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If you own land in Arkansas and a hunter or a club has offered you money for access, the first thing worth knowing is what the state expects of you before you take it.
Here's the short version, with an honest caveat: we could not find any special landowner "hunting lease license" in Arkansas Game & Fish Commission (AGFC) materials. Texas requires the landowner to hold a Hunting Lease License from TPWD. AGFC's published license and fee pages list no equivalent for Arkansas landowners. But "we couldn't find one" is not a guarantee, so confirm with AGFC before you accept money. AGFC's licensing line is 833-345-0325.
Two things in Arkansas do carry a written license requirement: guiding hunters for pay, and releasing pen-raised game birds. Those are the lines landowners most need to understand.
This is general information, not legal advice. Rules and fees change. Verify anything here with AGFC before money changes hands, and talk to an Arkansas attorney about your lease agreement.
Leasing hunting rights on your own ground means selling access to the land. The wildlife isn't yours to sell. The hunter still needs their own valid Arkansas hunting license and any required permits or stamps, same as anywhere else. Your lease doesn't replace their license.
What about you hunting your own land? We did not find a landowner exemption stated on the AGFC license pages we read, so we won't tell you one applies. Ask AGFC what your household needs. Either way, it doesn't extend to the people you lease to.
1. Guiding for pay. AGFC's guide license rules apply to anyone who guides, aids or assists another person in taking wildlife, by any method, for pay or other compensation. Residents need a Resident Guide License for hunting; nonresidents need a Nonresident Guide License. AGFC's fee page lists the resident hunting guide license at $250 (combination $350) and the nonresident at $500, and the guide has to carry it. The nonresident rule refers to hunting on land the Commission doesn't own or lease, which points to private land being covered.
What we couldn't verify: whether landowners who guide on their own ground are exempt, and whether waterfowl guiding has its own rule. The AGFC regulation text we read listed no exemptions, and we won't invent one. If you plan to guide, or run a duck operation where you call birds and work a blind for clients, ask AGFC first. Just leasing the land and letting hunters run their own hunt is a different thing from guiding.
2. Releasing pen-raised game birds. Arkansas requires a Game Bird Shooting Resort Permit to manage planted hunts for game birds on your property. Per AGFC: the permit was listed at $310 and expires June 30; the land has to be contiguous and no more than 1,500 acres, posted with yellow signs; birds must come from a Commission-permitted breeder or dealer, a National Poultry Improvement Program flock, or an importation permit; and applicants must be at least 18 and show local-ordinance compliance. Hunters 16 and older on a licensed resort that supplies pen-raised birds don't need an Arkansas hunting license. AGFC also lists a separate Commercial Wildlife Hunting Resort permit; ask AGFC if your plans go beyond birds.
The line isn't whether you're charging money. It's whether you're releasing birds or guiding. A landowner who leases 300 acres of timber and field to a deer club is in a different category from one who buys quail and sells hunts over them.
Possibly, and this is the part to take seriously. Arkansas has a recreational use statute (Ark. Code 18-11-301 et seq.) that generally limits what owners owe people who use their land for recreation for free. But section 18-11-307 says the statute does not limit liability for injury "in any case in which the owner of land charges the person or persons who enter." So taking money for hunting access can put you outside the protection. The statute carves out money received under a lease to the state, a state subdivision or a third person, and we could not confirm how that carve-out applies to a hunting lease, or how courts read it.
Don't treat the statute as your safety net. Talk to an Arkansas attorney and your insurance agent, and read our guide on hunting lease liability and insurance for landowners.
For most Arkansas landowners leasing wild-game hunting, the real trouble is rarely a license. It's the lease.
Get it in writing. Cover the term and dates, the money and when it's due, how many hunters and whether guests are allowed, what may be taken, stands and feeders and whether they come down at the end, vehicles and gates, and what happens if somebody gets hurt. Most lease fights trace back to something obvious nobody wrote down. Our free sample hunting lease agreement walks through it.
Know your ground. Arkansas leases range from Delta timber and rice fields to Ozark hardwoods. If you have flooded timber or fields, there's a market for Arkansas duck ground as well as deer and turkey; our Arkansas duck hunting leases page covers it.
Decide what you're selling. A full-season lease and a handful of day hunts are different products. Land that won't lease for a season will often sell days all fall, a lower-commitment way to learn what your place is worth.
The Hunting Exchange is a free way to put your land in front of hunters already searching for ground. Our Arkansas hunting leases page shows how it works.
It costs nothing to list. You set the price, the dates, the number of hunters and the rules, and you message the hunter through the site before you agree to anything, so you choose who's on your property. On a season lease, payment is held in escrow until the hunter has been out and confirmed the place matches your listing, then released to you (the escrow and site-visit window apply to leases only). Day access pays out instantly. Guided and outfitter bookings are paid directly and don't carry escrow.
You keep 100% of the price you set. The hunter pays a small 5% service fee on top of your number. It never comes out of your payout. If your land never books, you never owe anything.
Our Georgia, Oklahoma and Texas landowner requirements guides are the siblings to this one. Georgia also has no landowner lease license we could find but has a shooting preserve license; Oklahoma has no landowner lease license but has its own commercial-hunting-area and guide rules; Texas, by contrast, does require the landowner to hold a license. Our Alabama hunting lease requirements guide covers that state, and how to lease your land for hunting walks through the full setup process.
The Hunting Exchange: built in Texas, and we list ground in any state.
Nothing on this page is legal advice. Arkansas wildlife regulations, license requirements, fees and liability statutes change; confirm current rules directly with the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission, and consult an Arkansas attorney about your situation and your lease agreement.
Browse hunting leases with Stripe escrow protection. Free to search.