Pennsylvania · Fishing license · Cost
How much is a fishing license in Pennsylvania?
$27.97 a year if you live here, $60.97 if you don't.
Just passing through? Tourist, 1 day costs $31.97 — the annual pays for itself from about 2 of those.
Every license price
| License | Who | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Resident, annual (16 to 64) Needs proof of residency. The trout and Lake Erie permits are separate. | Resident | $27.97 |
| Senior resident, annual (65 and up) | Resident | $14.47 |
| Senior resident, lifetime (65 and up) One-time purchase. | Resident | $86.97 |
| Resident, 1 day Not valid between March 15 and April 30. | Resident | $14.47 |
| Disabled veteran, reduced rate For a service-connected disability rated 60 to 99 percent. | Resident | $2.97 |
| Non-resident, annual | Visitor | $60.97 |
| Out-of-state student in PA, annual For students attending school in Pennsylvania who have not become residents. | Visitor | $27.97 |
| Tourist, 1 day Not valid between March 15 and April 30. No trout or Lake Erie permit needed with this one. | Visitor | $31.97 |
| Tourist, 3 days | Visitor | $31.97 |
| Tourist, 7 days | Visitor | $39.47 |
What comes on top
These are separate from the base license. Buying the license alone is not always enough.
| Trout permit Required to fish for trout. PFBC counts you as fishing for trout if you keep one, fish waters under special trout regulations, fish Class A wild trout waters or wilderness trout streams and their tributaries, or fish stocked trout water between February 16 and May 31. | $14.97 |
|---|---|
| Lake Erie permit Required for Lake Erie, Presque Isle Bay and their tributaries, including the waters flowing into those tributaries. | $9.97 |
| Combination trout and Lake Erie permit Cheaper than buying both, and around Erie you often need both. | $20.97 |
Fees inside the price
Every price already includes PFBC's issuing agent fee of $1.00 and a 97-cent transaction fee — that is why the totals end in .97 or .47. A replacement license with previously bought permits costs $6.97, or nothing if you reprint it online.
How long your money lasts
The 2026 license runs from December 1, 2025 through December 31, 2026 — up to 13 months if you buy early. PFBC puts the next year's licenses on sale each December.
What we could not pin down
Rather than fill these in from somewhere else, they stay open until PFBC states them plainly.
- Pennsylvania sells 3-year, 5-year and 10-year licenses — the summary book confirms they run through 2028, 2030 and 2035 — but no official page gave their prices at retrieval. They are left out of the table rather than published with a guessed figure.
- Two official PFBC sources disagree on the free license for veterans rated 100 percent disabled: the fee page calls it an annual license, the 2026 summary book calls it a lifetime license. Left out of the table until the agency is consistent.
- The old fishandboat.com license pages now redirect to the pa.gov portal. Prices were read from the live pa.gov page and cross-checked against the fee structure in the 2026 summary book.
