PAYMENT PROCESSING
Best merchant accounts for firearms and FFL dealers in 2026
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Payment Review Editorial Team
Payment Review Editorial Team
For a gun store taking payment at the counter, Easy Pay Direct is the strongest firearms merchant account in 2026 — its published 1.59% + $0.19 swiped rate is the lowest card-present figure any high-risk specialist publishes, with no long-term contract. For online ammunition and accessory retailers above $100,000 a month, PayKings interchange-plus pricing costs less. Payment Cloud takes FFLs that have already been declined. Stripe, Square, PayPal, Shopify Payments and Intuit all prohibit firearms and will close the account.
Each provider’s own published figures as of 25 August 2026. Your quoted rate depends on underwriting.
Best for gun stores taking payment in person · Austin, Texas · High-risk specialist
The published 1.59% + $0.19 swiped rate is the headline here, and it is genuinely unusual — no other high-risk specialist publishes a card-present figure that low. For a gun store where most revenue crosses a counter, that difference compounds fast against a 2.6% flat rate.
There is no long-term contract, no early-termination fee on standard accounts, and applications route across 30-plus acquiring banks — useful in a category where individual banks change their firearms policy without much notice.
The catch: The 2.69% + $0.36 online rate is ordinary, so a retailer selling mostly ammunition and accessories online rather than long guns in-store gets less benefit. Above roughly $100K a month, ask for the interchange-plus quote.
Read the full Easy Pay Direct review →
Best for online retailers above $100K a month · St. Petersburg, Florida · High-risk specialist
PayKings names firearms explicitly among the restricted verticals it underwrites, and prices the same interchange-plus structure across online, in person and keyed. At the Growth tier, interchange + 0.80% + $0.10, an online ammunition retailer doing $150K a month pays materially less than any flat rate in this guide.
Monthly is $13 and chargebacks $25, both at the low end — which matters less for firearms than most categories, since chargeback rates here are typically low.
The catch: Roughly three years with auto-renewal and a $100–$500 termination fee. Below about $25K a month the 1.10% Starter markup is worse value than Easy Pay Direct’s published swiped rate for a counter-heavy store.
Read the full PayKings review →
Best for fast approval · Texas · High-risk specialist
Soar names firearms among its core verticals, underwrites quickly, and holds an A+ BBB rating with an unusually clean complaint record. If a previous processor dropped you without notice — which happens in this category more than most — it is the fastest route back to taking cards.
Being a Texas shop that has boarded firearms for years, it also asks the right questions rather than treating an FFL as an unfamiliar risk.
The catch: Quote-only, so you cannot compare before applying. Two-year initial term, one-year automatic renewal, and a $495 early-termination fee waived only once the initial term completes.
Read the full Soar Payments review →
Best if you’ve been declined already · Agent / reseller · High-risk focused
Payment Cloud names firearms among the verticals it boards and explicitly targets businesses denied elsewhere. For a new FFL with no processing history, or a dealer who has already collected declines, it is the realistic option rather than the cheap one.
No PCI fee, often no termination fee, and monthly can be zero.
The catch: The rates are estimates rather than published figures, and at 3.5–5.0% + $0.30 online this is the most expensive option here. Use it to establish history, then re-shop in twelve months.
Read the full Payment Cloud review →
Best established track record · California · High-risk specialist
BBB-accredited since 2012 with a light complaint record and no application, setup or annual fee. For a dealer who would rather buy a long checkable history than a published rate card, it is the most established name here.
The catch: Tiered pricing by default — the least transparent structure in payments — with reported effective rates of 3–4%. One-to-three-year terms with automatic renewal and a $295–$595 termination fee.
Read the full eMerchantBroker review →
Firearms retailers apply to these five more than any others, and all five prohibit the category. The risk is not just a wasted application — getting boarded and later discovered means a closure with your balance held.
Most FFL revenue still crosses a counter, so the swiped rate is the number that decides your annual cost — not the online rate the provider leads with. A store doing $120,000 a month card-present pays roughly $21,000 a year more at 2.9% than at 1.59%. Ask for the card-present figure explicitly, in writing, before anything else.
Selling long guns through an FFL transfer in-store and shipping ammunition to a customer are treated very differently. If you ship, expect questions about age verification, state shipping restrictions and your returns policy, and expect a few banks to decline on the ammunition line alone even though they would take the store.
Firearms is classified high-risk for reputational and regulatory reasons, not because customers dispute charges — gun stores typically run well under 0.5%. That is an argument, and providers who underwrite the category understand it. Bring twelve months of statements showing the number and ask for pricing that reflects it rather than accepting the category default.
Firearms policies are set by the acquiring bank, and they change. Ask which bank will hold the account, how long that bank has boarded FFLs, and what happens to your account if it exits the category. A provider with thirty banking relationships can move you; one with a single relationship cannot.
Not sure which fits? Answer six questions about your business and we’ll rank every provider we grade against your answers — and tell you which ones will decline you before you apply. Get matched free →
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