Firearms (Fees) (Amendment) Regulations, 2024 (No. 1)

The Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage has replaced the fee schedule in the Firearms Regulations, 1998 with a new Second Schedule. The headline items are the trade licences: a firearms annual dealer licence, a reloaders permit, a dealer's import/export licence and an import permit are all US$2 000. Renewing a dealer's licence is much cheaper at US$200, and a firearm transit permit is US$1 000.

For an individual gun owner the numbers are smaller. A new firearm certificate application costs US$250 and a renewal US$100. A replacement certificate is US$100, as are a permanent export permit, a temporary export permit, a variation authority, a firearms auctioneers permit, an ammunition supply certificate, a company guard permit, a crop guard permit, a change of company representative and a change of name or address.

The vetting and clearance fees are the small change of the schedule: normal vetting US$5, urgent local vetting US$10, normal police clearance US$10 and urgent police clearance US$20.

Zimbabwean applicants do not have to find hard currency. The regulations say fees are payable in local currency at the prevailing foreign exchange rate on the date of payment, so what you pay at the counter depends on the rate that day.

These regulations also repeal the Firearms (Fees) Regulations, 2024 published in S.I. 136 of 2024 — a schedule that lasted barely a month. Anyone quoted a fee under S.I. 136 should re-check it against this schedule.