The Justice Department's new Federal Firearm Rights Restoration portal, which opened to the public on November 4, hit its initial 5,000-applicant ceiling before the end of its first day, AmmoLand News reported. The DOJ has closed the portal to new starts; applicants who had already begun a draft may still complete their submissions. The next intake window is scheduled for January 4, 2027, according to the official DOJ portal.

The program runs under 18 U.S.C. § 925(c), the statutory provision that allows the Attorney General to restore federal firearms rights to individuals whose convictions would otherwise prohibit them from possessing a firearm. Under the final rule, which the DOJ finalized in August 2026 and which took effect 30 days after Federal Register publication, applicants must undergo a background investigation and demonstrate that restoring their rights is consistent with the public interest and that they are unlikely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety. The portal accepts applications from individuals with federal felony convictions; relief does not extend to or override separate state prohibitions, and any grant applies to federal law only.

The demand on day one far exceeded early expectations. The DOJ has estimated that more than 300,000 people could apply in the first year the portal is open. The five-thousand cap on the initial intake suggests the department is processing applications in staged cohorts rather than opening the floodgates immediately — a common approach when a new adjudication pipeline is unproven at scale. Bearing Arms reported that some Democratic members of Congress elected in the November 4 midterms have signaled they will seek to defund or shut down the program when they take their seats in January 2027, adding a layer of political uncertainty to the program's future beyond the first intake cohort.

The rights restoration authority under 925(c) has been on the books for decades but was effectively dormant from 1992 to 2026 because Congress continuously zeroed out the ATF's budget for processing restoration applications. The Trump DOJ's decision to route applications through a Justice Department portal — rather than through the ATF, whose funding Congress can restrict more easily — was a deliberate move to insulate the program from that historical mechanism. Gun Owners of America, the Second Amendment Foundation, and other firearms-rights groups have hailed the program as a significant step toward restoring rights to non-violent offenders and others who served their time.

The DOJ has not announced the number of slots that will open in the January cohort, but one law firm advising applicants has cited a figure of 500 additional slots with a $30 filing fee beginning in that round. Prospective applicants should check justice.gov/ffrr for official status updates.