Kansas Knife Laws
Kansas is about as permissive as knife law gets. No blade length, no restricted types, and you may carry concealed or openly at any length. Automatic knives have been legal since 2013. Preemption is unusually strong here: city rules that predate 1 July 2014 are void rather than merely blocked, so an old ordinance you find online has no force.
This is not legal advice, and we are not lawyers. It is a plain reading of published summaries and the statutes they cite, kept current on a fixed schedule. Local ordinances are frequently stricter than state law and are not all captured here. Check the statute, and check your city, before you carry.
Kansas knife law at a glance
| Concealed carry blade limit | No blade length governs. You may carry a knife concealed or not, at any length. |
|---|---|
| Automatic and switchblade knives | Legal since 2013. |
| Knife types banned outright | None outright. |
| Statewide preemption | Yes. A city may not regulate knives at all, and city rules that predate 1 July 2014 are void rather than merely blocked. |
| The statutes | Kansas Statutes 21-6301, 21-6302, 21-6304 and 12-16,134 — read them |
Source last revised 21 February 2021
Next review 15 November 2026
How fresh this is, and how you can tell
Two dates sit above, and they are not the same thing. Checked by us is the last time a person went back to the sources and confirmed this page still matches them. Source last revised is when the American Knife and Tool Institute last updated its own Kansas page. A 2021 revision date is not automatically wrong — it usually means nothing has changed since — but it does mean nobody had looked recently, and that is exactly the gap this page exists to close.
Crossing the Kansas state line
Knife law stops at the border and the next state does not have to agree with this one. If you drive, these are the states you are most likely to carry into, and what changes when you do.
| State | Automatic knives | Concealed blade limit |
|---|---|---|
| Nebraska | Legal | Three and a half inches. Any dagger, dirk, knife or stiletto with a blade over three and a half inches may not be carried concealed. |
| Missouri | Legal | Four inches. An ordinary pocketknife at or under four inches goes almost anywhere concealed. Any other blade is barred from seventeen listed places, and a concealed carry permit lifts those place limits. |
| Oklahoma | Legal | No blade length governs and concealment is not an issue. |
| Colorado | Legal with conditions | Carrying a concealed knife with a blade over three and a half inches is a violation. |
A knife that is lawful in your pocket at home can be unlawful the moment you cross, and nobody stops you at the line to tell you. The map for all fifty states covers the rest.
Common questions about Kansas knife laws
What size knife is legal to carry in Kansas?
No blade length governs. You may carry a knife concealed or not, at any length.
Are switchblades legal in Kansas?
Legal since 2013.
Which knives are banned outright in Kansas?
None outright.
Does Kansas have knife preemption?
Yes. Kansas has statewide preemption, which means a city cannot write its own stricter knife ordinance. One rule covers the whole state, and that is most of what preemption is worth.
Can I keep a knife in my car in Kansas?
Where a state has a concealed carry limit, a knife in a glovebox or a door pocket is generally treated as concealed. Read the concealed line above and apply it to the vehicle. If that line says concealment is not the issue in this state, the vehicle is not the issue either — but where you drive to still is, because schools and courthouses are barred everywhere.
Where this comes from
Two independent sources, cross-checked against each other, and the statute text where they disagree. The automatic knife column is the American Knife and Tool Institute’s state automatics table, checked against Knife Rights’ own switchblade legality table and their legislative update log. Everything on a state page is quoted or closely tracked from that state’s AKTI page, and we print the date AKTI last revised it so you can see for yourself how fresh the underlying work is.
Where a source is older than a change we know about, we say so on the page rather than quietly leaving the old answer up. That is the whole reason this is checked every two months.
Elsewhere on Popular EDC
The knife law map for all fifty states, the knife steel comparison chart for choosing the blade itself, and every Popular EDC tool in one place.
Data updated September 2026. Kansas knife law checked against the published sources on 15 September 2026, and due for review again on 15 November 2026.