As of October 1, and in accordance with the NICS Denial Notification Act of 2021, FBI is to report all National Instant Criminal Background Check (NICS) denied transactions – better known as NICS denials – to state, local, or tribal law enforcement within 24 hours.

NICS denial notification will be sent to the appropriate law enforcement agency based on the city, state, county, and zip code combination of the selling FFL location, or the attempted buyer/transferee’s home address, when different from the FFL location. Delivered via unsolicited message, the notification will include the following information:

• Date and time of denial
• Reason for denial
• Location of FFL/transferee address
• Identity of person denied

Should the NICS denial be overturned and changed to a ‘proceed,’ FBI will provide an updated notification to the notified agencies.

Not inherently illegal, depending on reason for denial, the FBI NICS Section nor the law requires law enforcement to take any action after receiving denial notifications.

Currently, the NICS Indices, a database of people prohibited from receiving firearms by federal or state law, contains over 28 million people.