Florida Legalized Open Carry: Here's What Actually Changed

Florida has allowed concealed carry without a permit since 2023, but until recently, carrying a handgun openly was still a misdemeanor in most circumstances. That changed when Florida's First District Court of Appeal ruled the state's open-carry ban, Florida Statute § 790.053, unconstitutional under the Second Amendment on September 10, 2025. The Florida Attorney General's guidance to law enforcement, issued five days later, confirmed the ruling is binding statewide; most agencies stopped enforcing the ban around September 25, 2025, once the window to appeal had passed.

What changed

Handguns can now be carried openly in Florida by anyone legally eligible to possess one. No separate permit or endorsement is required, the same eligibility standard that already applied to concealed carry.

What didn't change

A few things the ruling does not touch:

• Private property still governs itself. A business, landlord, or property owner can still post "no firearms" signage and ask an openly carrying visitor to leave. Ignoring that request can turn into a trespassing charge.
• Gun-free zones are still gun-free zones. Schools, courthouses, polling places, and the other statutory prohibited locations are unaffected; open carry doesn't create an exception to any of them.
• This is a court ruling, not a new statute. It resolved a specific case; the legislature hasn't rewritten the underlying code section yet. Precedent can be revisited on appeal, so this is worth rechecking periodically rather than treating as permanently settled.

Why this matters if you're traveling through Florida

If you're driving through on a road trip and your home state's reciprocity agreement with Florida only covers concealed carry, that agreement doesn't automatically extend to how you carry. Check the specifics for your state pair before you cross the line, not after.

Regulations like this change state by state, sometimes court ruling by court ruling, and keeping track of all fifty is not a casual weekend project. That's the entire reason Range Ready's regulations directory exists: reciprocity, permit requirements, and carry rules for every state, kept current, in one place, instead of fifty different state-attorney-general PDFs.

See Florida's current carry regulations on Range Ready