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As of April 13, 2026, three dates matter. The handgun freeze started on October 21, 2022. Bill C-21 received Royal Assent on December 15, 2023. The OIC prohibition orders and the buyback/amnesty file run on a different track.
If you lawfully own a registered handgun, Bill C-21 did not force you to surrender it. What it shut down was the ordinary private market: purchase, sale, gift, and transfer between individuals, subject to narrow exemptions. That sounds abstract until an executor opens a safe, an adult child has an RPAL, and the family finds out the old assumption no longer works.
Disclaimer: This guide is for informational purposes only. It is not legal advice. Verify current regulations at
canada.ca/firearmsand consult a firearms lawyer for advice specific to your file. Last updated: April 2026.
Bill C-21 in plain English: what changed, and when
Bill C-21 matters to handgun owners for one practical reason: it froze the ordinary civilian handgun market in Canada.
The freeze began on October 21, 2022. Bill C-21 then received Royal Assent on December 15, 2023, which put that freeze into statute. As of April 2026, the freeze is still in force.
Here is the plain-English version. If a handgun was already lawfully registered to you before the freeze, you can still possess it. You can still store it under the rules that apply to it. You did not wake up prohibited from owning the handgun already in your name.
What changed is the transfer lane. An ordinary individual in Canada generally cannot buy a handgun, sell one to another individual, gift one to a family member, or receive one through the old RPAL-to-RPAL process. That is the part that caught people flat-footed. Plenty of owners still think Bill C-21 was a surrender law for all handguns. It was not. It was a market-closing law.
That distinction matters because the next decision depends on it. If you are dealing with a handgun, your question is usually not "is possession still legal?" It is "what can I still do with it now?"
Bill C-21 vs the OIC ban vs the buyback program
Search results keep mashing these together. They are not the same file.
| Legal instrument | What it covers | Key dates | What happened to possession | What an owner or executor actually has to do |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bill C-21 handgun freeze | Handgun purchase, sale, gift, and transfer rules for individuals | Freeze started 2022-10-21; Bill C-21 received Royal Assent 2023-12-15 | Existing lawful registered possession can continue | Figure out whether a narrow exemption applies, or whether the handgun has to go to a licensed business, museum, export file, deactivation, or surrender route |
| OIC prohibition orders | Specific makes, models, and variants named under prohibition orders | First major order 2020-05-01; later expansions followed, including 2024-12-05 | Possession has been carried under amnesty for affected owners, not left open indefinitely | Determine whether the firearm is OIC-affected, whether it was declared in time, and whether buyback, export, deactivation, surrender, or another lawful route still exists |
| ASFCP / amnesty | Government compensation and temporary amnesty framework for OIC-affected firearms | Individual declaration deadline passed 2026-03-31; amnesty expires 2026-10-30 | Amnesty is temporary. It is not the same thing as ordinary lawful ownership forever | Confirm whether the firearm was declared in time, compare compensation against other lawful routes, and do not drift past the amnesty date assuming it will sort itself out |
One firearm can sit in more than one legal conversation. A grandfathered prohibited handgun is still a handgun, so the freeze matters. An OIC-listed rifle is not a Bill C-21 handgun problem at all, even if the same owner keeps hearing both stories in the news.
If your real question is "is this firearm on the prohibition list or am I mixing two different laws together?" read the OIC prohibition list guide next.
Can you still buy, sell, or transfer a handgun in Canada?
For most individuals, the answer is simple.
- Buy a handgun as an ordinary individual: No.
- Sell a handgun privately to another individual: No.
- Gift a handgun to a spouse, child, or friend: No.
- Transfer a handgun because the other person has an RPAL: No.
The narrow individual exemptions identified in the research are still narrow in 2026:
- certain people who hold an Authorization to Carry
- certain Olympic or Paralympic handgun-discipline athletes with the required documentation
That is not a back door for the ordinary private market. It is a very small lane for specific people with specific paperwork.
Licensed businesses can still receive and transfer handguns where the law allows it. That matters because owners often hear "transfers are frozen" and assume no business can touch the file. That is not true. A business can still be the lawful recipient. The harder question is whether that business is authorized for the class of firearm in front of you.
An RPAL by itself no longer solves the problem. That is the piece many families miss. A person can be fully licensed and still not be a lawful recipient of the handgun they assumed would be easy to take over.
What happens to a handgun in an estate?
This is where Bill C-21 stops sounding like policy and starts sounding like a phone call.
An executor opens the safe. Inside are two registered handguns. Say a Smith & Wesson Model 10 and a Ruger Mark IV. The adult son or daughter has an RPAL. The will is clear enough. Everyone assumes the paperwork is routine.
Usually it is not.
Executors may possess estate firearms while they administer the estate, but that does not create an ordinary handgun-transfer path to a spouse, child, or other beneficiary. The freeze still applies. The family member's RPAL does not reopen the old market.
That leaves a narrower list of lawful routes:
- transfer to an exempt individual, if one actually exists
- transfer to an authorized business or museum
- lawful export where the file supports it
- deactivation
- surrender for destruction
The mistake is promising the family outcome before the legal recipient question is answered. We see this pattern over and over because the old assumption felt reasonable. It just no longer matches the law.
If you are dealing with an executor file, the broader paperwork, timelines, and estate obligations belong on the dedicated estate firearms executor guide. This page is the Bill C-21 piece of that problem.
What changes if the handgun is grandfathered under section 12(6)?
Now the file gets tighter.
Section 12(6) is the grandfathered prohibited-handgun category. Section 12(7) is the narrower inheritance lane for certain pre-1946 handguns within the specified family relationship. These are not interchangeable labels. They point to different legal paths.
A 12(6) handgun is often the sort of piece owners care about for collector reasons as much as legal reasons. Think a Colt 1903 Pocket Hammerless in .32 ACP or a Walther PPK in .32. Small handguns. Often valuable. Often the sort of piece that gets dismissed as "just an old pistol" right up until somebody learns how narrow the legal lane really is.
The continuity rule matters here. A 12(6) holder had to keep the required licence and registration continuity in place since 1998. If that continuity breaks, the status is gone. No new prohibited licences are issued to individuals. Grandfathering is closed.
That is why this category gets expensive fast. People treat a 12(6) handgun like an ordinary restricted handgun and then discover it has a much smaller legal buyer pool. Under the freeze, the options are narrower still. In practice, the realistic routes are usually:
- transfer to another qualifying
12(6)individual, with approval - transfer to an authorized business
- inheritance under the narrow
12(7)path where it actually applies - deactivation
- export or surrender where appropriate
If that is your file, read the deeper 12(6) grandfathered handgun guide. This is the corner of the market where a bad assumption can destroy value.
What else did Bill C-21 change besides the handgun freeze?
Three things matter here for most readers.
First, Bill C-21 added a forward-looking prohibited-firearm definition aimed at newly designed assault-style firearms after December 15, 2023. That is not the same thing as the handgun freeze, and it is not the same thing as the earlier OIC prohibition orders. Different mechanism. Different consequence.
Second, the law tightened transfer rules around items such as ammunition, magazines, barrels, and handgun slides. That matters because some owners still think only the complete firearm changed status under C-21. It did not stop there.
Third, Bill C-21 increased penalties around firearms trafficking, smuggling, and illegal manufacture. That is not the headline most civilian owners search for, but it is part of what the law changed.
If you came here looking for a long list of banned makes and models, this is the wrong page. That is an OIC question. Start with the OIC prohibition list guide.
What are your lawful options now?
The right route depends on the firearm and the file around it.
| Situation | Who can legally receive it | Can market value still be preserved? | When each route usually makes sense |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ordinary restricted handgun owner | Usually a licensed business, or a very narrow exempt individual | Sometimes, but the buyer pool is much smaller than it was before the freeze | Transfer to a licensed business if you need a lawful exit; deactivation or surrender if value is secondary |
| Estate handgun | Exempt individual if one exists, otherwise authorized business, museum, export, deactivation, or surrender route | Sometimes. Depends on the handgun and whether a lawful recipient exists | Use the business or museum lane when the family transfer assumption fails; do not leave the executor guessing |
12(6) grandfathered handgun | Another qualifying 12(6) individual with approval, or an authorized business | Often yes, especially where collector value exists | Preserve value first. Deactivation and surrender are last-resort outcomes for many collector pieces |
| OIC-affected firearm | Government program route if already declared, or another lawful route such as export, deactivation, surrender, or authorized business handling where permitted | Sometimes, but the domestic market is heavily constrained | Compare the ASFCP tables, export guide, and deactivation route before drifting into the amnesty deadline |
| Owner who just wants out | Licensed business, deactivation route, or surrender route depending on the firearm | Maybe not the priority | Choose the route that fits your timeline, compliance risk, and appetite for paperwork rather than pretending every file is worth a long consignment process |
Everything Old holds Business Firearms Licence #13848437.0001. That licence authorizes prohibited firearms consignment, import of prohibited firearms and prohibited handguns, export on consignment, and possession of 12(6) handguns for transfer. EO is also an authorized RCMP Firearms Verifier.
That does not mean every firearm should be boxed up and sent across the country on assumption. Carrier routing depends on firearm class, service level, and location. It means EO can tell you which lane is lawful before you promise a transfer that cannot happen, flatten a collector piece into a bad deactivation decision, or miss a deadline that was doing more work than you realized.
If deactivation is the right route, Andrew-confirmed turnaround is usually 1-4 weeks. Confirm the exact workflow before promising a date. If consignment is the right route, read how consignment works for prohibited items. If you need the deactivation standards themselves, start with the RCMP deactivation requirements guide.
Bill C-21 did not make every handgun issue the same. It just made lazy assumptions a lot more expensive.