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Back From a Contingency Operation: a Free Conservation Licence and Five Years to Use It

A Montana National Guard member, federal reservist or active-duty servicemember who took part in a contingency operation requiring at least two months outside the state receives a complimentary resident conservation licence and a Class A resident fishing or Class AAA combination sports licence, in the year of return and four more years of their choosing. Separately, a veteran with a combat-connected injury buys named deer and antelope licences at half fee.

Verified August 23, 2026

What this benefit is

A Montana National Guard member, federal reservist or active-duty servicemember who took part in a contingency operation requiring at least two months outside the state receives a complimentary resident conservation licence and a Class A resident fishing or Class AAA combination sports licence, in the year of return and four more years of their choosing. Separately, a veteran with a combat-connected injury buys named deer and antelope licences at half fee.

What it's worth: Conservation licence and a fishing or combination sports licence complimentary, five years; combat-disabled deer and antelope at half fee

  • Complimentary does not mean free of everything. The member still pays the resident base hunting licence fee and must buy the aquatic invasive species prevention pass, and the Class AAA combination excludes the black bear tag.
  • No total is claimed because Montana licence prices are set annually and the mix a household buys differs.

Who is entitled to it

  • The licences run to the servicemember or veteran personally.
  • You are in this state.

Not sure whether that describes you?

Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.

How to claim it

Deadline: Application deadlines apply to the drawn licences — the antelope drawing closes 1 June
  1. 1The contingency-operation route has a precise trigger: participation in a contingency operation that required serving at least two months OUTSIDE Montana. Two months inside the state does not open it.
  2. 2Bring the DD Form 214 and proof of participation in the contingency operation. Both are named in the section.
  3. 3The window is generous and you choose it: the licence year you return from military service or the year after, plus four more years of your own choosing.
  4. 4A later qualifying deployment RESETS the five-year entitlement, and the section places no limit on how many times that can happen.
  5. 5If you forfeited a drawn licence or permit because you were deployed, you may apply after returning for the same licence or permit without an additional fee. Ask for it rather than re-entering the drawing.
  6. 6The combat-disabled route is separate and is a half-fee route, not a free one: a regular Class A-3 deer A tag, Class A-4 deer B tag, Class B-7 deer A tag, Class B-8 deer B tag and a special antelope licence at one-half the fee, for someone meeting the disability qualifications in §87-2-803(9) as a result of a combat-connected injury.
  7. 7Those combat-disabled licences do not count against the special antelope licences reserved for persons with disabilities, so applying does not crowd out that pool.
  8. 8Two neighbouring sections are worth knowing. §87-2-802 lets a veteran who is a patient at a VA hospital fish without a licence, on a permit signed by the superintendent. §87-2-803 halves fishing and hunting licence costs for certified disabled residents generally, and gives a resident certified as blind a lifetime fishing licence for a one-time $10.
Form
Application at a Fish, Wildlife and Parks office, with the DD Form 214
File with
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks
Documents you will need
dd214
Annual
Claimed once a year.
CorrectionMontana is often listed as giving disabled veterans free hunting and fishing licences. It does not. The combat-connected injury route in §87-2-817(1) is a HALF-FEE route on named deer and antelope tags, and the department caps it at about fifty licences a year. The genuinely complimentary package is the contingency-operation one, and that turns on deployment rather than on disability.
CorrectionThe word "complimentary" in subsection (2) covers the conservation licence and the fishing or combination sports licence only. The resident base hunting licence fee is still payable and the aquatic invasive species prevention pass must still be bought — the section says so expressly.
Worth knowingThe disability qualification the combat route borrows lives in §87-2-803(9), a general disability section, not in a veteran section. That is why a combat-injured veteran may need a departmental disability certification as well as the DD214.
Known gapCurrent licence prices, and the exact form of proof Fish, Wildlife and Parks accepts for contingency-operation participation, were not read this session.

Sources

This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.