New Mexico · Deadlines
New Mexico application deadlines
Every date below was read off a New Mexico Department of Wildlife page or document on the verification date, and each row says which one. Where the department is silent — including on when its own application period opens — this page says so rather than filling the gap.
The agency changed its name mid-cycle
The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish became the New Mexico Department of Wildlife on July 1, 2026, under Senate Bill 5 of the 2025 session. The booklet cited throughout this page is published under the new name and copyrighted 2026; the department's web pages still carry the old initials in places, and the web address is still dgf.nm.gov. Both names describe the same agency. The same legislation changed the licence fee schedule, which is why the booklet's own reminders page states plainly that “License fees have changed this year.”
The 2026–27 dates, as the department published them
The booklet's Important Dates page and the web page's Important Dates list are word for word identical on every row they share. Two rows appear on only one source, and are marked.
| What | Date | Time | Stated by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bear and turkey draw permits close the department’s two-species early draw | February 11, 2026 | 5 p.m. MT | Booklet · Web page |
| Bear and turkey results online, by telephone, or at a department office | February 18, 2026 | not stated | Booklet · Web page |
| Big-game draw closes Barbary sheep, bighorn sheep, deer, elk, ibex, javelina, oryx, pronghorn, and private-land-only deer in Units 2A, 2B, 2C, 4 and 5A | March 18, 2026 | 5:00 p.m. MDT | Booklet · Web page · Calendar |
| Over-the-counter licences for 2026–27 go on sale before this date, a game-hunting licence could be bought only through the draw application | March 25, 2026 | not stated | Booklet · Web page |
| 2026–27 licence year begins all 2025–26 licences expire | April 1, 2026 | not stated | Booklet · Web page |
| Last day to delete a big-game application the application fee is forfeited; the licence fee is refunded | April 7, 2026 | not stated | Draw FAQ |
| Big-game draw results successful applicants are emailed; unsuccessful applicants are not notified at all | April 22, 2026 | see below | Booklet · Web page · Calendar |
| Pheasant and sandhill crane draw permits close the department’s late draw | August 12, 2026 | 5 p.m. MDT | Booklet · Web page |
| Pheasant and sandhill crane results online, by telephone, or at a department office | August 19, 2026 | not stated | Booklet · Web page |
Rules booklet, Important Dates · Big-Game and Draw Hunts · draw FAQ · deadline calendar entry.
One deadline, ten species, different party sizes
This is the axis that actually varies in New Mexico. Every big-game species shares a single March deadline; what changes is how many hunters may apply on one application.
| Species | Deadline | Hunters per application |
|---|---|---|
| Deer | March 18 | 4 |
| Elk | March 18 | 4 |
| Pronghorn | March 18 | 4 |
| Barbary sheep | March 18 | 4 |
| Javelina | March 18 | 4 |
| Ibex | March 18 | 2 |
| Oryx | March 18 | 2 |
| Bighorn sheep | March 18 | 1 |
| Turkey | February 11 | 2 |
| Bear | February 11 | 1 |
Rules booklet, the draw-licence paragraph opening each species section.
There are no points to buy, and the department says so itself
From the booklet's description of how the draw works:
“All draw applications are entered into an automated system that randomly assigns each application a sequence number… New Mexico does not grant preference to previously unsuccessful applicants.”
That sentence is why this page carries no point-purchase deadline and no point fee table. Wyoming and Utah both have a summer window in which you can buy a point without applying to hunt. New Mexico has nothing equivalent, because there is nothing to accumulate. Miss March 18 and you have lost the year, not a place in a queue.
What New Mexico substitutes for points is a residency quota fixed in state law, applied to every draw hunt.
| Share of licences | Awarded to |
|---|---|
| 84% minimum | New Mexico residents |
| 10% | residents and nonresidents applying with a New Mexico registered outfitter |
| 6% | nonresidents applying without a New Mexico registered outfitter |
| 100% | residents, for antlerless elk and for hunts held only on Wildlife Management Areas |
Rules booklet, Draw Hunt Licenses · Big-Game and Draw Hunts, Draw Quotas. The two agree.
What it costs to apply
New Mexico charges the full licence fee at submission and refunds it if you do not draw. The application fee inside each amount below — $7 resident, $13 nonresident — is not refunded, including if you withdraw. Applicants must also buy a nonrefundable game-hunting licence through the application itself before they can apply at all.
| Draw licence | Resident | Nonresident |
|---|---|---|
| Elk — mature bull or either sex, standard | $100 | $773 |
| Elk — mature bull or either sex, quality or high-demand | $100 | $998 |
| Elk — antlerless | $70 | Not issued |
| Deer — standard | $60 | $398 |
| Deer — quality or high-demand | $60 | $623 |
| Pronghorn | $70 | $423 |
| Javelina | $65 | $178 |
| Barbary sheep | $130 | $373 |
| Ibex | $120 | $1,623 |
| Oryx | $185 | $1,623 |
| Bighorn sheep — ram | $160 | $3,523 |
| Bighorn sheep — ewe | $85 | $3,523 |
| Bear or turkey permit — application fee only | $7 | $13 |
Rules booklet, Draw Hunt License Fees · cross-checked line by line against the standalone fee sheet, which matches on every row.
When the draw is over, it is over
New Mexico runs no leftover drawing and no second draw. Searching the whole 164-page booklet for a leftover, secondary or unsold-licence drawing returns nothing, because none exists. This is a real difference from Wyoming, which holds a June leftover draw, and from states that reoffer returned tags.
What the department does offer after the draw is a set of over-the-counter licences that go on sale July 1 — javelina, fall turkey, private-land deer, private-land pronghorn, private-land Barbary sheep, and secondary-management-zone private-land elk. Those are purchases, not a draw, and the booklet attaches no deadline to them.
Refunds of the licence fee for unsuccessful applicants are issued to the card charged. The booklet says this happens “shortly after draw results are released in April,” and within ten business days; the FAQ says credit card refunds go out “within two days after draw results are released.” Cash applicants are refunded by cheque, which the booklet puts at end of May and the FAQ at early May.
Where the department's own sources disagree
The draw FAQ states that “online accounts are updated at 10am on the day the results are released.” The department's own calendar entry for the same day is timestamped 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. mountain daylight time and pinned to its Santa Fe office. Those are plausibly office hours rather than a release time — but the department nowhere says that, and nowhere states plainly what time results post online.
Both figures are the department's. We are not going to pick one. If you are refreshing on results day, 10 a.m. mountain time is the only figure the department attaches to the online system specifically.
Draw FAQ, “When will I know if I am successful?” · results calendar entry, whose published start and end times are 08:00 and 17:00 at a six-hour offset.
What the 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 27 August 2026, not a gap in our reading of them.
- When the application period opens. The department publishes a closing date and never an opening one. There is no start date in the 164-page booklet, none in the Important Dates list on the applications page, and no “applications open” entry on the department's calendar. A hunter is told when to stop, never when to start.
- Any 2027–2028 date at all. No 2027–2028 rules booklet had been published as of the verification date, and the publications index lists editions only through 2026–2027. The next deadline is not knowable from anything the department has published, and this page will not extrapolate one from the shape of previous years.
- Harvest report deadlines for 2026–27 licence holders. Reporting is mandatory for Barbary sheep, deer, elk, ibex, javelina, oryx, pronghorn, turkey and trapper licences whether or not you hunted, and failing to report causes rejection of every draw application you file. The booklet gives those dates only for the 2025–26 licence year — February 15, March 18 and April 7, 2026, with an $8 late fee. Anyone holding a 2026–27 licence has a reporting deadline that gates their next application and that the department has not yet published.
- The withdrawal date, anywhere prominent. April 7 is the last day to delete a big-game application. It appears only in the draw FAQ PDF, not in the booklet's Important Dates and not in the Important Dates list on the applications page.
- Military access-fee deadlines. Oryx and several desert bighorn hunts require paid access to White Sands Missile Range or Fort Bliss — $185 and $100 per hunter respectively for oryx, $160 for the WSMR bighorn hunt. The department says only that successful applicants will be emailed instructions “including payment deadline,” and that a hunter who misses it will not be allowed to hunt. The date is set by the military and the department does not publish it.
- A release time for the other three results dates. February 18 for bear and turkey, and August 19 for pheasant and sandhill crane, carry no time of day on any source read for this page.
Every source read for this page
- New Mexico Hunting Rules and Information 2026–2027 — the 164-page rules booklet, published by the Department of Wildlife, Information and Education Division — the only document that stamps a year on these dates, fetched 27 August 2026
- Big-Game and Draw Hunts — the department’s applications and draw information page, carrying its Important Dates list, fetched 27 August 2026
- 26-27 Big Game Draw Frequently Asked Questions — the draw FAQ, and the only source for the application withdrawal date and the results release time, fetched 27 August 2026
- Draw Hunt License Fees — the standalone fee sheet, cross-checked line by line against the booklet, fetched 27 August 2026
- Draw application deadline — the department’s calendar entry, which timestamps the close in machine-readable form and now marks it passed, fetched 27 August 2026
- Big-game draw results available — the department’s calendar entry for results day, fetched 27 August 2026
- Publications — the publications index, which as of the verification date lists no 2027–2028 edition, fetched 27 August 2026
New Mexico draw data on this site
Deadlines tell you when to apply. What it takes to draw is a different question, and with no point system New Mexico answers it differently from every other state on this site. There is no points-to-draw figure here and there never can be. What the department publishes instead is a choice rank on both sides of the draw — how many applicants ranked a hunt first, and how many of them were awarded it as their first choice — for 1,339 hunt codes from 2019 to 2026, split across the three residency pools.