Tennessee Knife Laws
Tennessee asks nothing about blade length and does not care whether the knife is concealed. Automatic knives became legal in 2014 when the earlier restrictions were repealed. The preemption statute says plainly that state law overrides local rules on owning, possessing, transferring or transporting a knife, so no Tennessee city can add to it. School grounds are the exception the preemption does not touch.
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.
Recent change. 2025 – SB 1360 added knives to the manufacturers’ liability protection statute.
Tennessee knife law at a glance
| Concealed carry blade limit | No blade length governs and concealment is not an issue. |
|---|---|
| Automatic and switchblade knives | Legal since 2014, when the earlier restrictions were repealed. |
| Knife types banned outright | None outright. |
| Statewide preemption | Yes. The statute says plainly that it preempts local rules on transferring, owning, possessing or transporting knives. |
| The statutes | Tennessee Code 39-17-1301, 39-17-1302, 39-17-1307, 39-17-1309, 39-17-1310, 39-17-1314 and 39-17-1364 — read them |
Source last revised 28 July 2021
Last known change 2025
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 Tennessee 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 Tennessee 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Kentucky | Legal with conditions | No blade length governs from 21, or with a concealed weapon license. Open carry is unrestricted. Kentucky courts have never drawn a clean line on what counts as an ordinary pocketknife, and one jury treated a five to six inch blade as a deadly weapon, so carry conservatively. |
| Virginia | Legal | A folding metal blade under three inches is treated as a pocket knife and may be carried. Dirks, bowie knives, ballistic knives, machetes and razors are restricted. |
| North Carolina | Legal | No blade length is defined. An ordinary pocket knife carried closed is excepted, and the statute does not say what ordinary means. |
| Georgia | Legal | Concealment is not the issue. Twelve inches is the number: at or under that you carry freely, and over it the knife counts as a weapon needing a Georgia license or a recognized out-of-state one. The limit was five inches until 2018. |
| Alabama | Legal | No blade length governs statewide. The state does not treat concealment as the problem; a city might. |
| Mississippi | Legal | No blade length governs, but a bowie knife, dirk, butcher knife or switchblade may not be carried concealed. A knife in a sheath or holster that is even partly visible does not count as concealed, which is the practical way to carry one. |
| Arkansas | Legal | Concealment is not the test. Arkansas defines a knife as any bladed hand instrument three inches or longer, and the offense is carrying one with intent to use it unlawfully. The three inches is part of the definition, not a carry limit. |
| 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. |
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 Tennessee knife laws
What size knife is legal to carry in Tennessee?
No blade length governs and concealment is not an issue.
Are switchblades legal in Tennessee?
Legal since 2014, when the earlier restrictions were repealed.
Which knives are banned outright in Tennessee?
None outright.
Does Tennessee have knife preemption?
Yes. Tennessee 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 Tennessee?
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. Tennessee knife law checked against the published sources on 15 September 2026, and due for review again on 15 November 2026.