How Long Do Arizona Police Keep Arrest Records?

The arrest was years ago. Nobody charged you, or the case was dismissed, and you assumed the paperwork went into a drawer somewhere and stayed there. Then a background check, a licensing board, or a prosecutor pulled it up as if it happened last month.

We handle Arizona record relief every day, and we read old police reports every week. AZ Record Removal is owned and powered by Future First Criminal Law.

How long do Arizona police keep arrest records?

Arizona police keep arrest records for decades, and in practice for as long as the agency exists. No law tells a police department to throw an arrest record away after a set number of years. No clock runs on it. An arrest record does not fade. It sits.

This surprises people because so much else in life expires. A speeding ticket drops off an insurance record. A collection account ages off a credit report. An arrest works differently. The report the officer wrote, the fingerprints taken at booking, and the entry sent to the state repository each live in a separate system, and none of those systems has a delete date.

As of 2026, the only thing in Arizona law with the power to change what those systems show the public is a court order. Sealing under A.R.S. § 13-911 is the order for most cases. Expungement under A.R.S. § 36-2862 is the order for qualifying marijuana cases. Time alone does nothing.

Where does an Arizona arrest record live?

An Arizona arrest record lives in three places at once, and each place keeps its own copy on its own terms.

Where the record sits	What it holds	How long it stays
The arresting agency	The police report, booking photo, fingerprints, property sheets	Decades, often for the life of the agency
DPS Central State Repository	Your fingerprint-based criminal history, with each arrest and its disposition	Indefinitely, absent a court order
The court	The case file, docket and every filing, if a charge was filed	Public until sealed

Clearing one copy does not touch the other two. A person who talks a records clerk into pulling a booking photo still has a DPS entry and a court docket. So the answer to how long police keep arrest records is only a third of the question. The full question is how long all three keep it, and the answer for all three is the same. Until a judge orders otherwise.

How long does the arresting agency keep the police report?

The arresting agency keeps the police report for as long as its retention schedule requires, and usually far longer. The Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records writes the retention schedules every police department and sheriff’s office in the state follows. Those schedules set a minimum, not a maximum. A report tied to a felony is held far longer than a report on a minor misdemeanor, and some categories carry no destruction date at all.

Two things push real retention past the minimum. First, an agency is free to keep a report past the schedule, and most do, because destroying a report takes staff time and creates risk if the case ever matters again. Second, departments moved from paper to digital records systems years ago. A scanned report costs nothing to store, so nobody purges it. Reports from the paper era were scanned in too. This is how a report older than the officer who pulls it up stays one search away.

How long does DPS keep your Arizona criminal history?

The Arizona Department of Public Safety keeps your criminal history indefinitely unless a judge orders it sealed. DPS runs the Central State Repository, and every criminal justice agency in Arizona must report each arrest and each disposition to it. When you were booked and fingerprinted, the arrest went to DPS whether or not a charge followed.

The repository is fingerprint based, so a name change or a move out of state does not shake it. DPS does not run checks for private employers. It does release your history to a long list of authorized agencies: licensing boards, school districts, the fingerprint clearance card unit, and the FBI’s national file. Those are the checks people fail years after they thought a case was over.

You have a right to see what DPS holds. The DPS record review process takes a fingerprint card and mails back a copy of your record. If the arrest is there, it stays there until a court order under A.R.S. § 13-911 tells DPS to mark it sealed.

Does an arrest stay on your record if you were never charged?

Yes. An arrest with no charge stays in the arresting agency’s file and in your DPS history for as long as those two systems keep anything, which is indefinitely. Nobody at the prosecutor’s office sends a note to DPS saying the case went nowhere. The entry sits with no disposition next to it, and a screener reading it sees an arrest and a blank.

The blank is worse than a dismissal in some ways. A dismissal at least says the case ended. A no-charge arrest looks unfinished, and a licensing board or an employer reading it has no way to tell whether the prosecutor declined the case or is still deciding.

The fix is the same one a dismissed case gets. A.R.S. § 13-911 lets a person who was arrested and never charged apply to seal the arrest, with no waiting period. Our post on sealing an arrest that never became a charge walks through the filing.

What happens to the court file if a charge was filed?

If a charge was filed, the court keeps the file as a public record, and it stays public until a judge seals it. The docket goes into the court’s online case search, where anyone with your name and a browser finds it. A dismissal, a not-guilty verdict, or a conviction each stay visible the same way. The outcome changes what the file says, not whether it exists.

The court file is the copy most background check companies read, because it is the easiest to reach. A dismissed misdemeanor from long ago shows up next to your name because a screener pulled the docket, not because a police officer shared it.

How a dismissed case behaves over time is its own question, and we answered it in how long a dismissed case stays on your record in Arizona. The short version for this post is simple. A dismissal has no waiting period to seal, and sealing is what pulls the docket out of public view.

What do background check companies pull, and how long does old data circulate?

Background check companies pull court dockets, bulk data purchases, and each other. A large screener buys court records in bulk, stores them, and resells them to smaller screeners, tenant services, and people-search sites. Once your arrest enters that supply chain, it circulates for years after the source record changes, because nobody downstream goes back to check.

Federal law puts one limit on it. The Fair Credit Reporting Act bars a consumer reporting agency from reporting a non-conviction arrest older than seven years on most employment and housing screens. The limit has holes. It does not apply to jobs paying $75,000 or more a year. It does not apply to a landlord who searches the court website himself. It does not apply to a mugshot site or a people-search site, since neither is a consumer reporting agency and neither follows a clock.

So a stale arrest circulates as long as someone keeps a copy. Sealing the source stops new copies from being made. It does not recall the old ones.

Can a prosecutor still use an arrest from decades ago?

Yes. A client came to us after a prosecutor produced a police report roughly forty years old, for an arrest that never became a charge, and attached it to a court filing. Nobody had looked at the report in decades. It was scanned, indexed, and one search away the whole time.

This story is the reason we answer the retention question the way we do. People ask how long police keep arrest records because they hope the answer is a number. The honest answer is that a report with no charge attached sat in an agency file for four decades, and the moment someone had a reason to look, it was there.

The prosecutor did nothing improper by pulling it. The report was an agency record with no seal on it. A sealing order under A.R.S. § 13-911 would have marked the report sealed in every system and pulled it from public view. Police and prosecutors keep access to sealed records for the purposes the law lists, so sealing narrows who reads a report and why. Nobody had ever asked a judge for the order.

What does a sealing order under A.R.S. § 13-911 change?

A sealing order changes what all three record holders show the public, and it is the only order in Arizona law with that reach for a case outside marijuana. When a judge grants an application under A.R.S. § 13-911, the clerk notifies DPS and the prosecutor. DPS marks the record sealed and notifies the state and federal agencies it shared the record with. The court pulls the case from public view. The arresting agency seals its copy.

Who qualifies is broad. A person arrested and never charged, a person whose case was dismissed or ended in a not-guilty verdict, and a person who finished a sentence and paid every dollar owed each have a path. A dismissal, an acquittal, or a no-charge arrest carries no waiting period. A conviction waits 10 years for a class 2 or 3 felony, 5 years for a class 4, 5 or 6 felony, 3 years for a class 1 misdemeanor, and 2 years for a class 2 or 3 misdemeanor, counted from the end of the sentence and payment in full.

The law builds in a 60-day hold so the prosecutor and any victim have time to object before the judge rules. A denial bars a new application for three years. Our page on sealing records in Arizona covers the filing.

Who still sees a sealed arrest record in Arizona?

Sealing removes the record from public view, not from existence, and the law lists who keeps access. Police agencies, prosecutors, the judge, probation departments, the Department of Child Safety, the Department of Corrections, and the clerk who maintains the file each keep access for the purposes A.R.S. § 13-911 spells out. A victim who asserted rights in the case keeps access too.

Some employers see through the seal as well. Fingerprint clearance card applications, jobs in law enforcement, jobs working with children or vulnerable adults, and positions where a law requires disclosure are the main ones. Outside those, the law lets you state you were never arrested for, charged with, or convicted of the sealed offense. Our breakdown of the exceptions to sealing lists them in full.

Sealing also does nothing to the internet. A news story, a mugshot site, a Google result, or a copy a data broker bought before the seal stays up. A set aside under A.R.S. § 13-905 does even less here, because it changes the status of a conviction and leaves the file public. Expungement under A.R.S. § 36-2862 reaches the furthest, and it applies only to qualifying marijuana cases. Our expungement page explains that path.

How do you find out what your arrest record shows today?

Check all three places before you file anything, because each one tells a different story. Start with the DPS record review packet, which returns your fingerprint-based history by mail. Then search the public case lookup for every county where you lived or were stopped. Then request the report from the arresting agency, which is a public records request most departments handle by email.

Or skip the legwork. Our Arizona record search tells you what your record shows before you spend a dollar, and it tells you which of the three copies each filing reaches. We run this check for every client before we file, because a sealing application aimed at the wrong case, or filed before a fee balance is paid, risks a denial, and a denial bars a new application for three years. Our sealing timeline shows what the process looks like from the first search to the order.

Why should you choose AZ Record Removal?

Arizona record clearing is the only work we do. We are owned and powered by Future First Criminal Law, and our founder, Zachary Divelbiss, sealed and set aside his own record before he cleared anyone else’s. We tell you what your record shows before you pay. We file the application, we track the judge’s docket, and we report each step to you.

The fee is flat at $1,700 per case with no add-ons, and every filing your case qualifies for rides on that one fee. Full numbers are on our pricing page. We work statewide and handle everything virtually. We have 250+ five-star Google reviews. Phones are answered around the clock at 602-900-6240, and consultations are scheduled during business hours.

What should you do next?

Stop waiting for the record to age off, because it will not. Every year it sits is a year a screener, a licensing board, or a prosecutor has a reason to pull it. Take our free eligibility quiz to see whether your arrest qualifies for sealing, then call 602-900-6240. We will tell you what each of the three record holders shows, what we would file, and what it costs. No judge is required to grant a sealing application, and getting the right application in front of the right judge is what we do.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do Arizona arrest records ever expire on their own?

No. Arizona has no law telling police, DPS, or the courts to delete an arrest after a set number of years. The arresting agency keeps the report for decades, DPS keeps the criminal history entry indefinitely, and the court file stays public. A sealing order under A.R.S. § 13-911 is the only order with the power to change what all three show the public.

Does an arrest show on a background check if you were never charged?

Often, yes. The arrest went to DPS at booking, and it sits there with no disposition. A fingerprint-based check for a license, a school job, or a clearance card reads it. A commercial screener reads it if a court file exists or a data broker holds a copy. Sealing the arrest is the filing built for this situation, and it carries no waiting period.

How long does DPS keep an arrest in Arizona?

Indefinitely. DPS runs the Central State Repository, and every criminal justice agency in Arizona must report each arrest and each disposition to it. Nothing in the law tells DPS to purge an entry after a set time. DPS marks the entry sealed only when a judge orders it under A.R.S. § 13-911 or expunges it under A.R.S. § 36-2862.

Does sealing an arrest remove it from the internet?

No. Sealing pulls the record from the public case search, from public DPS responses, and from the arresting agency’s public file. It does not reach a news story, a mugshot site, a Google result, or a copy a data broker bought before the seal. Those come down only when the site removes them, and some sites charge to do it.