Mg doped GaN epilayers grown by reactive molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) exhibit clear persistent photoconductivity (PPC) whose manifestation has been used to probe the nature of Mg impurities in GaN. PPC buildup and decay transients and the dependence of the PPC decay time constant on the PPC buildup time have been systematically measured and formulated in the context of lattice relaxed Mg impurities (orAXcenters). Our results have demonstrated that there is an energy barrier of about 129 meV which prevents free hole capture by ionized Mg impurities and that there is a lattice relaxation associated with Mg impurities in GaN. We also present a detailed comparison for Mg impurities inp‐type GaN epilayers grown by MBE (hydrogen‐free) and metalorganic chemical deposition (hydrogen rich). ©1996 American Institute of Physics.