Florida CC Permit- Apply in person or by mail?

[Neal]

Dear All,

I shared in a previous post that I am an Ohio resident who is in Florida for vacation for the month of February. I plan to apply for my CC permit here in FL (I already have my OH permit). I called today to find out what I need to bring to the Fort Walton Beach office, and was informed that the earliest appointment that they have open is February 24. I was also told that if I apply in person that the processing time is about 2 weeks rather than 90 days if I apply by mail.

Does anyone have experience with this? I hate to use one of our last days of vacation to take care of this, but I travel enough that I would like to get this taken care of. I believe that others have told me that it took them about 45 days to get their FL permit through the mail, and if that is the case then it seems that if I submit my application in the next day or two by mail that it would only take about a week or ten days longer to do it by mail (because it would be in process over the next three weeks while I am waiting for my in-person appointment) than if I take a day to apply in person.

Any experience or advice on this out there? Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks,


Neal

[HootmonSccy]

Dear All,

Does anyone have experience with this? I hate to use one of our last days of vacation to take care of this, but I travel enough that I would like to get this taken care of. I believe that others have told me that it took them about 45 days to get their FL permit through the mail, and if that is the case then it seems that if I submit my application in the next day or two by mail that it would only take about a week or ten days longer to do it by mail (because it would be in process over the next three weeks while I am waiting for my in-person appointment) than if I take a day to apply in person.

Any experience or advice on this out there? Any input would be appreciated.

Neal

Florida was doing terrible a year ago.. They had over 30,000 requests coming in a month.. It was taking 120 days or more to get a permit through, and that was if there were no issues...

They have hired workers and set up the local office option to deal with their backlog.. I have heard recently of people getting permits, by mail, in as little as 35 days more recently..
I had a friend apply in mid Sept and had an investigation on some issue in his background, and he still go his permit in just over 90 days..

If it were me, and I was from Ohio, I'd just mail it it at this point..
I don't know if it would work the same way for you, but here in Floriduh, you can do electronic fingerprints. You then have to pay for the fingerprints through a webpage, then only send $75 in with the application and a copy of the fingerprint card provided (it still comes out to $117). I've heard that this tends to speed things up a little, but I'm not sure.

So that is my knowledge/hearsay/advice - Take it for what it's worth..

[Neal]

Thanks. I was leaning toward going the mail route, and your input is helpful. My assistant back in Ohio is overnighting my gun safety course certificate so I will have it tomorrow, and I thought I had heard from others that they had gotten their permit in 45 days or so. I am going to be traveling through AL again in April (AL does not recognize OH permits, but they do recognize FL permits), so I was hoping to have it by that time.

Thanks,


Neal

[HootmonSccy]

I sent mine "Certified, return receipt".. You don't have to, but at least then you can prove when they received it IF something should go wrong..

[Tucker's Mom]

I sent mine "Certified, return receipt".. You don't have to, but at least then you can prove when they received it IF something should go wrong..

We did the same thing...sent by certified, return receipt. It doesn't take long for me to get my license, just three weeks. Make sure you have everything they need -- fingerprints card/s, CCW certificate, 3 months proof of bill (e.g., credit card, gas, electricity or water bill, just in case they ask), DL...

One of my friends who live there said he just went to the office and submit his application. He got his after a week. They have more people working on those permits nowadays...and they are obliged to send you your permit within 45 working days anyway. It wasn't this way before...

[mrjam2jab]

If you drop it in mail while your are there, you are already saving a little mail transit time.

If you apply in person they do electronic fingerprinting, which you would think would save time...however, this is in the instructions:

ELECTRONIC FINGERPRINTSERVICES ARE AVAILABLE ONLY AT SHERIFFS' OFFICES INTHE STATE OF
FLORIDA.Ifyouarevisiting Floridafromout-of-state,youcangetyourfingerprintsscannedatanearbyshe riff'soffice.
However,youneed to be awarethat if law enforcement authoritiesrejectyourscannedfingerprintsbecause of legibility
problems,the law requiresyoutohaveyourprintsscanned ASECONDTIME atthesamesheriff'sofficewhereyourprints
wereinitiallytaken.IfyouhavealreadyleftFlorida and returnedhomeandareunabletoreturntoFlorida to haveyour
printsscanned again, you will haveto submityoursecondset of printsonafingerprintcardusingthe“hardcard”method.
Becausetheformatofyoursecondfingerprintsubmission( papercard) will be different fromtheformat of your first
submission (digitalscan),FDLEregulationsrequireyou to submita$42fingerprintprocessing feewiththissecond
submission.

[HootmonSccy]

One of my friends who live there said he just went to the office and submit his application. He got his after a week. They have more people working on those permits nowadays...and they are obliged to send you your permit within 45 working days anyway. It wasn't this way before...

Actually it's 90 days in Florida.. They were not making that deadline, and that is why they added more people and added the local offices so they could come back into compliance.

[RugerP345]

Took mine about 2 months - mail in with the fingerprint cards. That was over Xmas and new years also.

Pretty good and IMHO not worth the expense of in-person unless you are going to be in FLA anyway.