Indiana · Rabbit · 2026–27 Edition
Indiana Rabbit Season 2026–27: Dates & Bag Limits
01 — Seasons
| Season | Zone | Dates |
|---|---|---|
| Rabbit | Statewide | Nov 1 – Feb 28 |
02 — Bag limits
| Daily | 5 |
|---|---|
| Possession | 10 — two times the daily bag limit, per Indiana DNR's own seasons chart |
03 — Shooting hours
No shooting-hours restriction — legal at any hour during the open season.
Rule: No statewide shooting-hours restriction on rabbit. Indiana codifies one narrow exception - a February-only rule tied to specific named properties; outside that window and those properties, no time-of-day limit applies.
04 — License
Rabbit hunters in Indiana need an Indiana hunting license.
Indiana hunting license cost →
Where to hunt public land in Indiana — WMAs by county & access rules →
05 — FAQ
When does rabbit season start in Indiana?
The 2026–27 opener is November 1, 2026. See the table above for the full window.
When does rabbit season end in Indiana?
The 2026–27 closing date is February 28, 2027.
Is there a closed season on rabbit in Indiana?
Yes — see the dates above. Outside that window, taking rabbit is closed in Indiana.
How many rabbits can you shoot in Indiana per day?
2026–27 bag limits: Daily — 5. Possession — 10 — two times the daily bag limit, per Indiana DNR's own seasons chart. Limits are set per zone and per permit — check the agency's own regulations before you hunt.
What time can you start shooting rabbit in Indiana?
There is no shooting-hours restriction — rabbit may legally be hunted at any hour during the open season in Indiana. The rule is: No statewide shooting-hours restriction on rabbit. Indiana codifies one narrow exception - a February-only rule tied to specific named properties; outside that window and those properties, no time-of-day limit applies.
Can I hunt rabbits on my own land in Indiana without a license?
Indiana farmland owners (resident or nonresident) and the spouse/children living with them may hunt, fish, and trap without a license on land they own; a resident lessee who actually farms it gets the same right. This applies to farmland only — non-farm acreage doesn't qualify — and a nonresident owner needs to be from a state that grants Indiana landowners the same right, plus carry proof of ownership.
Verified · Indiana Department of Natural Resources · Last verified 2026-08-13
Publisher's note. Official 2026-27 Hunting & Trapping Seasons PDF, downloaded and read directly (in.gov's WebFetch-facing page failed to parse; a direct file read worked). The possession limit is stated directly in the chart's own footnote: 'the possession limit on pheasants, quail, rabbits, squirrels, frogs, and turtles is two times the daily bag limit.' A commonly repeated secondary claim that swamp rabbit may not be hunted in Indiana as an endangered species was NOT found in this primary PDF — flagged as unconfirmed, not published here as fact. SHOOTING HOURS: checked 312 IAC 9-3-16 (Cottontail rabbits) directly — the ONLY hours provision it carries is 'Hunt rabbits during the month of February on a department fish and wildlife area, Salamonie Lake, Mississinewa Lake, or Patoka Lake except from one-half hour before sunrise to one-half hour before sunset', a narrow property-and-month exception, not a statewide rule. Outside that window and those specific properties, Indiana sets no hunting-hours restriction on rabbit. EXPLICIT shootingHours MARKER (2026-08-27): this file now carries shootingHours.unrestricted = true. Simply omitting the field did NOT work and had been silently wrong on the live page: the season templates read season.shootingHours ?? meta.shootingHours, so an absent block fell through to the state-level default in states.json and the page printed a computed sunrise/sunset window plus a rule the law does not impose - while the licence section right below it said the opposite. The templates now honour the marker and print the no-restriction sentence instead. The original reasoning stands: any offset, including 0/0, would state a statewide restriction the law does not impose.