Welcome to 2026, the Year of the Horse—unless you’re in the firearms industry. And if you’re reading this, we assume you are. For you, 2026 is the Year of the Suppressor.
Thanks to Congress doing its job and the President doing his, the $200 tax stamp has been reduced to zero on short-barreled firearms and suppressors. Although the tax wasn’t officially removed until Jan. 1, 2026, suppressor sales began taking off in the last part of 2025, thanks in large part to companies absorbing the $200 tax for customers.
Now that the tax has been zero’d out, it should be a free-for-all with suppressor sales going through the roof—at least in the short term. While the NFA paperwork hurdles remain, faster approvals and ATF’s proposed removal of the CLEO notification requirement—which adds seven days—means the time from application to taking possession should shrink significantly.
This, of course, doesn’t account for any potential processing delays caused by a surge in eForm submissions, though one hopes ATF’s NFA Division is prepared to meet demand.
Continuous Growth
The demand will certainly be there. One suppressor manufacturer tells us dealers had already been placing larger-than-normal orders in anticipation of a Q1 2026 consumer buying surge.
Rising demand is nothing new for the suppressor industry. Over the past 15 years, year-over-year growth has been impressive. Even so, the suppressor segment remains in its infancy when you view it by sheer product volume.
The American Suppressor Association was formed in 2011, and at that time there were a total of 285,087 suppressors in circulation. That was the total number owned over the 77 years since the National Firearms Act became the law of the land in 1934.
According to Knox Williams, the ASA’s executive director, as of Jan. 2025 a little over 4.4 million suppressors are in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, the federal registry for NFA items.
When ATF releases the final numbers for 2025, Knox expects the number will be north of 5 million, though how far north will depend on how the demise of the $200 tax impacted buying habits in the second half of the year. No one yet knows how many consumers decided to wait until the tax was eliminated on January 1 to purchase versus those who took advantage of promotions where companies absorbed the tax to keep sales flowing from July through December.
A study commissioned by the National Shooting Sports Foundation and conducted by Southwick Associates—Suppressor Owner Study: Market Size, Purchase Profile & Journey, Satisfaction 2025—found that there was 265% growth in suppressor Form 4 registrations from 2020 to 2024. During that same period, the total number of suppressors in circulation doubled.
For the uninitiated, Form 4 is the federal paperwork required under the NFA that covers the transfer of a suppressor. The Form 1 is filed for the creation of a suppressor. These same forms are used for other NFA items such as short-barreled rifles and short-barreled shotguns.
The NSSF study also found the overall suppressor market in 2024 came to $820 million, with $156 million of that in tax payments. Of those purchasing suppressors in 2024, NSSF reported 35% were first-time purchasers—which points to the continued mainstreaming of suppressors as just another firearm accessory.
Mainstreaming Suppressors
Wiliams joked that the recent increased consumer acceptance of suppressors is an “overnight success story 15 years in the making.” Suppressors aren’t new, but that five-year 265% growth rate is. Where we’re seeing today is a product of a lot of work on multiple fronts that got us to this point.
Legally, citizens in 42 states can now own suppressors, and they can hunt with them in 41. That’s thanks to the state-level lobbying work of several organizations including ASA, NRA, NSSF and others. That alone has opened the market for huge growth.
Of course, just because it became legal to purchase a suppressor didn’t mean buying one was an easy process. That didn’t happen until the businesses like Silencer Central, Silencer Shop, and Capital Armory helped change the way consumers navigate NFA paperwork requirements.
Helping consumers and dealers prepare and submit the requisite paperwork alleviated a lot of the headaches. But there were still delays at the federal level in processing times.
Thanks to the vagaries of antiquated systems, processes and political slow-walking, approval times once stretched to 18 months or more. That’s all changed in the last few years. By April, 2023 wait times were down to nine months. This past July it took me a total of 17 days from the start of the buying process to receiving my can. That includes the seven days needed for local law enforcement to review, and a couple days where I simply dragged my feet through the process.
The reality is wait time is no longer a deterrent to buying a suppressor.
Two other aspects to mainstreaming suppressors for the average consumer are marketing and the wide availability of firearms with threaded barrels.
I spoke to Ernie Beckwith, CEO of Dead Air Silencers, and he walked me through some of what his company has done to expand their customer base. The first is obvious, though frequently overlooked, or outright ignored by companies. That’s putting your foot on the gas when sales surge.
Dead Air increased its marketing budget to build its brand, not just sell product. The company is putting time, resources, and money into building relationships with their customers.
The second step is one we all witnessed last January, and that’s the high-profile collaboration with Ruger on the new line of RXD suppressors. Beckwith told me, “collaborating with Ruger expanded our brand exposure and put a lot of new eyes on the category.”
And it goes beyond turning out guns that can accept muzzle devices. According to Ruger’s Product Strategy Manager, Tabor Bright, “the Ruger product team now talks about suppression in just about every applicable product conversation.” The fact is there are far more firearms in circulation that are capable of accepting a suppressor than there are suppressors currently available to outfit them.
“Gun companies have been well ahead of the suppressor demand curve with models equipped with threaded barrels,” observed Mark Keefe, editorial director for NRA Publications. “We’ve now reached a point where suppressors are no longer aspirational.”
“2026 is shaping up to be the year suppressors fully go mainstream, not just because of faster approvals, but because key barriers are falling at the same time,” said Cody Osborn, vice president of sales and marketing for suppressor maker Q. “Suppressors are no longer a long-term gamble or a psychological hurdle. They’re becoming a normal, repeatable purchase.”
Hunting Suppressed
Hunting is another area in which suppression is rapidly going mainstream. More and more people are hunting suppressed thanks to ASA, NRA, and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation leading the charge to legalize suppressed hunting in 41 states.
NSSF’s study of suppressor buyers found 30% responded that hunting was their primary reason for purchase, coming in second behind recreational shooting (39%). That isn’t lost on suppressor makers. They’ve taken note and are responding with products specifically designed for hunters.
One takeaway from the Ruger collaboration, Beckwith said, was recognizing just how rapidly the hunting segment is growing. With new products coming out for the hunting market, Dead Air is positioning itself to meet the needs of those hunters.
The same is true at Q. “For hunters, the value proposition is straightforward and practical: reduced recoil, improved accuracy, better communication in the field, and a safer experience for guides, partners, and PHs,” Osborn explained. “Suppressors are increasingly viewed as ethical hunting equipment, not tactical accessories.”
“We expect continued growth in suppressor adoption among hunters, particularly as purpose-built platforms and calibers become more accessible.”
That won’t be an issue. At Ruger, Bright says that “one of the very first and most unanimous decisions the Ruger American product team made was that every American Gen 2 rifle would ship with a threaded muzzle—no exceptions.”
Many in the industry are already hunting suppressed, and not just those working for suppressor makers.
Peter Churchbourne, Executive Director of the NRA Foundation, and an avid hunter, has been hunting suppressed—where legal—since 2013 when “they were not widely used or even known about. Now there are 41 states where I can hunt.”
Projections
There’s little doubt that 2026 will be the Year of the Suppressor. Everything is coming together at the right time. The only question is how much growth will we see in 2026. On Friday, NSSF announced that it got word that ATF processed over 150,000 eForms on Jan. 1. The normal daily volume is closer to 2,500.
Buck Steele, President of Anechoic, sees 2026 as a year in which suppressor sales will double in volume over 2024 or 2025 numbers. He says the biggest growth segment will be the lower-priced $300 suppressors, where the removal of the Tax Stamp means there is no longer a 66% government markup.
Dead Air’s Beckwith sees a definite surge in sales, especially in Q1 and Q2, as those deterred by the $200 tax finally join the ranks of suppressor consumers. He believes after that we will see a leveling off to a new growth rate—but what exactly that will be is anybody’s guess.
One of the benefits of the zero dollar tax stamp is that it opens the door to a constitutional challenge to the NFA. Williams says the ASA knew this all along and viewed it as their fallback option to eliminating it through legislation, where 60 Senate votes are not there to invoke cloture, and end a filibuster.
ASA, along with the NRA, and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), are filing joint lawsuits. As are Gun Owners of America (GOA), Gun Owners Foundation (GOF), Palmetto State Armory, Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition, Silencer Shop and B&T USA in their own filing.
Williams admits this is “likely a multi-year process. A medium to long-term play that ASA and the others feel good about our likelihood of success.”
That would turn a suppressor purchase from a minor jumping through hoops to a simple 4473 transaction, like any firearm.
“But,” Williams says, “if you want a suppressor, don’t wait.”
What motivates consumers to buy a suppressor in 2026 might be a lot less complicated than we think. As Mark Keefe explained it, “The $200 Tax Stamp was essentially a poll tax on the exercise of the right to own a suppressor. When the poll tax was lifted, people voted. With the $200 Tax Stamp now gone, people are no longer financially discouraged from owning suppressors, and they will go out and exercise their right.”
I think the biggest game changer of the year will be when someone starts rolling out $35 aluminum cans that are essentially consumables; e.g., they are only good for a couple thousand rimfire shots / few hundred centerfire pistol shots / several dozen full-power centerfire rifle shots. That’s what you see in many European countries.
And they would make sense for most people. Take, for instance, your deer rifle. How many rounds do you actually put through it each year? For most folks, a super-cheap can that is good for 150 or so shots would last a decade or more.
The $200 tax stamp meant this business model wasn’t viable, and thus everyone wanted cans that would last essentially forever. But with the tax stamp gone, uber-cheap consumable cans (and parts kits so that you can easily Form 4 your own) are coming, especially if the ASA / FPC’s test case succeeds.
“I think the biggest game changer of the year will be when someone starts rolling out $35 aluminum cans that are essentially consumables; e.g., they are only good for a couple thousand rimfire shots / few hundred centerfire pistol shots / several dozen full-power centerfire rifle shots. That’s what you see in many European countries.”
A serious question on that –
Are those ‘disposable’ cans serialized in Europe? We are going to have to still account for every one we own. I can foresee some folks not being able to account for every form 1 they own and being in very hot water.
We need to get them off the registry entirely.
As for myself, I’m filing for a number of form 1s, and just stashing them in the safe
Agreed that they need to come off the registry, and I predict the ASA/FPC test case will eventually succeed on that.
I do not know if the consumable / disposable cans in Europe are serialized, but obviously as long as they have to be registered on this side of the pond they will have to be serialized. But that’s hardly a major imposition.
“That includes the seven days needed for local law enforcement to review”
Just to mention, for new people in the gun world, that one is only required to notify (as stated in the rules) the local CLEO and not wait for an OK from them to pick up your NFA item.
That CLEO will also have the opportunity to present disqualifying material to the ATF, if any, but is not required to respond to you nor are you required to wait for an OK from the CLEO to pick up your suppressor after ATF approves.
I mention this because some people think you have to wait for the CLEO to make a determination before you can pick up your suppressor after ATF approves it. This had never occurred to me that people actually thought this until a few years ago. I helped a at-the-time new gun owner not familiar with all the in’s and outs, I helped him complete his paperwork and send it in to purchase a suppressor and a copy went to the local police chief’s office. He was approved by ATF but did not pick it up. I asked him why, he said “The police chief hasn’t told me he approved it.” We then sat down and had some lunch and a short lesson on the NFA, finished lunch and he went to pick up his suppressor.
Heck, last time I picked up some suppressors at Capitol Armory (7 day turnaround on filings for a trust), the guy in front of me had bought his as an individual *the day before,* and had his tax stamp and picked up his can within 24 hours!
Now, with 150,000 befing filed since the 1st of the year, there’s going to be some delays, but methinks the bad old days of 18 month sentences in NFA Jail are gone forever . . . . .