Knife Laws by State: OTF and Automatic Knives, Blade Length and Carry in All 50 States

The Short Version

There is no national knife law for your pocket. The Federal Switchblade Act of 1958 regulates how automatic knives move between states and onto federal land. Whether you may own one, carry one, conceal one, and how long its blade may be is decided by the state you are standing in and sometimes by the city. As of October 2026, automatic knives, which include every OTF, are legal to own in 45 states. Five ban them: Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Washington. In the 45, the questions are whether you may carry one concealed, how long the blade may be, how old you must be, and where you cannot take it, and those answers are different in nearly every state.

This page is the map. The board above gives the shape of it, the table below gives every state its own line, and every state name links to a full guide with the statutes quoted, the penalties, the places, the local ordinances and the date we checked it. The first version of this page was a four-column table of Legal and Illegal. This one replaces it with what the statutes actually say, and it corrects a number of entries that had gone out of date, Delaware, Vermont, Hawaii, Iowa and Nebraska among them.

How to Read the Table

Each state has one line with a pill and a sentence. The pill answers the first question, whether an adult may own and carry an automatic knife in the state at all: Legal, Prohibited, or a condition such as a license, an age or a length. The sentence gives the carry rule that matters most in that state and anything unusual, and the link goes to the full guide. Three terms recur. An automatic, switchblade or OTF is a knife whose blade opens by a button, slider or spring in the handle. Every state that regulates one regulates all of them, and an OTF is a switchblade in law everywhere. Concealed means hidden from ordinary observation, which in most states includes a knife fully in a pocket and in some states includes a knife in a glove box. A few states say a visible clip or a belt sheath is open carry. A blade length is measured differently from state to state, usually from the handle to the tip, and the state page says how. Where a state has no rule, the line says so, because the absence of a statute is the fact you need.

All 50 States

Federal Law: What the 1958 Act Does and Does Not Do

The Federal Switchblade Act, Public Law 85-623 of August 12, 1958, now 15 U.S.C. 1241 to 1245, makes it a crime to manufacture, import, transport or distribute a switchblade knife in interstate commerce, or to sell one on federal land or in the territories. It defines a switchblade as a knife with a blade that opens automatically by a button or other device in the handle, or by gravity or inertia, which covers every side-opening automatic and every OTF. It exempts common carriers, the Armed Forces and their contractors, and a person with one arm carrying a blade of three inches or less. Since 2009, 15 U.S.C. 1244(5) also exempts assisted-opening knives, which have a spring that biases the blade closed and are opened by the thumb. In 1986 Congress added ballistic knives, 15 U.S.C. 1245.

What the act does not do is make it a federal crime to own, carry or use an automatic knife. Those are state questions and always have been. Two other federal rules matter in practice: 18 U.S.C. 1716(g) makes switchblades nonmailable through the Postal Service except to a short list of recipients, which is why automatics travel by private carrier, and 18 U.S.C. 930 bars knives with blades over 2.5 inches, and any knife carried as a weapon, from federal facilities and courthouses. Airport security is federal too, and it takes every knife at the checkpoint. The history of switchblades explains how the act came to be.

The Five Ban States, and the Ones That Have Left

Five states ban automatic knives outright. Minnesota makes possession a misdemeanor and leaves manual knives alone. New Jersey lists switchblades with daggers and gravity knives and criminalizes possession without an explainable lawful purpose, of which self-defense is not one. The ban was challenged in federal court in September 2026 and no ruling has issued. New Mexico bars possessing, buying, selling or carrying one as a petty misdemeanor. New York makes possession a class A misdemeanor with a single exception for licensed hunters, trappers and anglers, and New York City adds a 4-inch rule for every knife. Washington bans spring blade knives as a gross misdemeanor and Seattle adds its own limits.

The list used to be much longer, and the direction is one way. New Hampshire repealed first in 2010. Missouri, Alaska, Texas, Kansas and Indiana followed by 2013. Tennessee, Oklahoma, Nevada, Maine, Wisconsin, Colorado, Michigan, Louisiana and Montana by 2019. Ohio in 2021, Virginia in 2022 and 2023, Pennsylvania in 2023. Hawaii by statute and Massachusetts by court decision in 2024. Vermont and Delaware in 2025. Illinois opened the door to FOID holders in 2017. Each state's page has the bill and the effective date.

Open Carry, Concealed Carry and the Pocket Clip

Where an automatic is legal to own, no state bars carrying it openly. The restrictions fall on concealment, and they come in three kinds. Some states bar concealing an automatic at all: Hawaii, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina and Oregon, with Delaware and North Dakota allowing it under a license. Some set an age: 21 in Alaska, Kentucky and West Virginia, with provisional licenses at 18 in West Virginia. Some set a length: 3 inches concealed in Rhode Island, 3.5 in Colorado, and 3.5 under 21 in Nebraska. What counts as concealed is its own question. South Dakota says a knife is not concealed if any part of it can be seen. North Dakota says a visible belt sheath is open carry and a glove box is not. Nebraska and Mississippi have not settled whether a clipped knife with the handle showing is concealed. The carry guide goes through the clip, the sheath and the vehicle rules, and the rule of thumb is that in a state whose law turns on concealment, the whole handle shows.

Blade Length

Length limits are scattered and they measure differently. California's 2-inch rule for automatics is the one that shapes the market, and it is why the 1.85-inch A5 Spry Mini and A2 Badger exist. The OTF blade length guide and the California-legal OTF guide cover it. Connecticut sets 1.5 inches for an automatic and 4 inches of edge for any knife. Rhode Island's 3 inches, measured from the end of the handle, and Colorado's 3.5 inches apply to concealed carry of any knife. Nebraska's 3.5 inches and West Virginia's 3.5-inch pocketknife exclusion decide what counts as a knife at all, as does Missouri's 4-inch pocketknife and Florida's 4-inch common pocketknife. Idaho and North Dakota draw a line at 6 inches, Texas at 5.5 for its location rule, Georgia at 12, and New York City at 4 in public. Where no length is listed on the state page, there is none.

Age: 18, 21 and No Rule

State knife laws treat minors three ways. Some set a minimum age to own or carry a particular knife: Delaware and West Virginia bar anyone under 18 from a switchblade or a long blade, Alaska requires a parent's consent under 16, Utah requires a parent's permission for any dangerous weapon under 18. Some restrict the adult who sells or gives a knife to a minor, Alabama, Mississippi, Rhode Island, Virginia and Alaska among them, without restricting the minor's own possession. And many set no age at all, leaving it to parents and schools. Concealed carry adds a second line at 21 in Alaska, Kentucky, West Virginia, Florida (for anything beyond a common pocketknife), Arizona and Nebraska. The state page has the rule, and the guide to teaching children knife safety has the rest.

Cities, Counties and Preemption

Where a state has not preempted local knife rules, a city may add its own, and the big ones do. Chicago bans automatics with no FOID exception and caps concealed blades at 2.5 inches. New York City bars any blade of 4 inches or more in public and any knife in open view. Baltimore City bans switchblades outright. Seattle bars fixed blades and any blade over 3.5 inches. Denver sets its own concealed limit. Boston caps blades at 2.5 inches outside work and recreation. Clark County, Nevada, bars a concealed blade of 3 inches or more on the Las Vegas Strip. Minneapolis and St. Paul, Rapid City and Sioux Falls, Portland's parks and Philadelphia all have rules the state page notes. In a preemption state the city may not: Arizona, Alaska, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin have statutes that reserve knife regulation to the state, and the state page says where the preemption has carve-outs, as Wisconsin's does for public buildings.

Where No Knife Goes

• SchoolsNearly every state bars knives at K-12 schools by statute, from a 2-inch rule to any blade, and every district bars them by policy. Several states make it a felony.
  State pages
• CourthousesNearly every courthouse screens at the door and several states make a knife inside a crime. Oregon lets a judge order it surrendered, Pennsylvania bars automatics in court facilities.
  State pages
• AirportsNo knife of any kind past the checkpoint. Checked baggage only, sheathed or closed and wrapped.
  TSA
• Federal facilitiesNo knife with a blade over 2.5 inches, and no knife carried as a weapon, in a federal building or federal courthouse.
  18 U.S.C. 930
• Bars and liquor establishmentsRestricted in a number of states, North Dakota, Missouri and Texas among them. The state page lists the places.
  State pages
• Private property and workplacesAn owner may bar knives and an employer may set a policy. The remedy is being asked to leave, and after that, trespass.
  Trespass

Traveling With a Knife Across State Lines

No federal law protects a knife in transit the way the Firearm Owners Protection Act protects a firearm. A knife that is legal where you live and legal where you are going is still illegal in a ban state you drive through, and a traffic stop in that state is a possession charge. The practical rules: know the states on the route, keep anything restricted locked in the trunk rather than the glove box or console, since several states treat the passenger compartment as concealed carry, and in a ban state leave the automatic at home. Flying, the knife goes in checked baggage and the destination state's law applies when you land. Each state page has the vehicle rule for that state, and the five ban states are the ones to route around.

How We Keep This Guide Current

Every state page was written from the current statutes on the state legislature's own site, with the sections quoted and linked, and checked against the American Knife and Tool Institute's state summaries, AKTI, which are the best secondary source and are themselves sometimes a year or two behind the code. Each page carries the date it was verified. Knife law is changing quickly, mostly in one direction, and a page that says a knife is banned may be out of date a month after it is written. Where we know a bill is pending or a case is in court, the page says so. If you find a statute we have missed or a change we have not caught, tell us and we will fix it. The full method, the sources we use and the claims we will not make are on How We Research Knife Laws. The cases in court, the bills that could change the map and every change since 2023 are on Knife Law Watch, which is reviewed every week. None of this is legal advice. A specific situation needs a lawyer in that state, and a knife you are not sure about stays home.