What this is
On September 26 this series published The $0-Stamp Year, a report on the first nine months of the $0 tax stamp. ATF had not yet posted its August figures, so the report stated ours first and set a test: if ATF's August averages landed within about five days of them, the sample had tracked ATF through the fastest month-to-month change of the year. It said the next edition would report the result either way.
This is that result. It uses no new data from our side: every NFA Watch figure below is the one already published on September 26. Every ATF figure is ATF's own, from the page it updated on September 29.
What we said, and what ATF posted
The mean wait in this dataset for approvals in August 2026, as published on September 26:
- –Form 1: 18.7 days, on 295 approvals
- –Form 4 Trust: 20.7 days, on 109 approvals
- –Form 4 Individual: 5.4 days, on 96 approvals
ATF's average processing times for eForms finalized in August were 21 days for Form 1, 20 for Form 4 Trust and 6 for Form 4 Individual.
Our August Means, Published First, Against ATF's August Averages
The mean wait for eForm approvals dated August 2026, as published in the 2026 report on 2026-09-26 before ATF posted, beside ATF's average processing time for eForms finalized in August 2026 (page updated 2026-09-29). ATF does not split Form 1 by owner type, so Form 1 is pooled on both sides.
The gaps are 2.3 days, 0.7 and 0.6. All three are inside the five days the report set, so the test held.
It is the second month in a row. For July, ATF published 57, 33 and 9 days, and this dataset's means were 54.0, 32.1 and 9.4. What makes August the stronger check is what happened in between: ATF's own Form 1 average fell 36 days in a single month, and the sample moved with it.
⛔ Means against averages, on purpose. Every other headline figure on this site is a median, and Form 1's August median in this dataset was far below its mean, because most approvals were fast and a tail of older applications cleared behind them. Setting a median against ATF's average would manufacture a disagreement out of two definitions.
⚠️ The figures above were not refreshed. Re-run on October 3 with reports that arrived late, the August means read 18.7, 20.1 and 5.4. The Form 4 Trust figure moved closer to ATF's, and it is still not used here. Swapping a fresher number into a test after the answer is known would turn the test into a fit.
ATF's own ledger: the Form 1 backlog is nearly gone
ATF publishes how many applications it has received and finalized this year. The difference is the work it has not finished.
Applications ATF Had Not Finalized, Three Readings
Year-to-date eForm submissions minus finalizations, from ATF's own published tables, at each reading date. Derived: ATF's September table no longer prints an Outstanding column, so it is computed the way that column was.
For Form 1 that figure was 52,870 on June 1, 18,651 on August 5 and 5,078 on September 3, down 90% since June. Form 4 fell from 54,732 to 20,435 over the same three readings. Between August 5 and September 3, ATF finalized about 1.7 Form 1s for every one it received.
In August as a whole, ATF finalized 300,409 NFA applications against 266,897 received. Intake rose about 18% from July, and the backlog fell anyway, because ATF finalized more than it received.
⚠️ ATF's September table no longer prints an outstanding count. These figures are submissions minus finalizations, which is how the old column was computed; the same arithmetic reproduces ATF's July figures exactly.
What our data cannot see
ATF's tables now separate approvals from other finalizations for the first time. Of the Form 1 applications it finalized in 2026 through September 3, 82% were approved. For Form 4 the figure was 97%.
That leaves 38,971 Form 1s finalized this year without an approval.
⛔ This is not a denial rate. ATF counts disapproved, withdrawn and returned applications together as finalized and does not say how many of each. A Form 1 returned for a correction and filed again may count once as finalized without approval and again as a new submission.
What it does do is put a size on this dataset's largest blind spot. Every figure on NFA Watch comes from people reporting an approval, so an application that ended any other way never reaches us. On Form 4 that is a small slice. On Form 1 it is roughly one finalized application in five or six. Every Form 1 wait this site publishes describes the filers who were approved.
What happens next
The same check runs again when ATF posts its September figures. ATF's page overwrites itself each month with no archive, so each reading is copied into this site's records once it posts.
Method and limits
The NFA Watch figures are the pre-registered means published in the 2026 report, computed from e-filed approvals dated August 2026 as of the September 25, 2026 snapshot, under the same exclusion rules as every edition since August. They describe a community-reported sample of approvals, not ATF's queue.
The ATF figures are ATF's own published statistics from its Current Processing Times page: average processing times for applications finalized in August 2026, and year-to-date submitted, approved and finalized counts as of September 3, 2026. The page footer reads "Last Updated: September 29, 2026." ATF does not split Form 1 by owner type, so Form 1 is pooled on both sides of the comparison.
Charts on this page are locked and will not move. Current medians across all four lanes are on the wait times page.