The Gun Control Act and other statutes prohibit persons from importing firearms, ammunition, and defense articles into the US unless the articles meet certain criteria, the importer is not a prohibited person, and the Attorney General (delegated to Director, ATF) approves that person to import those items. ATF uses this form to collect the information necessary to determine the above facts and approve a person to import the articles; the form then serves as their permit to do so.

Military members use ATF Form 5330.3B (“Form 6, part II”) to request approval to import articles described on the application back to the U.S. ATF uses the information on Form 6, part II to determine if the article(s) described on the application qualifies to be imported by the person requesting approval and the form then serves as the authorization for them to import the items. ATF is modifying information collection (IC) OMB 1140-0006 to revise the title of the form for improved readability. ATF is also revising the form to add attachment sheets, at the request of users, to make the form more aligned with ATF Form 5330.3A (“Form 6, part I”), as well as make it easier for applicants with large numbers of item types to include in their applications. The attachment sheets include ones for defense articles and ammunition. The form instructions are also being updated to include current statute and regulation citations, some terminology changes (such as changing `articles' to `firearm(s), ammunition, and defense article(s)'), and contact information updates to provide the most efficient methods of contacting the office. The instructions have also been condensed and reworded for clarity. This revision also includes terminology and grammar updates. This information collection is also being revised to reflect a decrease in the number of respondents since the last renewal, from 400 down to 312 per year, a decrease of 88. This has also resulted in a decrease in the total hourly burden from 200 to 156 total annual hours.