Pennsylvania · Elk · 2026–27 Edition
Pennsylvania Elk Season 2026–27: Archery, Muzzleloader & Rifle Dates
01 — Seasons
| Season | Zone note | Dates |
|---|---|---|
| Archery | Open Elk Hunt Zones 301–309 · 15 antlered and 7 antlerless licenses | Sep 12 – Sep 27 |
| Regular season — first (new for 2026) | Open Elk Hunt Zones 301–309 · 15 antlered and 15 antlerless licenses | Oct 3 – Oct 11 |
| Regular season — second | Open Elk Hunt Zones 301–309 · 26 antlered and 25 antlerless licenses | Oct 31 – Nov 8 |
| Regular season — third (late) | Open Elk Hunt Zones 301–309 · 24 antlered and 28 antlerless licenses | Jan 9 – Jan 17 |
Pennsylvania's elk range sits in the north-central part of the state and is divided into eleven Elk Hunt Zones, numbered 300 through 310, reconfigured and renamed for the 2026 season. Nine of them — 301 through 309 — are open to elk hunting. Zone 300, the area immediately around the Elk Country Visitor Center and the town of Benezette, is closed to hunting; zone 310, the eastern expansion range, does not yet hold enough elk to support a hunt. Open zones run from 143 sq. mi. (zone 307) to 724 sq. mi. (zone 304), and the share of public land swings widely — 91% in zone 306 and 76% in zone 304 against 29% in zone 307 and 35% in zone 308. PGC's own zone descriptions turn that into plain advice: the public-land-heavy zones suit a self-guided hunter, while the private-heavy ones call for preseason scouting, local knowledge or an outfitter. Boundaries follow road intersections rather than county lines — PGC publishes them as legal descriptions and a map, not as a county list.
02 — Tags & bag limits
| Statewide | One elk per license year — the license specifies antlered (bull) or antlerless (cow) and its valid zone/season |
|---|
03 — Shooting hours
Legal light on opening day (September 12, 2026) 06:18 — 19:54
Rule: One-half hour before sunrise to one-half hour after sunset, statewide, for all big game per 58 Pa. Code §141.4 — no elk-specific exception found. Sunrise/sunset shift daily — the times above are computed for opening day; use your local Pennsylvania sun times for any other date.
04 — License & tags
Elk hunters in Pennsylvania need a Pennsylvania hunting license plus an elk tag. Both residents and nonresidents may apply, but PGC caps nonresident awards at no more than 10% of the total licenses issued starting in 2026, and every applicant — resident or nonresident — must already hold a valid Pennsylvania general hunting license before applying for an elk license.
Pennsylvania hunting license cost →
Where to hunt public land in Pennsylvania — WMAs by county & access rules →
05 — Scouting gear
Scouting a unit before Pennsylvania's opener usually means glassing basins and running a trail camera through summer.
- Hunting binoculars on Amazon →
- Trail cameras on Amazon →
- Trail camera SD cards — class, capacity & format explained →
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. These are category links, not a single named pick — we run no product tests of our own.
06 — FAQ
When does elk season start in Pennsylvania?
The earliest 2026–27 opener is September 12, 2026 (Archery). See the table above for every method.
When does elk season end in Pennsylvania?
The latest 2026–27 closing date is January 17, 2027. Individual seasons close earlier — see the table above.
Do I need to enter a draw to hunt elk in Pennsylvania?
Every Pennsylvania elk license is awarded through a single annual lottery — there is no over-the-counter elk tag anywhere in the state. Applicants submit one $11.97 application between May 1 and July 12 and rank up to five choices of season, zone and license type (antlered or antlerless); unsuccessful applicants bank one bonus point per year toward future draws, and a hunter who is ever drawn for an antlered license cannot apply for another antlered license again, though antlerless applicants may keep reapplying indefinitely. For 2026-27 the Game Commission allotted 155 licenses in total — 80 antlered and 75 antlerless — split across the four seasons: 15 antlered and 7 antlerless for archery, 15 and 15 for the new first regular firearms season, 26 and 25 for the second, and 24 and 28 for the third.
How many elk can you shoot in Pennsylvania?
2026–27 bag limits: Statewide — One elk per license year — the license specifies antlered (bull) or antlerless (cow) and its valid zone/season. Limits are set per zone and per permit — check the agency's own regulations before you hunt.
What time can you start shooting elk in Pennsylvania?
On opening day (September 12, 2026) legal light runs 06:18 to 19:54. The rule is: One-half hour before sunrise to one-half hour after sunset, statewide, for all big game per 58 Pa. Code §141.4 — no elk-specific exception found. Sunrise and sunset shift daily, so work the offset against your local Pennsylvania sun times for any other date.
Can I hunt elk on my own land in Pennsylvania without a license?
Pennsylvania's exemption only covers someone whose primary livelihood is farming that specific land — owner, tenant, family member, or farmhand — who may then hunt and take furbearers on it without a license. Owning rural land you don't farm for a living doesn't qualify; discounted Landowner Hunting Licenses exist separately for owners of 50 or more acres.
Verified · Pennsylvania Game Commission · Last verified 2026-08-17
Publisher's note. Season dates and application details read directly from the PGC's own elk-hunting hub page and its 'Apply for an Elk License' service page (pa.gov/services/pgc/apply-for-an-elk-license), both of which reflect the newly-restructured 2026 elk program: a single unified application (replacing the old multi-application system) covering four seasons — Archery (Sept. 12-27, 2026), Regular Season First (a season new for 2026, Oct. 3-11, 2026), Regular Season Second (Oct. 31-Nov. 8, 2026), and Regular Season Third/late (Jan. 9-17, 2027). Applications run May 1-July 12, 2026 ($11.97/application, up to five ranked choices of season/zone/sex) via the HuntFishPA system, with the draw announced live July 25, 2026 at the Elk Expo in Benezette. Two rule changes take effect for 2026: no more than 10% of licenses may go to nonresidents, and a hunter who draws an antlered (bull) license becomes ineligible for future antlered-license applications (antlerless/cow applicants may keep re-applying). Bonus points consolidated into a single pool (1 point/year for unsuccessful applicants, reset to 0 on a draw). ZONE REORG RESOLVED 2026-08-17: PGC's Board of Commissioners preliminarily approved a full reorganization of the Elk Hunt Zones at its April 2026 meeting, specifically to give zones 'more-readily identifiable boundaries' and 'better encapsulate subpopulations of elk,' and formally adopted the new map at its July 10, 2026 meeting. At the 2026-08-15 check no published map of the new boundaries could be found anywhere (a guessed 2026 filename for the Elk Hunt Zones Map Book 404'd, and it still does); PGC has since published the boundaries in two other documents, both downloaded and read in full for this update: 'Elk Hunt Zone Descriptions 2026' (pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/pgc/documents/hunttrap/hunting/documents/elk%20hunt%20zone%20descriptions%202026.pdf) and '2026 Elk Hunt Zones Legal Descriptions' (pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/pgc/documents/wildlife/wildlifespecies/elk/documents/2026_elk_hunt_zones_legal_descriptions.pdf), plus a zone map image (pgc/images/hunttrap/hunting/ema_2026_update_v2.png) and a PGC ArcGIS layer. The adopted structure is eleven zones numbered 300-310, replacing the superseded 2025-26 numbering (zones 2 through 14, read from elk_zone_map_book2025.pdf during the previous check): zones 301-309 are open to elk hunting; zone 300 — 'the area immediately surrounding the Elk Country Visitor Center and the town of Benezette' — is closed to elk hunting; zone 310 'does not support enough elk to allow hunting,' its stated purpose being habitat work toward a possible future hunt as the herd expands east. The legal descriptions define every boundary by road intersections rather than county lines, so no county-level zone list exists to reproduce. Per-season license allocations taken verbatim from PGC's own 'FINAL 2026-27 HUNTING SEASONS APPROVED' release (pa.gov/agencies/pgc/newsroom/final-2026-27-hunting-seasons-approved): 155 licenses total, 80 antlered and 75 antlerless. Season dates re-confirmed unchanged against the PGC hub page on this date. Footnote on the prior check: the secondary claim of '11 total zones, 9 active' (Huntin' Fool) that was discarded on 2026-08-15 as a mismatch against PGC's then-current 13-zone map turns out to match the adopted new structure exactly — it was evidently reporting the April preliminary approval ahead of publication. Discarding it was still the right call at the time, since it could not be checked against any primary source then; the count is now carried on PGC's own documents instead. Shooting hours (one-half hour before sunrise to one-half hour after sunset) and the one-elk-per-license-year bag limit are PGC's standard statewide big-game rule (58 Pa. Code §141.4); no elk-specific exception was found.