DOJ Sues San Jose Over Its $1,591 Concealed Carry Fee, Calls It Unconstitutional

The Department of Justice sued the city of San Jose and its police department on Wednesday, September 16, arguing that the city's $1,591 concealed carry permit fee is so expensive it violates the Second Amendment.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, calls San Jose "a national outlier when it comes to burdening the exercise of fundamental rights." DOJ's Civil Rights Division, through its Second Amendment Section, asked the court for a permanent injunction barring the city from charging what it calls "abusive licensing fees."

The Numbers

San Jose's city council raised the fee to $1,591 in June through Resolution No. 2026-183, according to Hoodline, an increase of roughly $300 over the previous rate set about two and a half years earlier. Applicants pay 20 percent, or $318, up front when filing, with the remaining $1,273 due if the license is approved, according to Courthouse News Service.

Once mandatory psychological evaluations, firearms safety training, Live Scan fingerprinting, and state processing fees are added, the total cost to get licensed in San Jose can top $2,000 every two years, Hoodline reported, citing Bearing Arms.

DOJ's complaint lines that figure up against fees elsewhere. San Francisco charges $144. Berkeley charges $255 to apply and $325 more on approval. Santa Clara charges $488 up front and $488 at issuance, totaling $976. Alameda County charges a combined $693. Outside California, Washington, D.C. charges $75, Boston charges $100, Chicago charges $150, New York City's three-year license runs $340, and Philadelphia charges $20, according to the Mercury News and Courthouse News.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon framed the legal argument in blunt terms. "All law-abiding Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms for self-defense," she said in a DOJ statement. "You don't need a law degree to recognize that charging a fee several times higher than the cost of the firearm itself is illogical, and an unconstitutional attempt to impede Americans' Second Amendment rights."

The Legal Theory

DOJ isn't arguing that California's shall-issue permitting system itself is unconstitutional. The complaint acknowledges that the Supreme Court's Bruen decision allows shall-issue licensing as long as it relies on narrow, objective standards, according to The Reload. What DOJ argues crosses the line is the price tag. It cites language from Bruen warning that "exorbitant fees" could "deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry," and argues San Jose's fee scheme makes it "impractical for middle-class citizens and impossible for low-income citizens" to exercise that right, per Courthouse News.

The complaint also invokes 34 U.S.C. § 12601, a federal statute letting DOJ sue local police departments over patterns of constitutional violations, arguing San Jose officers are enforcing an unlawful fee scheme, according to Hoodline.

San Jose's Defense

City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood pushed back before the suit was even filed. In a September 15 letter to Dhillon, she called DOJ's allegations "based on a number of misconceptions" and said the fee reflects full cost recovery under California law, which permits cities to charge fees equal to the reasonable cost of processing, issuing, and enforcing a license, according to Courthouse News.

Wood said the fee breaks down to more than $1,200 in staff time, at 6.5 hours per application, plus nearly $350 in indirect overhead. "Every dollar of the fee is tied to a specific, auditable cost of doing this work, and the calculation is reviewed annually for accuracy and adjusted as required," she wrote.

DOJ had given San Jose a deadline of 5 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, September 15, to pause fee enforcement and open settlement talks, in a demand letter sent September 9 to Mayor Matt Mahan, Police Chief Paul Joseph, and Wood, according to Hoodline. That deadline passed without a deal, and DOJ filed suit the next day.

NBC Bay Area reported it reached out to Mayor Mahan for comment and did not immediately hear back. The San Jose Police Department told NBC Bay Area it does not comment on pending litigation.

Part of a Bigger Push

This is DOJ's third lawsuit over gun-carry permitting fees or processes, following actions against Los Angeles and the Virgin Islands, according to The Reload. The department has also threatened litigation against Philadelphia and Minnesota this same week.

A cost-accounting question sits at the center of this fight that the lawsuit doesn't settle. San Jose says its $1,591 figure is auditable, tied to actual staff hours and overhead, and reviewed annually. Santa Clara County, next door, charges $976 for a comparable process, according to the Mercury News, and that fee is already facing separate litigation over its own price. If two adjacent jurisdictions running similar licensing procedures land nearly $600 apart, a federal judge will eventually have to decide whether San Jose's math reflects legitimate cost recovery or a fee structure DOJ says amounts to pricing ordinary residents out of a constitutional right. No trial date has been set.