generated: '2026-09-05'
method: probed
provider: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)
providerId: bureau-of-alcohol-tobacco-firearms-and-explosives-atf-
source: >-
  Live probes on 2026-09-05 plus a search of atf.gov, regulations.atf.gov and the
  atfweb GitHub organization for any versioning, deprecation, SLA or status
  commitment.
summary: >-
  ATF makes no lifecycle commitments about its API surface. There is no published
  versioning policy, no deprecation policy, no Sunset or Deprecation header, no
  SLA and no status page. This is an unusually consequential gap for a regulatory
  data source: consumers of 27 CFR text and of the Federal Firearms Licensee list
  are building compliance workflows on endpoints that carry no stability promise
  and no notification channel if they change.
versioning:
  api_versioning: none
  detail: >-
    No /v1/ path segment, no version header, no media-type versioning on any
    endpoint. What LOOKS like versioning is data versioning: eRegulations
    identifies each state of a CFR part by the Federal Register document number
    that produced it (/api/regulation/478/2026-01141), which is a citation, not an
    interface version. The ArcGIS `currentVersion: 12` is the Esri platform
    release.
  data_versions_available:
    - part: '447'
      title: Importation of Arms, Ammunition and Implements of War
      versions: 10
      latest: '2022-08026'
      latest_effective: '2022-08-24'
    - part: '478'
      title: Commerce in Firearms and Ammunition
      versions: 24
      latest: '2026-01141'
      latest_effective: '2026-01-22'
    - part: '479'
      title: Machine Guns, Destructive Devices, and Certain Other Firearms
      versions: 8
      latest: '2023-01001'
      latest_effective: '2023-01-31'
    - part: '555'
      title: Commerce in Explosives
      versions: 12
      latest: '2019-24570'
      latest_effective: '2019-12-26'
    - part: '646'
      title: Contraband Cigarettes
      versions: 2
      latest: '2014-18842'
      latest_effective: '2014-08-11'
    - part: '771'
      title: Rules of Practice in Explosive License and Permit Proceedings
      versions: 1
      latest: '2019-24570'
      latest_effective: '2019-12-26'
  note: >-
    Version counts and dates above were read from GET /api/regulation/{part} on
    2026-09-05. Note the spread: 27 CFR 478 is current to January 2026 while
    27 CFR 646 has not been reloaded since 2014 — a consumer should not assume
    every part is equally fresh.
deprecation:
  policy_url: null
  sunset_header: false
  deprecation_header: false
  deprecated_operations: []
  detail: >-
    No RFC 8594 Sunset header and no Deprecation header on any response. No
    deprecation policy page exists. Nothing signals in advance that an endpoint
    or a dataset is going away.
sla:
  published: false
  uptime_target: null
  detail: No service-level agreement or availability target is published.
status_page:
  url: null
  detail: >-
    ATF operates no status page. Searched atf.gov and the standard vendors; there
    is no status.atf.gov, no Statuspage/Instatus/Better Stack tenant, and no
    incident feed. Outages are unannounced. The ArcGIS-hosted layers inherit Esri's
    ArcGIS Online status page (https://status.arcgis.com/), which is a THIRD-PARTY
    signal covering the platform, not ATF's data.
change_notification:
  channel: none
  detail: >-
    There is no API changelog and no developer mailing list. The nearest thing is
    a domain-specific feed rather than an engineering one: GET /api/notice returns
    the dated Federal Register notices that amend these parts, with
    document_number, publication_date, effective_on and the federalregister.gov
    URL. That tells a consumer when the REGULATION changed. It says nothing about
    when the API changes.
data_freshness:
  - dataset: Federal Firearm Licensees locations
    records: 77514
    last_edited: '2026-06-17'
    source: geoservices FeatureServer editingInfo / DCAT modified timestamp
  - dataset: ATF Office Locations
    records: 537
    last_edited: '2026-04-16'
    source: geoservices FeatureServer editingInfo / DCAT modified timestamp