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Hunting Licenses / Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Hunting License Cost: $20.97 and Up

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

$20.97
Resident licence
Resident Adult Hunting License
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
9 / 7
Licences and tags read here
each one linked to the fee table it came from
The short answer

What a season in Pennsylvania actually costs to start

Tags includedPennsylvania Game Commission

A resident hunting licence in Pennsylvania is $20.97, sold as the Resident Adult Hunting License. Pennsylvania 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. A $20.97 resident or $101.97 nonresident Pennsylvania hunting licence already carries an antlered deer tag and both turkey tags, so the extras a first timer runs into are the antlerless deer licence, a bear licence, a pheasant permit or a migratory bird licence, and the whole lot ends on 30 June.

  • Resident licence $20.97, the Resident Adult Hunting License
  • Nonresident licence $101.97
  • First deer on top of it $10.97, the Resident DMAP (coupon)
  • The licence runs runs a licence year with its own start and end dates, set by the state rather than by the calendar

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

What the agency sells

Every Pennsylvania hunting licence, at the price Pennsylvania Game Commission prints

Everything a Pennsylvania 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 Adult Hunting License$20.97

    small game plus one antlered deer tag, one fall turkey tag and one spring turkey tag

    one license year

    Resident Adult Hunting License ($20.97): Issued to bona fide residents of Pennsylvania ages 17 through 64. This license includes one antlered deer tag, one fall turkey tag, one spring turkey tag and small game hunting privileges for one license year.
    Pennsylvania Game Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Nonresident Adult Hunting License$101.97

    small game plus one antlered deer tag, one fall turkey tag and one spring turkey tag

    one license year

    Nonresident Adult Hunting License ($101.97): Issued to nonresidents of Pennsylvania (from any state or nation) who are age 17 and older. This license includes one antlered deer tag, one fall turkey tag, one spring turkey tag and small game hunting privileges for one license year.
    Pennsylvania Game Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Nonresident 7-Day Small Game License$31.97

    small game only, with no bear, deer, elk or turkey hunting

    7 day

    Nonresident 7-Day Small Game License ($31.97): Issued to nonresidents of Pennsylvania (from any state or nation) who are age 12 and older. This license is not valid for big game including turkey.
    Pennsylvania Game Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Resident Junior Hunting License$6.97

    small game plus one antlered deer tag and both turkey tags, with no archery, muzzleloader or furtaker add ons

    one license year

    Resident Junior Hunting License ($6.97): Issued to bona fide residents of Pennsylvania ages 12 through 16.
    Pennsylvania Game Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Nonresident Junior Hunting License$41.97

    small game plus one antlered deer tag and both turkey tags for a nonresident aged 12 to 16

    one license year

    Nonresident Junior Hunting License ($41.97): Issued to nonresidents of Pennsylvania (from any state or nation) who are ages 12 through 16.
    Pennsylvania Game Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Resident Senior Hunting License$13.97

    small game plus one antlered deer tag and both turkey tags for a resident aged 65 and over

    one license year

    Resident Senior Hunting License ($13.97): Issued to bona fide residents of Pennsylvania ages 65 and older. This license is valid for only the license year of issuance.
    Pennsylvania Game Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Resident Mentored Adult Permit$20.97

    one antlered or flintlock deer tag and both turkey tags while hunting with a mentor, for at most three years

    one license year

    Resident Mentored Adult Permit ($20.97): Issued to bona fide residents of Pennsylvania ages 17 or older. Applicants may not hold or have held a hunting or furtaking license, or mentored youth hunting permit in Pennsylvania or any other state or nation. This permit is eligible to purchase for three years only.
    Pennsylvania Game Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Resident Military Hunting License$2.97

    the resident hunting licence at a reduced fee for qualifying active duty service members

    one license year

    Resident Military Hunting License ($2.97): To qualify, applicants must meet all of the following requirements and provide the appropriate documentation. This license includes one antlered deer tag, one fall turkey tag, one spring turkey tag and small game hunting privileges for one license year.
    Pennsylvania Game Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
  • Resident Senior Lifetime Hunting License$51.97

    the resident senior hunting licence for life, renewed free each year for that year's tags

    lifetime

    Resident Senior Lifetime Hunting License ($51.97): Issued to bona fide residents of Pennsylvania ages 65 and older. Lifetime license holders apply for free renewal hunting licenses each year to receive valid harvest tags for that particular license year.
    Pennsylvania Game Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
The second purchase

The tags Pennsylvania 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.

Pennsylvania 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 Pennsylvania Game Commission's own fee pages, dearest resident price first.
Tag or permitSpeciesResidentNonresidentHow it is issued
Adult Pheasant PermitSmall game$26.97$26.97Over the counter
Resident Bear LicenseBear$16.97$36.97Over the counter
elk license applicationElk$11.97$11.97Draw
Resident DMAP (coupon)Deer$10.97$35.97Over the counter
Antlerless Deer LicenseDeer$6.97$26.97Quota
Bobcat PermitFurbearer$6.97$6.97Over the counter
Resident Migratory Game Bird LicenseWaterfowl$3.97$6.97Over the counter

Pennsylvania Game Commission, the page this was read from, read 23 September 2026

The clock

When a Pennsylvania hunting license expires Licence year

Pennsylvania 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.

A Pennsylvania hunting licence is tied to a licence year that ends on 30 June, whatever date within that year it was bought.

Licenses are valid for the license year they are purchased for. License years run from July 1st – June 30th.
Pennsylvania Game Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
The requirement people find out about at the counter

Hunter education in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania 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.

Pennsylvania applies the course to every first time hunter rather than to a birth year, and its mentored permits let a first timer hunt with a mentor for up to three years before taking it.

All first-time hunters and trappers must complete Basic Hunter-Trapper Education before they can purchase a PA hunting or trapping license.
Pennsylvania Game 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 Pennsylvania resident

Pennsylvania 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.

The purchaser must provide confirmation of residency for a resident license. When the licensee signs their license and takes the privileges afield, they certify the correctness of all the information presented.
Pennsylvania Game Commission, read 23 September 2026. Read it at the source
How Pennsylvania compares

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

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

Pennsylvania hunting license questions

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Hunting licenses in every state

Pennsylvania Game 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