Coyote Hunting in New Mexico, Laws, Regulations, Season, & License Info

Coyote classification & licence in New Mexico

What is the classification of coyotes in New Mexico?

Coyotes are a nongame species. NMDOW lists them plainly: “Common nongame species include coyotes, skunks, porcupines, rabbits and rock squirrels.”¹

That one word decides most of this page, and it is worth being precise about what coyotes are not, because New Mexico has three separate categories that people run together:

• Not a fur-bearing animal. The statutory list is closed and coyote is absent from it: “muskrat, mink, weasel, beaver, otter, nutria, masked or blackfooted ferret, ringtail cat, raccoon, pine marten, coatimundi, badgers, bobcat and all species of foxes.”² The furbearer rules define “furbearer” by reference to exactly that list,³ so a rule written for furbearers does not reach a coyote.
• Not a protected species. The road, vehicle and harassment prohibitions in the hunting rules are all written against protected species,⁴ and coyotes sit outside them.
• Not a game species. Which is why the baiting prohibition misses them — see baiting.

The distinction between furbearer and nongame is the one to hold on to, and it is worth knowing that NMDOW is not consistent about it. The booklet groups coyotes under nongame,⁵ while the department’s species page describes them as “Unprotected Furbearers.”⁶ That is loose usage rather than a legal category — “unprotected furbearer” appears in no statute or rule, and both the manner-and-method rule and the furbearer rule define a furbearer by pointing at the fourteen animals in NMSA 17-5-2.^{3 7}

It matters because it decides your night: the shooting-hours restriction is a furbearer rule, so whether it binds you turns entirely on which of those two labels is the real one. The statute settles it, and the booklet’s own furbearer chapter follows the statute — it opens the prairie-chicken areas to “furbearers, coyotes and skunks.”⁸ If a coyote were a furbearer, that sentence would not need the comma.

Are coyotes protected in New Mexico?

No. “There is no closed season or bag limit for nongame species such as coyotes and skunks; however, hunters and trappers must still abide by NMDOW rules regarding trapping and hunting.”⁵

Is a hunting license required to hunt coyotes in New Mexico?

Not if you are a resident. “New Mexico residents are not required to have a license to take nongame species.”¹ No licence, no tag, no stamp, no season. For a New Mexico resident this is the least-regulated coyote hunting in the West on paper.

Non-residents need one. “Non-residents must possess either a non-resident Nongame License or a current New Mexico non-resident Game-Hunting License,”¹ and the requirement is restated in the licence rules: “All non-resident hunters hunting nongame species must possess a non-resident Hunting or Trapper License.”⁹

The $65 nongame licence is the clean answer for a visiting coyote hunter.¹⁰ The 4-day temporary game-hunting licence is cheaper and is a game-hunting licence, which is the other category NMDOW names — but the fee table’s footnote only tells you it will not buy you a big-game or turkey licence,¹⁰ and it does not say in terms whether it satisfies the nongame requirement. Ring NMDOW on 1-888-248-6866 before relying on it. Twenty-five dollars is not worth a citation.

Note the non-resident trapper licence at $500 against $50 for a resident. If you are travelling to trap rather than hunt, that is the single largest resident/non-resident gap on this site — and see trapping before you plan around it, because New Mexico banned traps on public land.

The prices above are resident prices. A non-resident pays more, and may need a different licence — see what a non-resident needs.

Is hunter education required?

Not to hunt coyotes. New Mexico’s education requirements attach to furbearers and to trapping — “It is unlawful for any person to hunt for any furbearer without having successfully completed either the New Mexico trapper education course or a New Mexico law and species identification course”¹¹ — and coyotes are not furbearers.²

If you intend to trap, a department-approved trapper education course is required first.¹²

Can a non-resident hunt coyotes in New Mexico?

Yes, on the $65 nongame licence.¹⁰ No draw, no tag, no season.

See also is a hunting licence required — the licence rules there, and the exemptions and add-ons that go with them, apply to you too.

Coyote season, hours & bag limits in New Mexico

What is the season for coyote hunting in New Mexico?

Year-round. There is no closed season for nongame.⁵

What is the bag limit for coyotes in New Mexico?

None.⁵

What are the legal hunting hours for coyotes in New Mexico?

There is no closed hour for coyotes. The half-hour window quoted for New Mexico belongs to a different category of animal.

The half-hour-before-sunrise to half-hour-after-sunset window that gets quoted for New Mexico is the furbearer shooting-hours rule: “Restricted to the period one-half hour before sunrise to one half-hour after sunset, except licensed furbearer hunters who are authorized to hunt for and take raccoons by use of artificial light.”¹³ It sits in the furbearer chapter, it is written for furbearers, and the rule defines a furbearer as one of the fourteen animals in NMSA 17-5-2.³ Coyote is not among them.²

So the hours do not constrain you. What constrains you is light — see below.

Can you hunt coyotes during deer or big game season?

Yes. Coyotes are open all year and carry no orange requirement in New Mexico, although NMDOW “strongly encourages” blaze orange everywhere and requires it on military reservations.¹⁴

The caution worth taking seriously is the Mexican gray wolf, not the deer season.

Night hunting coyotes in New Mexico

Can you hunt coyotes at night in New Mexico?

Yes. Nongame has no closed season and no closed hours,⁵ and the shooting-hours restriction people cite is a furbearer rule that does not reach coyotes.^{13 3}

The whole question in New Mexico is what you are allowed to see with. That has its own section because the answer is a permit rather than a yes or no — see the artificial light permit.

Can you use artificial lights for coyote hunting in New Mexico?

Not without a permit, in almost every practical case. NMDOW states it flatly: “It is illegal to use a spotlight or any other artificial light to hunt any furbearer (except raccoons, see Legal Shooting Hours above) or nongame species including coyotes and rabbits, even if you are on private land and have landowner permission, unless you have an artificial light permit.”¹⁵

The statute behind that is narrower than the sentence suggests, and the difference matters — see the light permit for who is exempt without one.

Can you use night vision in New Mexico?

No New Mexico statute, rule or regulation names night vision at all, so the answer runs through the artificial-light rule instead — and which side of it you land on depends on your device.

A unit running an infrared illuminator is casting light to see by. That is squarely what the statute prohibits,¹⁶ and it needs the light permit. A passive tube with the illuminator off casts nothing, which puts it in the same position as thermal below.

The illuminator is the line, not the device. If yours has one, either leave it off or hold the permit.

Can you use thermal in New Mexico?

Nothing in New Mexico law restricts it, and that answer comes from having gone looking rather than from having found a permission.

Thermal imaging reads heat and emits nothing, so it never casts a ray of light into a field — which is the act the statute prohibits.¹⁶ Everything that could restrict it has been checked, and none of it mentions thermal imaging:

• NMSA 17-2-31, the only artificial-light statute in the game code.¹⁶
• 19.31.10 NMAC, the manner-and-method rule that sets out every prohibited device and method.¹⁷
• 19.32.2 NMAC, the furbearer rule.⁷
• 19.30.13 NMAC, the artificial light permit rule itself.¹⁸
• The 2026–27 Hunting Rules & Info booklet, all 164 pages.¹⁹

Nothing is pending before the State Wildlife Commission either — the proposals open for comment cover bighorn sheep, deer, elk, pronghorn and hunt codes.²⁰ New Mexico has not legislated on hunting optics the way Idaho did in 2026 or Arizona has since 2012.

Two caveats worth holding. A thermal device used to locate an animal you then shoot by lamplight puts you back inside the light rule. And an absence of regulation is not a permission that anyone has written down, so it can change at a single commission meeting — which is what the signup below is for.

Are there specific weapons restrictions for hunting coyotes at night in New Mexico?

None specific to darkness for coyotes. The .22-calibre rimfire limit that appears in the night rules is part of the raccoon exception, not a general night rule.¹³ The general rules in firearms apply after dark unchanged.

The artificial light permit

New Mexico is the only state on this site that sells you a permit to use a flashlight, and the details are worth knowing because they decide whether a trip is possible at all.

What the statute actually prohibits

It is unlawful for a person or a group of persons together in possession or control of a firearm or other implement to throw or cast the rays of a spotlight or other artificial light into any field, pasture, woodland, forest or prairie where big game or domestic livestock may be, or are reasonably expected to be, whereby any big game animal or domestic animal could be killed by aid of an artificial light.¹⁶

Read it closely. It is not a coyote rule at all — it is an anti-poaching rule protecting big game and livestock. It bites coyote hunters because in New Mexico there are very few fields, pastures, woodlands, forests or prairies where big game or livestock may not reasonably be expected to be.

Who is exempt without a permit

Four categories, and the third is the one that matters:¹⁶

1. an officer authorized to enforce the game and livestock laws;
2. a government employee acting in an official capacity;
3. “a landowner or lessee or employee of such landowner or lessee, while on the land owned or leased in connection with legitimate activities”;
4. anyone holding a department permit.

So a rancher lamping coyotes on their own ground is exempt by statute. A guest with permission is not — the exemption names the landowner, the lessee and their employees, and stops there. That is exactly why NMDOW’s booklet says the permit is needed “even if you are on private land and have landowner permission.”¹⁵ The two are not in conflict once you notice the statute never mentions guests.

Getting the permit

The permit system is its own rule.¹⁸ The terms that shape a trip:

Two consequences people miss. There is no public-land light permit — the rule is built on landowner permission, so BLM and Forest Service ground is out. And the permit is cancelled if the landowner withdraws permission in writing.¹⁸

It is also unlawful under the permit rule to cast light anywhere outside the area on your permit, or to take protected game with light at all.¹⁸

What it costs to get this wrong

More than a fine. New Mexico runs a points system, and “hunting with the aid of an artificial light or spotlight, in violation of Section 17-2-31 NMSA 1978” is a 40-point criminal violation.²¹ The threshold for losing your privileges is twenty: “Any person with 20 or more points accumulated within any consecutive three-year period shall have all of his or her privileges subject to revocation or suspension.”²¹

One conviction is double the threshold. Sporting arms and vehicles used in spotlighting are also subject to seizure and forfeiture.²²

That is the honest reason to buy the $15 permit rather than take the view that nobody is watching.

Firearms, ammunition & suppressors in New Mexico

Are suppressors allowed for coyote hunting in New Mexico?

Nothing in New Mexico’s hunting rules prohibits one. Neither the 2026–27 booklet nor the manner-and-method rule mentions suppressors or silencers at all, so there is no state hunting restriction to comply with — federal National Firearms Act rules govern owning one.

What firearms are allowed or restricted for coyote hunting in New Mexico?

New Mexico sets legal sporting arms per species group — big game, cougar and furbearers, turkey, upland, migratory birds²³ — and publishes no list for nongame. There is no calibre floor or action restriction for coyotes.

The practical pick is a flat-shooting centrefire in .223, .22-250, .204 Ruger or .243. See the best coyote gun.

Are there any ammunition restrictions?

This is the one place where the booklet and the rule do not say the same thing, and you should follow the booklet.

NMDOW’s general list of unlawful acts is unqualified: it is unlawful to “use tracer ammunition, full-metal jacketed bullets or fully automatic weapons.”¹⁹

The rule underneath it is narrower. The definition of “bullet” ends: “Tracer or full metal jacket ammunition is not legal for the take or attempted take of any big game species.”²⁴ The automatic-firearm prohibitions are scoped too — one to “any big game species or turkey,”²⁵ another to “any migratory game bird or upland game species.”²⁶ None of the three names nongame.

So the rule reaches big game, turkey, upland and migratory birds, and stops. There is no nongame provision, in this rule or in the furbearer rule.⁷ The booklet’s general phrasing is broader than the regulation behind it, and a digest does not outrank a rule.

Carry expanding ammunition anyway. Not because the rule requires it here, but because it is not worth being the test case over a bullet you had no reason to choose — full metal jacket gives you a pencil hole and a long track, and expanding bullets kill coyotes better. The legal point and the practical one land in the same place.

Can you hunt using a .22 LR or other rimfire cartridge?

Yes. No calibre restriction attaches to nongame.²³ Whether a rimfire is enough cartridge in New Mexico’s open country is a different question, and past 75 yards the answer is no.

Is there a magazine capacity limit for hunting coyotes in New Mexico?

No. New Mexico’s only magazine restriction is the three-shell shotgun limit for migratory game birds.²³

Calls, decoys, bait & dogs in New Mexico

Are electronic calls allowed for coyote hunting in New Mexico?

Yes, and nongame is named in the exception. It is unlawful to “use electronically or mechanically recorded calling devices, except for cougars, bears, javelina, furbearers, nongame species and during the Light Goose Conservation Order.”²⁷

Are decoys allowed for coyote hunting in New Mexico?

Yes, including motion decoys. The only decoy prohibition is on using live protected species as decoys.²⁸

Is baiting allowed for coyote hunting in New Mexico?

For coyotes, yes. The prohibition is scoped: it is unlawful to “take or attempt to take game species by baiting.”²⁹ Coyotes are nongame,¹ so the rule does not reach them.

Two things still apply. An area counts as baited for ten days after the bait is removed,²⁹ which matters if you are also hunting deer or elk on the same ground. And land-manager rules can sit on top on public land.

Can you use dogs to hunt coyotes in New Mexico?

Yes. New Mexico’s dog provision permits dogs for furbearers during open season,³⁰ and nothing restricts them for nongame, which has no season to be outside of.

Private property, vehicles & public land access in New Mexico

Is it legal to shoot coyotes on private property (e.g. in your backyard) in New Mexico?

On rural private land with permission, yes — and if you intend to use a light, note that permission alone does not exempt you. The statute exempts the landowner, the lessee and their employees, not a guest, so a guest needs the permit.¹⁶

Inside a town, no: municipal and county firearm-discharge ordinances govern, and they are not in the hunting rules. New Mexico’s only published setback in this booklet is the 150-yard limit around an occupied dwelling written for feral hogs.³¹

Can you hunt coyotes from a motorized vehicle in New Mexico?

New Mexico’s vehicle and road prohibitions are scoped to protected species. It is unlawful to “shoot at any protected species from within or upon a motor vehicle, motor-driven boat, sailboat or aircraft,”⁴ and unlawful to shoot at any protected species “on, from, across or from within the right-of-way fences of any graded, paved or maintained public road.”³² Coyotes are not a protected species.

Do not read that as permission. Shooting from or across a public road is dangerous, is separately an offence under other New Mexico law, and is the fastest way to lose access to the country you are hunting. The one prohibition here that does reach coyotes is aerial: it is unlawful to “hunt or shoot at any animal from an aircraft or drone.”³³

Can you hunt coyotes on public land in New Mexico?

Yes, with one significant carve-out. “Nongame species may be taken on U.S. Forest Service and BLM lands open to hunting.”¹ State Trust Land is open where an easement opens it, provided you hold a valid licence for protected species on those lands and are hunting during that licence’s season.¹

Wildlife management areas are closed to nongame hunting, with two exceptions: “Nongame hunting is not permitted on wildlife management areas (WMAs), except Water Canyon WMA from Jan. 1 to March 31, 2026, and Prairie Chicken Areas from Nov. 1 - March 15, 2027.”³⁴ On the prairie-chicken areas you also need a trapper licence and HMAV stamp.⁸

And remember there is no light permit for public land at all — the permit rule is built on written landowner permission.¹⁸

Is it legal to trap or snare coyotes in New Mexico?

On private land, with a trapper licence. On public land, no — New Mexico banned it:

It is illegal to set a trap or snare on public land.³⁵

The rule behind it is blunter still: “All public lands in New Mexico are closed to the use of traps and snares except as allowed by 17-11-4 NMSA 1978.”³⁶

Two exceptions survive: cage traps used “to abate damage caused by any animal to property, crops or livestock,” and traps or snares used by enrolled members of a federally recognized Indian nation, tribe or pueblo “solely for religious or ceremonial purposes.”³⁵ Public land is defined broadly — state, Forest Service, BLM, National Park Service, Department of Defense, state parks, and any county or municipality, but not land held in trust for an Indian nation, tribe or pueblo.³⁶

Trapping also requires a department-approved trapper education course,¹² and land sets must be checked every calendar day.³⁷

Is it legal to poison coyotes in New Mexico?

Not as a private individual. “Poison may not be used for the take of any furbearer,”³⁸ restricted-use pesticides are barred for furbearer take by rule, and predator toxicants are governed by federal and state pesticide law. Contact NMDOW or USDA Wildlife Services.

Are there protected areas or additional local restrictions in New Mexico?

Yes, and the one that should change how you hunt is a species. Mexican gray wolves are present in New Mexico and are federally protected, and NMDOW puts the identification problem in its front-of-book highlights: “Know where wolf encounters may occur and how to distinguish the Mexican gray wolf from coyotes.”³⁹ It is set out in full at how to tell a coyote from a Mexican gray wolf.

Beyond that: WMAs are largely closed to nongame,³⁴ military reservations have their own rules and orange requirement,¹⁴ and municipal and county discharge ordinances apply everywhere.

After the shot: pelts, bounties & contests in New Mexico

Are there regulations for possessing or transporting dead coyotes or pelts across state lines?

Coyotes carry no tag, seal or check-in requirement in New Mexico. Interstate movement is the receiving state’s business.

Can you sell coyote pelts, and do you need a fur handler’s licence?

You can sell pelts you took yourself without a fur dealer licence. “A fur dealer license is required for any person, firm or corporation engaged in the business of buying or selling unprocessed skins or pelts of any furbearing animal in New Mexico. Trappers or hunters selling pelts they harvested, and residents who purchase or sell less than 50 unprocessed pelts per year are exempt.”⁴⁰

If you do need one, it can only be bought at the NMDOW Santa Fe office.⁴⁰

Is there a coyote bounty program in New Mexico?

No. NMDOW runs no bounty, and none appears in the 2026–27 rules.

Are coyote contests legal in New Mexico, or can I hunt in New Mexico for an out-of-state contest?

No. New Mexico banned coyote-killing contests in 2019, and unusually the ban sits in the criminal code rather than the game laws:

It is unlawful for a person to organize, cause, sponsor, arrange, hold or participate in a coyote-killing contest.⁴¹

A “coyote-killing contest” is “an organized or sponsored competition with the objective of killing coyotes for prizes or entertainment.”⁴¹ Organizing one is a misdemeanour; participating is a petty misdemeanour.⁴¹

Because the prohibition names participate, hunting in New Mexico to enter a contest run from another state is inside it. Protecting people or property is expressly outside it.⁴¹

New Mexico was the third state in the country to pass such a ban, after California and Vermont; Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Colorado followed.

Coyotes in New Mexico

Are there coyotes in New Mexico? How many, and where?

Yes, statewide and in good numbers — Chihuahuan desert, high plains east of the Sangre de Cristos, piñon-juniper mesas, the Rio Grande bosque and the edges of Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe. There is no population estimate because there is no season, no tag and no harvest reporting on nongame.

Are New Mexico coyotes dangerous to people or pets?

To people, very rarely. To unattended pets and small livestock they are a routine threat, and depredation is why the artificial-light statute carries a landowner exemption in the first place.¹⁶

When is coyote mating season in New Mexico, and when do pups arrive?

Breeding runs through late winter, with pups on the ground in spring — earlier in the southern desert than on the northern high country. Late winter is the best calling of the year, for the same reason it is everywhere: males cover far more ground and answer far more aggressively.

When are coyotes most active in New Mexico?

First and last light year-round, compressed hard at both ends of the day in summer heat. For the full breakdown of season, weather and moon phase, see when to hunt coyotes.

How do I tell a coyote from a Mexican gray wolf in New Mexico?

Start with the sentence NMDOW puts on its list of things it is illegal to do, because it removes the defence you would otherwise reach for:

Shoot a wolf because of mistakenly identifying it as a coyote or anything else.⁴²

That is not advice. It sits in the same list as killing a wolf that is attacking your pet and killing one feeding on dead livestock — all unlawful. “I thought it was a coyote” is the thing the rule anticipates and refuses.

And NMDOW concedes the difficulty in the same breath, which is unusual and worth taking seriously:

Coyotes and Mexican gray wolves can be difficult to differentiate at a distance or at quick glance.⁴³

Why New Mexico is harder than the northern wolf states. A northern gray wolf runs 70–150 pounds — no one confuses that with a coyote in good light. A Mexican gray wolf is 50–80 pounds, “approximately the size of a large German shepherd.”⁴³ The gap between a big New Mexico coyote and a small Mexican wolf is a matter of pounds, not a matter of category.

That last row is the one test the northern comparisons cannot give you. A solid black canid in northern Montana may well be a wolf; a solid black canid in the Gila is not a Mexican wolf.

Two heuristics to throw away:

• “It wasn’t collared, so it wasn’t a wolf.” NMDOW: “Not all wolves have radio collars.”⁴³
• “Wolves aren’t in this unit.” The Mexican Wolf Experimental Population Area includes portions of New Mexico, and “the Gila National Forest and surrounding areas are locations where wolf encounters may occur.”⁴³ Surrounding areas is doing real work in that sentence.

What it costs. Federal penalties reach a year in jail and a $50,000 fine, with New Mexico Wildlife Conservation Act penalties on top — and there are rewards up to $45,000 for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of wolf poachers, offered jointly by federal and state agencies and conservation groups.⁴² Whoever is on the next ridge has a financial reason to report you.

When is it lawful to kill a wolf in New Mexico?

Two circumstances only, and neither of them is a hunting situation:⁴²

• The wolf is in the act of killing, wounding or biting your cattle, sheep, horses, mules, burros or dogs, on private or tribal land.
• In defence of human life.

Note what is excluded. It is unlawful to kill or injure a wolf because it is near you or your property, because it attacks your pet, or because it is feeding on dead livestock — the animal has to be in the act, on the right land, and the livestock has to be yours.⁴² It is also unlawful to enter posted closures around release pens, active dens and rendezvous sites.

If you do act, you have 24 hours to report it — the Mexican Wolf Interagency Field Office on 1-888-459-9653, or NMDOW’s 24-hour dispatch on 1-800-432-4263.⁴²

What’s changing in New Mexico

Three changes in the last seven years, and the first is recent enough that most references still use the old name. Newest first:

• 1 July 2025 — the agency was renamed. Senate Bill 5 renamed the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish to the New Mexico Department of Wildlife, and the State Game Commission to the State Wildlife Commission, broadening the mandate to all wildlife including invertebrates.⁴⁴ The 2026–27 rules are published under the new name.¹ The website is still served from wildlife.dgf.nm.gov, and “NMDGF” still appears in older documents.
• 1 April 2022 — traps and snares banned on public land. Known as Roxy’s Law, it leaves only cage traps for damage abatement and tribal ceremonial use.³⁵
• 1 July 2019 — coyote-killing contests banned. Signed 2 April 2019 as Laws 2019 chapter 151, codified in the criminal code rather than the game laws.⁴¹

These answers get re-checked before they go stale. The verification date at the top of the page is the record of when that last happened, not decoration.

Anything else worth noting about coyote hunting in New Mexico

For a New Mexico resident this is the cheapest coyote hunting in the West: no licence, no season, no limit, no hours. For a non-resident it is $65 and the same freedoms.

The catch is light. New Mexico is the state where the flashlight is regulated harder than the rifle — the hours are open, the calibre is open, the bag is open, and then a hand-held lamp needs a $15 permit, five working days’ notice, written landowner permission, and it will not cover you on public land at all. Plan a night hunt here around private ground and a permit application, or plan a day hunt.

Two answers here differ from what the booklet alone would tell you, and both were checked against the rules underneath it. Thermal is unrestricted — no New Mexico statute, rule or booklet mentions it, and nothing is pending. The FMJ prohibition printed in the general rules is scoped to big game in the regulation behind it, though carrying expanding ammunition is the right call regardless. Where a question genuinely remains, NMDOW answers the phone on 1-888-248-6866.

Is it legal to own a coyote as a pet in New Mexico?

No. Coyotes are wildlife rather than domestic animals, and New Mexico does not permit them to be held as pets. Contact NMDOW before assuming any exception applies.

Know something we missed? Contact me and I’ll get it fixed.