U.S. Virgin Islands

The US Virgin Islands prohibits open carry of both long guns and handguns per the territory's Firearms and Air Guns Act; only concealed carry (shall-issue post-Bruen, though reportedly still restrictive in practice) is licensed. Sourced only from a secondary (Wikipedia) — I could not reach VIPD or an official VI statute site this session, so this needs independent confirmation before shipping.

Could not find a specific, citable U.S. Virgin Islands statute or official source addressing carry in places of worship; general secondary summaries cover licensing but are silent on this location. Marked unclear rather than guessed.

Could not reach any U.S. Virgin Islands government source (legis.vi.gov did not resolve) or find a reliable secondary source addressing carry-permit rules for restaurants/bars serving alcohol in the territory. No usable source found.

The U.S. Virgin Islands has 'a stringent and restrictive licensing process to purchase or carry a firearm' per available secondary summaries, but I could not find or confirm a primary V.I. Code citation addressing carry locations generally or vessels specifically, so this does not meet the bar for a yes/no/conditional answer.

An Executive Order of the Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands amending Executive Order 54-1961 adds 'Section 7. Firearms in Government Buildings,' which bars any officer, employee, contractor, visitor, or member of the public from carrying, possessing, or having a firearm or ammunition in any government building or interior office — expressly stating this 'applies regardless of whether the individual possesses an active license to conceal carry.' 'Government building' is defined to explicitly include courthouses, hearing rooms, and judicial chambers, as well as administrative offices and legislative facilities. The only exceptions are on-duty law-enforcement officers and a rare Attorney-General-plus-Police-Commissioner-approved individual waiver valid up to 12 months. (The order text itself shows differing 2025/2026 dates for the notice versus the signature; I am citing what the document states rather than resolving that discrepancy.)

The US Virgin Islands moved to "shall issue" concealed-carry licensing post-Bruen, but attempts to access the primary V.I. Code provisions on prohibited carrying locations (Title 23) returned an access-denied error, and no secondary source found addressed university/college campuses (e.g., University of the Virgin Islands) specifically. Flagging as unclear rather than guessing.

The U.S. Virgin Islands moved to 'shall issue' permitting after Bruen, but I could not find a reliable, specific source (official or otherwise) addressing the default rule for carry in an ordinary private business absent a posted sign. Flagging as unclear rather than guessing.

A specialized secondary CCW-law source (CCWCalc) cites 23 V.I.C. 453(i)(9)/(l)(9) for an opt-out rule ('may not carry ... where conspicuous signage ... is posted, or where the owner communicates the prohibition personally'), consistent with the national default. However, I could not confirm this from an official primary source — Justia's codified version of 23 V.I.C. 453 does not match this citation/subsection at all, and the Virgin Islands is in the middle of a major, actively litigated firearms-law overhaul (Governor Bryan's 'Second Amendment Rights and Public Safety Act,' proposed Feb. 2026, amid what reporting describes as a 'triple legal onslaught' of federal lawsuits from DOJ, GOA, and a private plaintiff). Given this flux and the inability to verify the current, in-force text, this is genuinely unresolved rather than a confident yes.

The U.S. Virgin Islands is a 'shall issue' jurisdiction post-Bruen per Wikipedia's 'Gun laws in the United States Virgin Islands,' but that source does not address airport carry, non-resident permit recognition, or a specific sensitive-places list, and I could not locate or access the Virgin Islands Code's firearms provisions directly in this session.

I could not find a reliable, specific source describing vehicle-carry rules (permit requirement, loaded/unloaded, locked-container rules) for the U.S. Virgin Islands after real effort. What I could confirm is only that a license is required to purchase/possess a firearm at all and that firearms must be registered with the VI Police Department — nothing specific about carrying in a vehicle. Do not treat any assumption here as reliable; a traveler should contact VIPD directly before carrying.

The U.S. Virgin Islands became a 'shall-issue' concealed-carry jurisdiction post-Bruen, per available secondary sourcing, but I found no information — official or secondary — addressing hospital- or medical-office-specific carry restrictions there. Could not confirm either way.

The U.S. Virgin Islands adopted a nominally shall-issue concealed-carry framework after Bruen, but permits reportedly remain hard to obtain in practice and open carry is prohibited outright. I could not reach the Virgin Islands Code (title 23) or any USVI government source describing vehicle carry rules or a prohibited-places list; my only source is a general Wikipedia summary that does not address this question. Genuinely unclear.

Could not locate a reliable, specific source addressing whether a U.S. Virgin Islands concealed carry permit holder has any duty to inform law enforcement during a stop. No NRA-ILA page or other fetchable source was found covering this territory's carry law in enough detail. Genuine research gap.

A federal lawsuit filed in mid-2026 in U.S. District Court for the Virgin Islands directly challenges the territory's firearm-licensing scheme for "prevent[ing] nonresidents from applying for licenses to carry concealed" — confirming current USVI law does not allow nonresident visitors to obtain a Virgin Islands carry license (23 V.I.C. § 454-455 licensing process is tied to VIPD/local process). Watch for a possible change if that litigation succeeds.

Could not find a U.S. Virgin Islands-specific K-12 school-zone or school-grounds firearm statute distinct from the general carry-licensing framework in 23 V.I.C. Chapter 5 (which covers who may be licensed to carry, prohibited persons, etc., with no school-specific section visible in its table of contents) or the weapons-crime provisions of 14 V.I.C. Chapter 113 (whose section list also shows no school-specific provision). The USVI's general carry-licensing regime has itself been historically very restrictive and in active flux (subject to post-Bruen Second Amendment litigation, with the licensing chapter reportedly reenacted as recently as June 2026), which further undermines confidence in any secondary-source claim I could find. Given the genuine absence of a locatable primary source, I am marking this unclear rather than guessing.

Could not find a reliable source addressing whether the U.S. Virgin Islands criminalizes ignoring a posted 'no firearms' sign at a private business, distinct from its (very restrictive, largely may-issue) general carry-permitting regime. Marked unclear.

The USVI licensing system (six license types: e.g., business/home protection, target shooting) is administered territory-wide by the VI Police Department, and post-Bruen the territory is described as functionally shall-issue. No evidence was found that individual islands (St. Croix, St. John, St. Thomas) or their local governments can impose additional carry restrictions. However, no explicit statutory preemption clause was located this session — secondary-source (Wikipedia) corroboration only.

No specific U.S. Virgin Islands statute addressing firearms at polling places was found. The territory's gun laws are currently in flux — a major gun-control bill (No. 36-0144) proposing bans, confiscation provisions, and mandatory training was advancing through committee as of September 2025 — but nothing specific to polling places was located in either current law or the pending bill's coverage as reported.

Act 9113 (signed by Gov. Albert Bryan Jr., June 24, 2026) bans the manufacture, sale, transfer, and receipt of magazines holding more than 15 rounds, and bars sale/transfer of firearms 'manufactured to hold' more than 15 rounds. The U.S. DOJ filed a motion for a preliminary injunction on July 22, 2026, calling these provisions 'glaringly unconstitutional' in light of the Third Circuit's ANJRPC ruling; as of the latest reporting found (Aug. 19, 2026), no ruling on that motion had issued and the law remained formally in force.

RECENT and LOWER-CONFIDENCE: The Johns Hopkins-run National ERPO Resource Center identifies the U.S. Virgin Islands as having enacted an Extreme Risk Protection Order law effective January 20, 2025 (as of a February 2026 count of '22 states, DC, and the U.S. Virgin Islands'). This is a secondary/aggregator source only — despite repeated attempts, the underlying Virgin Islands Code citation, bill/act number, and exact petitioner eligibility could not be independently located and should be verified directly against V.I. Code before being treated as authoritative.

All firearms in the USVI require a purchase permit and registration with the VI Police Department (21+, fee, fingerprinting, demonstrated good moral character). Per secondary sourcing (citing the territory's Firearms and Air Guns Act), automatic firearms (machine guns) and short-barreled shotguns are prohibited outright, with no exception noted for federal NFA compliance — indirectly corroborated by 2024 VI legislative activity targeting machine-gun conversion devices. Despite extensive effort, the status of (a) suppressors/silencers specifically and (b) short-barreled RIFLES specifically could not be confirmed — the primary V.I. Code (tit. 23) was not accessible through any available tool. Given the territory's generally restrictive, permit-based regime for all firearms, those two sub-items are marked unclear rather than guessed.

Could not find or confirm a reliable primary or secondary source addressing the U.S. Virgin Islands' duty-to-retreat rule despite extensive search this session. V.I. Code Ann. tit. 14 self-defense/justification provisions were inaccessible (repeated 403/404 errors across multiple legal databases), and no secondary compilation reviewed addressed this territory with any confidence. Genuinely unresolved — do not infer a rule for this jurisdiction without further research.

V.I. Code Ann. tit. 23, §§ 454-457, 473: a license is required to have and possess any firearm in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and issuance is conditioned on 'a check ... of all available state and federal criminal data banks' (§ 456(a)(5)); all firearms must be entered in the territorial Firearms Register, and a 'dealer's coupon' must be retained by 'any person who sells or otherwise provides the licensee with any firearm' -- language that reaches private providers, not just licensed dealers. Sourced from a handgunlaw.us compilation of the current VI Code text (last updated 7/9/2026) since the official Lexis VI Code site returned access errors during this research.

The '2026 Second Amendment Rights and Public Safety Act' (Act 9113, signed by Gov. Bryan June 24, 2026) made it unlawful to possess, manufacture, import, transfer, transport, sell, or use a firearm suppressor. A legislative amendment adopted in late August 2026 would narrow this to limited residence/business/range possession only (no public carry), but its final enactment could not be confirmed — the DOJ Civil Rights Division, which already had an active Second Amendment lawsuit against the territory, has expanded that complaint to challenge the new bans, indicating a ban (or a still-restrictive successor) remains the operative law as of this research. Status is in active flux and under federal litigation.

14 V.I.C. §2253 makes unauthorized possession of a machine gun a 15-20 year felony with a $25,000 fine; Act 9113 (June 2026) preserved this prohibition, exempting only authorized personnel (law enforcement/military) — no civilian federal-NFA carve-out found.

Legal reporting on Act 9113 (signed June 24, 2026) confirms the law 'preserves prohibitions on automatic weapons, ghost guns, explosive devices, short barreled rifles and shotguns,' with exemptions limited to authorized personnel.

14 V.I.C. §2253 directly criminalizes possessing a 'sawed-off shotgun' (15-20 year felony, $25,000 fine); Act 9113 preserved this prohibition.

Act 9113 (June 2026) is reported to preserve a prohibition on 'explosive devices' with exemptions only for authorized personnel. True AOW status specifically was not separately confirmed, but the territory's broadly restrictive, permit-based regime for all firearms leaves no apparent lawful civilian path.