Closing is a regulated event, not the absence of one. Where a firearm or ammunition business is either discontinued or succeeded by a new owner, the owner of the discontinued or succeeded business must furnish notification of the discontinuance or succession to the Chief of the Federal Firearms Licensing Center within 30 days. That obligation falls on the person leaving, which is the part most easily missed in a sale — the buyer is busy obtaining their own license under § 478.51, and the seller assumes the transaction speaks for itself. It does not.

A second and larger duty attaches on termination of a license, and termination is defined broadly: revocation, denial of a renewal, expiration, or surrender. Within 30 days of it — or such additional period as the Director approves for good cause — the former licensee must do one of two things with the former licensee inventory. They may liquidate it by selling or otherwise disposing of the firearms to a licensed importer, manufacturer, or dealer for sale, auction, or pawn redemption. Or they may transfer it to a responsible person of the former licensee to whom receipt, possession, sale, or other disposition is not prohibited by law.

The regulation adds a sentence to that second option which is easy to read past and worth stopping on. Such a transfer does not negate the fact that the firearms were repetitively purchased, and were purchased with the predominant intent to earn a profit by repetitive purchase and resale. In other words, moving inventory into personal hands at closing does not convert it into a personal collection — the language deliberately echoes the engaged-in-the-business test from § 1.3. Whichever route is taken, the transfers must be recorded as dispositions before the firearms are delivered, so the records close properly rather than simply stopping.