Nevada · Deadlines
Nevada application deadlines
Every date below was read off a Nevada Department of Wildlife page or document on the verification date, and each one says which. Nevada publishes no time of day and no time zone for any of these deadlines — this page says so rather than supplying one.
The 2026 big game draws
The department's page and its regulations guide both carry all three rows, and they agree on every date.
| Draw | Applications open | Application deadline | Results released |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nonresident Guided Mule Deer nonresidents only, a separate draw from the main one | Feb 9 | Mar 9 | Mar 20 |
| Main draw all big game, resident and nonresident, including the Silver State and Partnership in Wildlife tags | Mar 23 | May 13 | May 29 |
| Second draw tags left over or returned; junior tags residents only | Jun 8 | Jun 15 | Jun 26 |
Every row above: 2026 Big Game Application Calendar and the regulations guide's application process page, which prints the same dates with years.
The First Come, First Served program is the fourth column of the department's own calendar, and the department fills it in with words rather than dates. Reproduced exactly.
| First Come, First Served | What the department prints |
|---|---|
| Opens | Early-Mid July |
| Deadline | Until all tags are issued |
| Results release date | N/A |
2026 Big Game Application Calendar, fourth column · eligibility in CR 26-02, which sets the rules and prints no dates.
Bonus points share the application deadlines
Nevada has no separate point-purchase window. A bonus-point-only application is submitted inside the draw itself, so its deadline is the draw's deadline — May 13 for the main draw, June 15 for the second. The department's 2026 FAQ and its regulations guide both state that point-only applications for all big game species are sold in the second draw, and the FAQ adds the limit: only applicants who did not already apply, earn a point, or draw a tag in the main draw may buy one there.
A point-only application costs the $10 non-refundable application fee and requires an active hunting or combination licence. An unsuccessful tag application converts to a point on its own, so most applicants never buy one. Points are squared and one is added for the application itself — the department writes it as (BP²) + 1 — and they are lost after two consecutive years without applying in that category.
A Nevada bonus point is not a preference point. The department says so directly: points improve the odds of drawing a low random number and “do not provide any guarantee of drawing a tag after so many points are accumulated”. Its own data shows maximum-point applicants going unsuccessful in unit groups with several hundred tags.
What it costs to apply
Application fees are non-refundable and charged per application, including a point-only one. Tag fees are charged on the draw, not at application, and a successful applicant has seven days to pay.
| Fee charged at application | Amount | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| Elk application | $15 | includes a $5 elk damage fee — NRS 502.250 |
| Any other big game species, or bonus point only | $10 | NRS 502.250, NAC 502.331 |
| Game application fee | $3 | NRS 502.253 — the applicant directs how it is spent |
| Processing fee | $1 | NRS 502.118 |
| Tag | Resident | Nonresident |
|---|---|---|
| Mule deer | $30 | $240 |
| Mule deer — restricted nonresident guided | — | $300 |
| Pronghorn antelope | $60 | $300 |
| Elk, and elk incentive | $120 | $1,200 |
| Bighorn sheep | $120 | $1,200 |
| Rocky Mountain goat | $120 | $1,200 |
| Moose | $120 | $1,200 |
| Black bear | $100 | $300 |
| Mountain lion | $29 | $104 |
| Licence | Resident | Nonresident |
|---|---|---|
| Adult combination licence, 18 and older | $75 | $155 |
| Adult hunting licence, 18 and older | $38 | — |
| Youth combination licence, 12 to 17 | $15 | $15 |
| Apprentice hunting licence, 12 and older | $15 | $15 |
All three tables: Apply & Buy Hunting, which cites NRS 502.240, 502.250, 502.253 and 502.118 · point-only fee cross-checked against the Bonus Point Program page.
The small game and WMA calendars — Nevada labels the same dates two ways
One department page carries two calendars covering the same three hunts, under two different year headings, with identical dates. The prose between them assigns those dates to a third reading.
- Headed “2026 Small Game Application Calendar”Overton WMA Dove June 29 / July 13 / July 24 · Overton and Key Pittman WMA Waterfowl August 17 / September 7 / September 18
- Headed “2027 WMA Application Calendar”The same six dates again, split into three columns
- The prose on the same page“Applications for Overton and Key Pittman WMA waterfowl can be submitted online … beginning August 17, 2026. The application period closes September 7, 2026 and results of the draw will be released on or before September 18, 2026.”
We are not going to pick one. The department has not said whether the 2027 heading is a label for the 2026-27 licence year or an error, and the dates are identical either way, so the day and month are safe and the year is the department's to clarify.
| Hunt | Opens | Deadline | Results | Year heading |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spring Turkey | Jan 12 | Jan 26 | Feb 13 | 2026 only |
| Overton WMA Dove | Jun 29 | Jul 13 | Jul 24 | printed under both |
| Overton WMA Waterfowl | Aug 17 | Sep 7 | Sep 18 | printed under both |
| Key Pittman WMA Waterfowl | Aug 17 | Sep 7 | Sep 18 | printed under both |
Both calendars and the prose: Apply & Buy Hunting. Swan permits run on the same August 17 to September 7 window, stated in the same paragraph.
Why there are no Nevada draw odds on this site — and what that is not
It is not that Nevada hides the numbers. The department publishes bonus point data for 2022 through 2025: per hunt, per unit group, per season and weapon class, with the quota, and a row for every bonus point level showing successful applicants and total applicants broken out by whether the hunt was that applicant's first through fifth choice. For 2025 the volume species are split resident from nonresident. Mule deer, elk, antelope, moose, all three bighorn subspecies, mountain goat and black bear are all covered.
That is the point-level detail an honest odds table needs, and it is more than several states publish. Anyone telling you Nevada does not publish point-level draw data has not opened the files.
What stops us is access, not availability. The department's site carries a robots.txt that disallows every automated agent except three named search engine crawlers. Building odds pages means pulling several hundred documents on a schedule, and whether that is something we may do here is a question about the department's access terms, not about arithmetic. It is the same question Colorado is in, and it is not resolved.
So Nevada gets deadlines now and no odds table, and the reason is stated rather than dressed up. What will not happen is the alternative the free tools reach for — dividing total applicants by total tags and calling the result your odds. That number answers a question nobody asked. The department's own data would let us do better, and if we cannot use it, we would rather publish nothing than publish that.
What the Nevada Department of Wildlife does not state
Named here rather than filled in. Every item below is a gap in the department's own publications as of 28 August 2026, not a gap in our reading of them.
- Any time of day, for any deadline. Not on the department's page, not in its 2026 Big Game FAQ, not in the regulations guide, not in commission regulation CR 26-02. A Nevada applicant is given a date and nothing else. Wyoming states midnight mountain time and Utah states 11 p.m.; Nevada states neither an hour nor a zone.
- Anything about 2027. No 2027 big game application calendar had been published as of the verification date. The department's page describes the main draw only as generally running “from mid-March to mid-May”, with results “at the end of May or beginning of June”, which is the department declining to commit rather than a date.
- When First Come, First Served actually opens. Its own calendar column says “Early-Mid July”, and the prose says “generally opens early-mid July”. No year in the 2026 cycle was given a date, and the 2026 remaining-tags list the department published carries none either.
- Which of the two results statements binds. The calendar prints a results release date; the regulations guide says results post “no later than 48 hours after the end of the business day that the draw is completed”. The department does not say how the two relate.
- A calendar in the one document that carries a year on every page. The 2026 Big Game Application FAQ is stamped “Updated for the 2026 App Season - 2/3/2026” on all thirteen pages and contains no application dates at all. In Wyoming and Utah the year-stamped PDF was the better source. In Nevada it is the web page.
- Whether its own banner is current. On the verification date the Apply & Buy page still displayed “Nevada's big game tag application period is open! Submit applications now through May 13” — three months after that deadline passed. The calendar lower on the same page is the part that has been checked here.
Every source read for this page
- Apply & Buy Hunting — the department’s licences, tags and permits page, carrying the accordion headed “2026 Big Game Application Calendar”, fetched 28 August 2026
- Application Process — 2026-27 Nevada Big Game Seasons, Applications & Hunting Regulations — the department’s regulations guide, published for it by eregulations and stamped “Last Updated: April 13, 2026”, fetched 28 August 2026
- 2026 Big Game Application FAQ — department PDF, headed “Updated for the 2026 App Season - 2/3/2026” — the only year-stamped document, and it prints no calendar, fetched 28 August 2026
- Bonus Point Program — how points accrue, what a point-only application costs, and why a point is not a preference point, fetched 28 August 2026
- Bonus Point Data — the department’s per-hunt tables of successful and total applicants by bonus point level, 2022 through 2025, fetched 28 August 2026
- CR 26-02 — 2026 Tag Application Eligibility and Tag Limits — commission regulation approved January 2026, defining the second draw and First Come First Served eligibility and printing no dates, fetched 28 August 2026
- Nevada licensing and application portal — where every application is submitted; the department names it the place all application periods are published, fetched 28 August 2026
Elsewhere on this site
Deadlines tell you when to apply. What it takes to draw is a different question, and where we answer it, it is answered from an agency's published results rather than from a projection.