Reciprocity, with reference to concealed carry permits, refers to one state honoring another state’s concealed carry permits.
Reciprocal States (States that honor a NC concealed carry permit)
There are many states that share reciprocity with North Carolina, meaning their state government will accept our state’s permit as a valid permit for their state. However, state laws DO vary, so even though your permit is legal in that state, does NOT mean all their state laws are the same as North Carolina’s law.
North Carolina Visitor Concealed Handgun Reciprocity
If you are visiting North Carolina from another state and you have a valid concealed handgun permit for your state, you ARE allowed to carry concealed in North Carolina. However, you are required to familiarize yourself with North Carolina laws and to obey them accordingly. Ignorance of the concealed carry laws is not an issue looked on favorably in North Carolina courtrooms.
For example: Virginia has restaurant carry, meaning you can carry concealed in a restaurant that serves alcohol. North Carolina does NOT have restaurant carry, so you can NOT carry concealed in a restaurant that serves alcohol, even though you can in your home state.
There is NO source except the North Carolina Department of Justice that is responsible for accurately listing North Carolina’s firearms laws. If you would like to read the laws direct from the source, you can read them at them at this link:
Please Note: Carrying Concealed weapons and areas where weapons are prohibited in North Carolina are outlined in pages 10-25 of that link above.
External Resources
While we can not endorse any particular website or source as official besides the official general statues page of each state, we have done a little research ourselves on a few fact-checking websites dedicated to concealed carry reciprocity. Of all those, the only one we have yet to find a mistake on, is Handgunlaw.us. That could change tomorrow, but of all the things we’ve looked for and tried to cross-check, this site has yet to yield us any incorrect data thus far. You can visit them at the link below.