Arizona Criminal Statute of Limitations Explained

How long does Arizona have to file criminal charges?

If something happened years ago and you have been waiting for a knock on the door, the Arizona criminal statute of limitations is the rule that decides whether the state can still come after you. It sets a hard deadline for when prosecutors have to file a charge. Miss that deadline, and the case can be dismissed no matter how strong the evidence is. This guide walks through the actual time limits, when the clock starts, and the traps that let old cases stay alive far longer than people expect. If you are facing a specific accusation, our Arizona criminal defense team can tell you exactly where your situation stands.

For most felonies, the state has seven years to bring a charge. For misdemeanors, it is one year, and for the lowest-level petty offenses, just six months. These periods come straight from A.R.S. 13-107, the statute that sets Arizona’s criminal filing deadlines. The felony number is the one that surprises people most: whether the charge is a class 2 felony or a class 6 felony, the same seven-year clock applies. The class of the offense controls the punishment, not the deadline, and Arizona sorts every crime into felony, misdemeanor, and petty categories under A.R.S. 13-601.

Two things are worth knowing right away. First, “the state has seven years” does not mean prosecutors will wait seven years. It means that is the outer limit. Second, a large and serious group of offenses has no deadline at all, which we cover further down. So the honest answer to “how long can you be charged with a crime in Arizona” is: it depends entirely on what the crime is.

Arizona statute of limitations by offense level

Here is how the deadlines line up by category. Use this as a starting point, not a final answer, because the exceptions below can change the math in a specific case.

When does the clock start, and what pauses it?

The clock generally starts when the offense is committed. More precisely, A.R.S. 13-107 says the period runs after the offense is actually discovered by the state, or after it reasonably should have been discovered “with the exercise of reasonable diligence,” whichever comes first. For an everyday crime that police responded to on the spot, that is essentially the date it happened. For something the state did not know about, like a hidden fraud, the clock may not start until it surfaces.

Then comes the rule that surprises almost everyone. The deadline can be paused, or “tolled,” which stops the clock from running. Under A.R.S. 13-107, “the period of limitation does not run during any time when the accused is absent from the state or has no reasonably ascertainable place of abode within the state.” In plain English: if you left Arizona, the months or years you were gone usually do not count. Someone who moved out of state for three years may find that three years never came off the clock at all.

Why “it has been years” does not always mean you are safe

It is natural to assume that if enough time has passed, the danger is gone. Sometimes that is true. Often it is not, for several reasons. The tolling rule above can quietly extend a deadline well past the raw number of years. The discovery rule can delay the start date for crimes the state did not know about. And for the no-limit offenses, there is simply no finish line to cross.

There is also the difference between an arrest and a charge. Prosecutors can decline to file at first and then bring the case later, as long as they are still inside the deadline. A case can even be filed, dismissed, and refiled within the limitations period. So the fact that nothing has happened for years does not, by itself, prove the window has closed. The only reliable way to know is to have the specific facts and dates checked against the statute.

How a statute of limitations defense actually works

A statute of limitations defense is powerful, but it is not automatic. If the state files after the deadline, the case does not vanish on its own. The defense generally has to raise it, usually through a motion to dismiss that argues the charge was filed too late. The defense points to the offense date, the filing date, and any tolling, and asks the court to throw the case out because the state ran out of time.

Because the burden of showing timeliness and the burden of raising the defense both matter, this is not a do-it-yourself argument. The state will often respond that the clock was tolled while you were out of state, or that the discovery date was later than you think. Untangling those dates is exactly the kind of work a Phoenix felony defense attorney does early in a case. If the offense is a misdemeanor, the one-year window is short enough that a timeliness challenge can come up quickly, and our page on a class 1 misdemeanor in Arizona explains where those charges fall.

Which Arizona crimes have no statute of limitations?

A specific set of offenses can be charged at any time, with no deadline whatsoever. Under A.R.S. 13-107, that group includes any homicide, a conspiracy to commit homicide that results in a death, violent sexual assault under Arizona law, certain terrorism-related felonies, and “any misuse of public monies or a felony involving falsification of public records.” Attempts to commit these offenses carry no limit either.

This is why a decades-old murder or a violent sexual assault can still be prosecuted today. For these crimes, the passage of time provides no protection at all. If you are worried about an accusation in this category, the stakes are as high as they get, and our Phoenix violent crimes attorney page explains how these cases are defended. Note that sexual offenses in Arizona have their own layered rules, so the answer to “how long can you be charged with a rape crime” is often “there may be no limit at all.”

How is this different from a civil statute of limitations?

People sometimes mix up the criminal deadline with the civil one, and they are separate systems. The criminal statute of limitations we have been discussing controls when the state, through a prosecutor, can charge you with a crime. A civil statute of limitations controls how long a private person has to sue you for money over the same underlying event, and those periods are set by different statutes entirely.

That means the two clocks can run out at completely different times. A criminal charge might be barred while a civil lawsuit is still allowed, or the reverse. The existence of one does not decide the other, and being safe from a criminal charge does not automatically mean you are safe from a civil claim. If your concern is what an old matter looks like today, our guide on how to clear a criminal record in Arizona covers what stays visible and what can be addressed.

What about DNA and cold cases?

Modern DNA testing is the main reason the no-limit offenses matter so much in practice. Because homicide and violent sexual assault have no filing deadline, a cold case can be reopened and charged years or even decades later when new DNA evidence links a suspect. There is no statute of limitations to run out and no clock to beat.

For offenses that do have a deadline, DNA can still play a role, but the seven-year, one-year, or six-month window still applies unless something tolled it. The takeaway is simple: if the offense is in the no-limit group, advances in forensic science can bring a long-dormant case back to life at any time, which is exactly why early, quiet legal advice matters when you are worried about the past.