South Carolina Hunting, Fishing and State Park Access

South Carolina's outdoor benefit for a disabled veteran is one of the widest in this catalog, because the statute asks whether the veteran receives VA disability benefits and not how much. Section 50-9-525(A): "A resident who is determined to be disabled and receiving benefits under a Social Security program, the Civil Service Retirement System, the South Carolina State Retirement System, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Veterans Administration, or Medicaid, or their successor agencies or programs, may obtain a three year disability combination license or a three year disability fishing license at no cost." No rating threshold. No total and permanent requirement. No wartime service. A veteran drawing VA disability compensation is "determined to be disabled and receiving benefits under ... the Veterans Administration" on the words of the section, and the Department of Natural Resources administers it that way: its published requirement is residency and a determination of disability with benefits from one of the listed agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs. What the combination licence includes, from subsection (F)(1): "the statewide privileges of hunting big game, hunting migratory waterfowl, hunting on wildlife management area lands, freshwater fishing, and saltwater fishing." The wildlife management area privilege and the migratory waterfowl permit are inside it, which are ordinarily separate paid stamps. The department adds that a disability combination licence holder automatically receives the free base set of deer tags each year. What the base set is has just been rewritten twice. Section 50-9-650(B)(2) lists the resident tags issued with a hunting licence and big game permit and lets "lifetime, and gratis licensees" receive them on request. 2026 Act No. 231 (S. 961), signed May 19, 2026 and effective for that section on approval, sets the set at three antlerless and three unrestricted antlered tags. 2026 Act No. 207 (H. 5217), signed a day earlier on May 18, 2026 but taking effect January 2, 2027, rewrites the same paragraph as three antlerless, two unrestricted antlered and one antler-restriction tag valid only for a deer with four points on one antler or a twelve-inch inside spread. Neither act mentions the other. From January 2, 2027 the later-signed text and the later-effective text disagree about the sixth tag, and the Department of Natural Resources will decide which set it issues before a court does. Ask before the 2027 season rather than assuming the sixth tag is unrestricted. The disability fishing licence, subsection (F)(2), is the narrower version: freshwater and saltwater fishing only. Three limits worth planning around. Residency is 365 days, not thirty. Section 50-9-30(A)(3) provides that for a disability recreational licence, "resident" means a United States citizen "who has been domiciled in this State for three hundred sixty-five consecutive days or more immediately preceding the date of application." Ordinary recreational licences use thirty days under subsection (A)(1). A veteran who moved to South Carolina six months ago has to wait. Recertification. The licence runs three years from the date of issue and "disability recertification is required for renewal": the applicant must furnish proof, in the manner the department prescribes, of currently receiving disability benefits and of domicile. The department may waive the proof of disability requirement for a renewal where the resident is at least sixty-five. Hunter education. Subsection (D): a resident born after June 30, 1979 who has not completed hunter education certification may only obtain the disability fishing licence at no cost. On completing the certification, the licensee may then apply for the additional disability hunting privileges at no cost. The licence is not withheld, the hunting half of it is. Subsection (E) voids the licence if the holder ceases to be domiciled in South Carolina. Two lifetime routes exist for specific conditions rather than for veterans as such. Subsection (B) gives a lifetime disability combination licence or lifetime disability fishing licence, with no recertification ever, to a resident with quadriplegia or paraplegia who is certified as totally disabled. Subsection (C) does the same for a resident certified legally blind as defined in Section 43-25-20. A veteran who meets either description should take the lifetime licence rather than the three-year one. For the serving member, Section 50-9-45 is unusually blunt: "An active duty member of the Armed Forces of the United States whose home of record is South Carolina and who is stationed outside of the State, shall, upon presentation of his leave and earnings statement, be allowed to fish and hunt without purchasing a fishing or hunting license." The statute states no exclusions. The department publishes a list of them, describing the exemption as applying while home on leave and carving out big game, migratory birds and waterfowl, wildlife management area lands, deer tags, turkey tags, nongame devices and shrimping over bait. Neither the leave condition nor the carve-outs appear in Section 50-9-45. Carry the leave and earnings statement and the military identification card, expect the department's list to be enforced in the field, and know that the statute is broader than the published summary. Section 50-9-30(A)(1)(c) handles the member stationed here: an active member of the Armed Forces, or the member's dependent, stationed in this State for thirty consecutive days or more immediately preceding the application is a resident for licensing purposes. A nonresident soldier at Fort Jackson or Shaw pays resident prices. State parks are administrative, not statutory. The Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism sells the annual ALL Park Passport at half price, $49.50 rather than $99, to a South Carolina resident who is one hundred percent disabled, to a resident aged sixty-five or over, to a legally blind resident, and to an active member of the South Carolina National Guard. The reduced-rate holders also get thirty-five percent off admission, camping, picnic shelters, golf and fishing pier admission. The passes cannot be bought online; they are sold at park offices and the State House Gift Shop. Every figure in this paragraph is a department price list and can move without legislation, so confirm it before relying on it.