Do You Have to Tell Police You're Armed in Florida?

The controlling language sits in Florida Statute 790.06, the law that governs the Concealed Weapon or Firearm License (CWFL), and in Florida Statute 790.013, the companion statute the Legislature added in 2023 for people carrying without a license. Neither one uses the words "inform," "disclose," or "notify" anywhere in connection with a law enforcement encounter. What they require is narrower:

"A licensee must carry valid identification at all times in which the licensee is in actual possession of a concealed weapon or concealed firearm and must display such identification upon demand by a law enforcement officer."

That is Fla. Stat. 790.06(1)(c), and it is the entire disclosure obligation for a licensed carrier. A violation is a noncriminal infraction carrying a $25 fine, the same tier as a parking ticket, not an arrestable offense.

Fla. Stat. 790.013, created by House Bill 543 (Ch. 2023-18, Laws of Fla.) and effective July 1, 2023, copies that exact structure for people who carry concealed without a CWFL under Florida's permitless-carry framework. A permitless carrier "must carry valid identification at all times when he or she is in actual possession of a concealed weapon or concealed firearm and must display such identification upon demand by a law enforcement officer," per 790.013(1)(a), and faces the identical $25 noncriminal fine under 790.013(1)(b) for failing to do so. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS), which still issues CWFLs and confirmed the July 1, 2023 effective date in its official guidance on the bill, treats licensed and unlicensed carriers the same way on this point.

Show ID if an officer asks for it while you are carrying. That is the law. Announcing the gun itself is not.

A traffic stop on I-4 outside Orlando. You get pulled for a taillight, and you have a CWFL and a pistol in the center console. You hand over your license and registration when asked and say nothing about the firearm. Nothing in 790.06 obligates you to bring it up, and nothing about staying quiet on that point is a violation.

A "man with a gun" call outside a Pensacola big-box store. Someone's jacket rides up, a holstered pistol shows for a second, and a bystander calls it in. A deputy responds and asks directly whether you are carrying. At that point you are answering a direct question, not volunteering information, and Florida law still does not criminalize the brief, unintentional display itself; 790.053(1) specifically exempts a firearm that is "briefly and openly" shown to someone's ordinary sight as long as it is not done in an angry or threatening manner.

A boat check on the St. Johns River. A Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer flags you down for a routine safety inspection and you have a handgun in a dry bag. The officer never asks about weapons, so you never say anything. No statute requires you to raise the subject unprompted, on the water or on land.

A DUI stop where the officer asks "any weapons in the car?" This is the scenario where people tend to tense up. You can answer honestly, and most CWFL instructors recommend doing exactly that to keep the stop calm. But the legal obligation created by 790.06 and 790.013 is still limited to showing your ID if you are carrying, not to answering every question an officer puts to you during the stop.

There is no carve-out that creates a disclosure duty for any class of Florida carrier. CWFL holders and permitless carriers are treated identically on this question: both must show ID on demand while actually in possession of a concealed weapon or firearm, and neither has to say a word about the firearm itself unless an officer asks.

The one piece of state authority that works against you here is unrelated to disclosure. Florida's Stop and Frisk Law, Fla. Stat. 901.151, lets an officer who has reasonable suspicion that you are involved in criminal activity detain you briefly to check your identity, and if the officer separately has probable cause to believe you are armed and dangerous, 901.151(5) authorizes a pat-down limited to finding the weapon. That power exists independent of anything you say or don't say about being armed.

Florida also will not let a city or county create its own duty-to-inform ordinance. Fla. Stat. 790.33 declares that the Legislature occupies "the whole field of regulation of firearms and ammunition" and voids any local ordinance or rule that conflicts with state law. A police department can train its officers to ask about weapons during every stop, and many do, but it cannot write a local law requiring you to volunteer the information first.

Nobody is getting arrested for simply staying quiet about a legally carried firearm during a routine stop. The $25 fine only attaches to failing to produce ID when an officer asks for it while you are armed.

A lot of online write-ups claim Florida CWFL holders have an affirmative duty to tell an officer they are armed. That is not what 790.06 says. The statute's only operative language on this point is the ID requirement quoted above, and some of the secondary summaries floating around conflate "it's a good idea to mention it" with "the law requires it." Those are different things, and only the second one would belong in a statute.

A second misconception: that open carry is generally legal in Florida, so a visible holster is automatically fine. Fla. Stat. 790.053 makes open carry a second-degree misdemeanor outside a short list of exceptions (chemical spray, nonlethal stun devices, and a brief, non-threatening glimpse of a concealed firearm). A deliberately open holster on your hip walking into a gas station is a different legal question than disclosure during a stop, and the two get mixed together in a lot of casual advice.

A third misconception: that refusing to answer "are you carrying" is itself obstruction. Florida's false-information statute, Fla. Stat. 837.055, criminalizes knowingly lying to an officer, but only in the context of a missing person investigation or a felony criminal investigation, not a routine traffic or pedestrian stop. There is no general Florida statute that criminalizes silence about a legally carried firearm.

Last misconception worth flagging: that the 2023 switch to permitless carry changed any of this. HB 543 (Ch. 2023-18) removed the license requirement for carrying concealed, effective July 1, 2023, but it did not touch the disclosure question at all. Permitless carriers inherited the same ID-on-demand rule licensees already had, nothing more and nothing less.

• Fla. Stat. 790.06, License to carry concealed weapon or concealed firearm, The Florida Senate
• Fla. Stat. 790.013, Carrying of concealed weapons or concealed firearms without a license, The Florida Senate
• Fla. Stat. 790.053, Open carrying of weapons, The Florida Senate
• Fla. Stat. 790.33, Field of regulation of firearms and ammunition preempted, The Florida Senate
• Fla. Stat. 901.151, Stop and Frisk Law, The Florida Senate
• Fla. Stat. 837.055, False information to law enforcement during investigation, The Florida Senate
• FDACS, House Bill 543 Frequently Asked Questions (PDF)
• Executive Office of Governor Ron DeSantis, Governor Ron DeSantis Signs HB 543, Constitutional Carry

Last Reviewed: October 14, 2026