Written by Alex• May 17, 2026• 1:27 pm• Blog Entries

Pennsylvania Wants To Bring Back Former Hunters

Recently proposed Pennsylvania legislation, if passed, would allow non-resident hunters with ties to the Keystone state to pay resident license fees. The idea being to bring more hunting, and more economic stimulation to Pennsylvania. Under the current laws a a resident hunting license is a little over $20 whereas a non-resident license over $100.

This proposed legislation would allow non-residents who were born in Pennsylvania to buy at the resident rate. The new license would be called the Native Pennsylvania Annual License. Senator Greg Rothman, the legislation’s sponsor sits on the Pennsylvania Senate Game and Fisheries committee as the Chairperson. This is one of (thusfar) 20 bills that Sen Rothman has been the prime sponsor of in the 2025-2026 legislative session.

I’ve been a non-resident of my home state for quite some time, but make it back each year to hunt and visit with family. It’s nice how close that the Pennsylvania deer season aligns with Thanksgiving. With recent changes pushing the PA Deer Firearms opener from the Monday following Thanksgiving to that Saturday (love it or hate it), and legalizing Sunday hunting has compressed the need for PTO requirements for folks traveling home to visit and hunt. I personally am able to take a few weeks off each year. It’s me, I’m the core demographic for Sen Rothman’s legislation.

Pros and Cons

The idea that lowering the cost of the non-resident license to bring back more hunters is, I think a noble one. I can follow Sen Rothman’s logic where if the person in question already has ties to the Keystone state they are more likely to come back and hunt, more likely to spend money, and maybe more likely to come back to the state writ large. It handles cases where students move away for college, adult dependents move away for work, etc. Service members are already covered under every state’s law allowing in state or even waived fees for service members on orders. The bill also handles non-residents that have a former parent or guardian who is a resident of Pennsylvania.

Senator Greg Rothman who authored legislation to allow some Pennsylvania nonresident hunters resident license fees. — PA Senator Greg Rothman, author of the Coming
Home to Hunt legislation.

Generally the Pennsylvania Game Commission appears to be favorable of the idea, and neutral on the language.

As far as perceived cons to the bill, the GoErie coverage I researched didn’t mention any. However, Pennsylvania enjoys one of the least egregious gaps between non-resident and resident hunting I’ve been exposed to. There’s an $80 gap between non-resident licenses and resident license fees which covers some small game species (squirrel, rabbit, grouse, etc) and deer. The resident licenses have not been inflated in a great many years, due at least in part because of the sheer amount of hunters Pennsylvania sees on a year over year basis.

But that’s money that goes towards wildlife management, science, and funding the PA State Game Lands program that many Pennsylvanians enjoy as part of their public lands. I would be curious how many folks this bill would benefit as a statistic, and what the sort of funding impacts to the state agency would be. Bear in mind that the impact would be doubled, as generally federal funding matches the state funding from license sales — and in a post DOGE world federal funding for projects has also been slashed.

Looking at the data however from the, admittedly dated 2022-2023 Pennsylvania Game Commission Annual Report, non-resident hunting licenses account for less 1% of the total Game Fund coming in at $5,608,710 with resident licenses coming in at roughly double that. Curiously the state makes no distinction for all of the other add-on licenses or antlerless permits (I got two last year as a non-resident). The book keeping on behalf of the PGC, or at least the report supports Sen Rothman’s proposed legislation. Cutting a little bit of 1% so long as all other things are equal feels like a win win to stimulate the local economies of the hunting haunts of Pennsylvania. However, I’ll have to do some digging to see if I can find a post Summer of 2025 set of data, when DOGE did the most damage to wildlife and natural resources funding at the federal level.

All in all I’m cautiously optimistic that something like this has some benefits for my home state. I’d like to see more people in the woods carrying on the sporting tradition and keeping Pennsylvania camp culture alive and well.