What you may sell

Federal land, and what PRPA reaches

Updated October 2026

On this page8

What federal land means here What a paleontological resource means Two exclusions from the definition The general prohibition Private land is a different question State and tribal land are their own regimes Foreign fossils bring export law References

PRPA is a federal land statute, not a general fossil statute, and both halves of that matter.

What federal land means here

Land controlled or administered by the Secretary of the Interior, except Indian land, or National Forest System land controlled or administered by the Secretary of Agriculture. Indian land is defined separately and sits outside that definition.

What a paleontological resource means

Any fossilized remains, traces or imprints of organisms preserved in or on the earth’s crust that are of paleontological interest and provide information about the history of life on earth. Traces and imprints are in, so a trackway or a burrow counts.

Two exclusions from the definition

Materials associated with an archaeological resource, and cultural items as defined under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Those are not outside the law, they are inside different laws.

The general prohibition

Except as provided in the chapter, a paleontological resource may not be collected from federal land without a permit issued by the Secretary. That is the baseline, and casual collecting is the only broad exception to it.

Private land is a different question

A fossil from private land, collected with the landowner’s permission, is generally the landowner’s property and may be sold. That is how most of the lawful commercial fossil trade in the United States works and it is worth saying plainly.

State and tribal land are their own regimes

Each with its own rules, and the Lacey Act can make a violation of a state or tribal law a federal matter once something moves in interstate commerce. So "not federal" does not mean unregulated.

Foreign fossils bring export law

Many countries treat fossils as national patrimony and prohibit export. A specimen bought abroad or online from abroad carries that question, and the Lacey Act reaches things taken in violation of foreign law.

References

16 U.S.C. 470aaa, the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act definitions. Paragraph (1) defines casual collecting as a reasonable amount of common invertebrate and plant paleontological resources for non-commercial personal use by surface collection or non-powered hand tools with negligible disturbance; (2) defines Federal land; (4) defines paleontological resource and excludes archaeological resources and cultural items. law.cornell.edu

16 U.S.C. 470aaa-3, Collection of paleontological resources. A resource may not be collected from Federal land without a permit; casual collecting is allowed without one on Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation and Forest Service land; and a permitted collection remains the property of the United States, goes to an approved repository, and its locality data is not released without the Secretary’s written permission. law.cornell.edu

16 U.S.C. 3372, the Lacey Act’s prohibited acts, which make it unlawful to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire or purchase fish, wildlife or plants taken, possessed, transported or sold in violation of any law, treaty or regulation of the United States, any Indian tribal law, or in interstate or foreign commerce any State or foreign law. law.cornell.edu

Written from federal statute, not from a prep lab. PRPA covers federal land; private land, state land and tribal land each answer to different rules, and foreign fossils bring export law with them. Nothing here is advice on a particular specimen, and the permit questions belong to the managing agency.