A licensed importer, manufacturer, or dealer must not sell, deliver, or transfer a firearm to a person who is not licensed under this part unless three things have happened. Before the transfer is completed, the licensee has contacted NICS. The licensee has verified the identity of the transferee by examining the identification document presented, as § 478.124(c) requires. And NICS has responded with one of the permitted results — or has not responded and the required investigatory period has elapsed. The order matters: the contact and the identity check come before completion, not alongside it.

The clean outcome is a Proceed notification with a unique identification number, at which point the transfer may go ahead. Where NICS does not respond that way, the licensee must not proceed for three business days — days on which State offices are open, which is what makes them business days rather than calendar days. If three business days elapse from the date of contact and NICS has not provided a Denied notification, the transfer may proceed. The regulation supplies its own worked example: contact NICS on a Thursday and get a Delayed response with nothing further, and where State offices are closed at the weekend, three business days elapse on the following Tuesday — so the firearm may be transferred on the Wednesday.

One case has a longer clock, and it is time-limited in the regulation itself. Where the transferee is under 21 years of age, and NICS notifies the licensee within those three business days that cause exists for further investigation, the licensee may not proceed until either a follow-up Proceed response arrives or another seven business days have expired, exclusive of the day the query was made — up to ten business days in all. That additional period applies through September 30, 2032. It is worth reading the trigger closely: the longer clock does not start merely because the buyer is under 21, but because NICS has said within the first three days that it wants to look further.