and older, 1st lottery)Turkey$20None printedDraw
Sandhill Crane Permit (ages 16 and older)Small game$10$10Over the counter
Waterfowl Restoration StampWaterfowl$5$5Over the counter
Fishing, Hunting, Furbearer CertificateOther$2$5Over the counter
Nonresident Waterfowl LicenseWaterfowlNone printed$153Over the counter

North Dakota Game and Fish Department, the page this was read from, read 23 September 2026

The clock

When a North Dakota hunting license expires Licence year

North Dakota 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.

North Dakota runs its license year from 1 April to 31 March, so a license bought in the autumn runs out the following spring rather than at the end of the calendar year.

Resident spring goose hunters must have a current year license beginning April 1. The past year's license expires March 31
North Dakota Game and Fish Department, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
The requirement people find out about at the counter

North Dakota hunter education: born on or after 1961

North Dakota hangs hunter education on a birth date rather than on an age: the requirement reaches anybody born after 1961. 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.

Anyone born after the printed cutoff has to show a hunter education number to the license vendor before a hunting license will be sold, unless they hunt only land they own or operate, are under 12, or hold an apprentice validation.

Persons born after December 31, 1961 must complete a certified state or provincial hunter education course and provide a hunter education number to the license vendor to purchase a North Dakota hunting license. Exceptions: Persons who hunt only on land they own or operate, and persons under age 12 (those under age 12 may hunt if they have appropriate license and are under direct supervision of parent, guardian or adult authorized by parent or guardian).
North Dakota Game and Fish Department, 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 North Dakota resident

North Dakota defines a resident in its own words rather than by a count of days, and the definition is quoted below because the price on one side of it is rarely close to the price on the other.

A person who has actually lived in, or maintained his or her legal residence, in North Dakota for the past six months, may qualify for resident licenses, providing he or she does not continue to claim residency in another state.
North Dakota Game and Fish Department, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
How North Dakota compares

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

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

North Dakota hunting license questions

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Hunting licenses in every state

North Dakota Game and Fish Department 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