Bill Description: House Bill 855 would require someone to live in Idaho for at least 5 years (rather than 6 months) before being allowed to apply for a lifetime license or certificate for hunting, fishing, or trapping. 

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Does it directly or indirectly create or increase any taxes, fees, or other assessments? Conversely, does it eliminate or reduce any taxes, fees, or other assessments?

Section 36-413, Idaho Code, provides for the purchase of lifetime licenses or certificates for hunting, fishing, or trapping. Parents are incentivized to purchase such certificates for their children because the cost is 25x the annual cost if purchased before the child turns 2, but increases to 35x the annual cost for anyone age 2 – 50. (Those over age 50 can obtain one for 20x the annual cost.) 

House Bill 855 would amend this section to limit eligibility for a lifetime license or certificate to someone who “has been a resident of this state for at least five (5) years immediately preceding the date of application for the lifetime license certificate.” In the case of parents purchasing one for a child, “if the applicant is under the age of five (5) years, a legal guardian of the child shall have been a resident of this state for at least five (5) years immediately preceding the date of application.”

This change would exclude many bona fide Idaho residents from obtaining these licenses, and could substantially increase the cost to purchase one for a child born in the state to parents who have not lived here for five years before the child turns two. 

It is also worth noting that the state constitution recognizes the “rights to hunt, fish and trap,” and nothing in the constitution suggests that rights are subject to a waiting period.

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