Victoria Firearm Safety Course Test: What to Expect and How to Prepare

Quiz Victoria Firearm Safety Course Practice Questions

A Complete Guide to the Victoria Firearm Safety Course Test

The Victoria Firearm Safety Course test is required by Victoria Police before most firearms licence applications will be accepted, built around the Firearms Act 1996 (Vic) and the Firearm Safety Code. This guide covers who needs to sit it, the two-part test format, mandatory safety questions, fees, validity, and how to prepare.

What the Victoria Firearm Safety Course test actually checks

If you’re planning to apply for a firearms licence in Victoria, there’s a good chance you’ll need to sit a Firearm Safety Course and pass its test before Victoria Police will accept your application. This isn’t a formality — it’s the mechanism the state uses to confirm that new licence holders understand the Firearms Act, the Firearm Safety Code, and how to store and handle a firearm safely before they’re trusted with one. Knowing exactly what the test covers, how it’s structured and what counts as a pass makes the difference between walking in confident and walking in guessing.

Who needs to sit the course and test

You’ll generally need to complete a Victorian Firearm Safety Course and pass the associated test if you fall into any of these situations:

• You’ve never held a Victorian firearm licence before.
• Your previous Victorian firearm licence was cancelled.
• Your licence lapsed more than 12 months ago.

The requirement applies to people applying for most licence categories — longarm (Category A, B, C, D, E) and handgun licences alike. A small number of specialist categories, such as Collectors, Heirlooms and Licensed Firearm Dealer licences, sit outside this requirement, so it’s worth confirming which category applies to your situation before you book a course.

Legal basis and who administers it

The course and test exist because of the Firearms Act 1996 (Vic) and its associated regulations, which set out who may lawfully possess, carry or use a firearm in Victoria and under what conditions. Victoria Police is the administering authority — it approves the course providers (organisations such as the Sporting Shooters’ Association of Victoria run widely recognised courses), sets the content standards, and ultimately decides whether your licence application, certificate included, meets the legal requirements.

What the test actually looks like

Based on how approved providers structure their sessions, the assessment is typically split into two parts, sat after a theory session covering the Firearms Act, the Firearm Safety Code and safe handling principles:

• The Firearm Safety Code test — a multiple-choice assessment, commonly around 30 questions, where you need to get the large majority correct, and importantly, get every one of the seven “mandatory safety questions” right. These mandatory questions cover the non-negotiable safety rules — treating every firearm as loaded, always pointing it in a safe direction, and so on — and getting even one of them wrong is usually enough to fail the whole test regardless of your overall score.
• The Firearms Law test — a shorter multiple-choice component, often around 10 questions, focused on your legal obligations as a licence holder. This one typically requires a perfect score to pass, since it deals with things like safe storage obligations and what you’re legally permitted to do with a firearm.

The full session, including the theory component and both tests, usually runs for a few hours. If you pass, the provider issues a completion certificate on the spot or shortly after — this is the document you’ll attach to your firearms licence application.

Applying for your licence after you pass

Once you’re holding a valid safety course certificate, the next step is the licence application itself, which is lodged through Victoria Police’s eServices Portal online. Alongside the certificate, you’ll typically need to provide proof of identity, evidence of your genuine reason for holding a licence (sport or target shooting, hunting, primary production, or an occupational reason — self-defence is explicitly not accepted as a genuine reason in Victoria), and evidence that you can store any firearm securely at the address you nominate. Processing isn’t instant, so it pays to have all your supporting documents ready before you submit.

Fees to budget for

Victoria Police publishes a fees and charges schedule that’s updated periodically, so always check the current figures on the official Victoria Police website before you apply, as these do change. As a general guide to the kind of cost involved, longarm licence fees have sat in the vicinity of $190–$320 depending on category and the length of the licence (commonly three or five years), with handgun licences somewhat higher again. The safety course itself is run by third-party approved providers rather than Victoria Police, so the course fee is separate from the licence fee and varies between providers — it’s worth checking directly with the provider you book with.

Validity and renewal

Firearm licences in Victoria aren’t issued indefinitely — they run for a fixed term, commonly three or five years depending on the category. Victoria Police typically sends a renewal pack around 12 weeks before your licence expires, and if nothing about your genuine reason or storage arrangements has changed, you may be able to renew online through Service Victoria. If your circumstances have changed, a paper-based renewal through Victoria Police is usually required instead.

What happens if you don’t pass

If you don’t reach the required score — especially if you miss any of the mandatory safety questions — you won’t be issued a certificate on the day. Most providers allow you to rebook and resit the test at a later session, though this obviously means another booking, another session, and potentially another fee. There’s no shortcut here: the pass bar on the mandatory safety questions exists specifically so that anyone who goes on to hold a licence has demonstrably absorbed the core safety rules, not just scraped past on the easier questions.

How to prepare properly

The content tested is narrow and well-defined, which makes it genuinely possible to prepare thoroughly rather than hope for the best:

• Learn the Firearm Safety Code itself, rule by rule, rather than just skimming it once.
• Pay close attention to safe storage requirements and transport rules — these come up repeatedly in the legal component.
• Work through the sections of the Firearms Act that relate to licensing, genuine reasons and storage obligations, since the law test draws directly from these.
• Practise with realistic multiple-choice questions that mirror the structure of the real test, so the format itself isn’t a surprise on the day.
• Treat the mandatory safety questions as non-negotiable study priorities, since missing even one typically means a fail regardless of your other answers.

Going in with a solid grasp of the Safety Code and the relevant sections of the Act — rather than cramming the night before — is what separates a confident pass from an unnecessary resit.