What Are the Requirements After Pleading Guilty to a DUI in Arizona?

The 8 Arizona DUI Requirements After a Conviction

These run mostly in parallel, on different clocks — the court’s, MVD’s and your insurer’s. The order below is the order they usually hit.

1 Serve the jail sentence — and know the one-day rule

A first regular DUI carries not less than ten consecutive days in jail under A.R.S. § 28-1381(I) — but subsection (J) lets the judge suspend all but one day if you complete court-ordered alcohol or drug screening, education or treatment. Extreme DUI starts at thirty consecutive days (forty-five at 0.20 or more) with no equivalent one-day rule, and a second offense within eighty-four months means ninety days minimum. Complete the program or the suspended days come back — the statute orders you to show cause why the remaining sentence should not be served.

2 Pay the fines and the stacked assessments

The advertised fine is the small part. A first regular DUI carries a fine of not less than $250 — plus a $500 prison construction assessment and a $500 public safety equipment assessment under § 28-1381(I), plus statutory surcharges on the base fine. Extreme DUI raises the assessment to $1,000. With screening, interlock and insurance costs, our Arizona DUI cost calculator shows where the real total lands.

3 Complete alcohol or drug screening — then whatever it recommends

Screening is not optional and not only for repeat offenders: A.R.S. § 28-1387(B) requires every person convicted under §§ 28-1381, 28-1382 or 28-1383 to complete alcohol or other drug screening at an approved facility — and if the screening recommends education or treatment, the court orders it. This is also the program that unlocks the one-day jail rule, so timing it early matters.

4 Install a certified ignition interlock device — on every vehicle you drive

Under A.R.S. § 28-3319, a DUI conviction means MVD requires a certified ignition interlock device for twelve months on any motor vehicle you operate — installed, calibrated and serviced at your expense, with compliance rules set by § 28-1461. Missed service appointments, tampering or failed tests can extend the period, and driving any vehicle without the device restarts your problems.

5 Get through the license suspension — and the revocation traps

The 90-day administrative suspension under A.R.S. § 28-1385 usually starts before the criminal case even resolves. A second conviction within eighty-four months brings a full one-year revocation under § 28-1381(K). The sequencing — what runs when, and what MVD requires before it will reinstate — is covered in our license suspension guide.

6 File the SR-22 — proof of future financial responsibility

To reinstate after a DUI suspension, MVD requires proof of future financial responsibility — the SR-22 certificate of insurance your insurer files under A.R.S. §§ 28-4076 and 28-4077, typically maintained for three years. Expect your carrier to reprice or non-renew when it learns of the conviction; an SR-22 lapse suspends the license all over again.

7 Traffic survival school and the points on your record

The court may order an approved traffic survival school course under § 28-1381(I), and a DUI adds eight points to your MVD record — enough to trigger action on its own. How points, TSS and suspensions interact is mapped in our MVD point system guide.

8 Community restitution, probation terms and the 84-month clock

Second-offense sentences add at least thirty hours of community restitution and commonly years of probation with abstinence and testing conditions. And every DUI starts an eighty-four-month lookback: another violation inside that window is sentenced as a repeat offense — the difference between one day and ninety, as our second DUI guide lays out.

How You Keep Driving: the Special Interlock Restricted License

Arizona does not intend for every convicted driver to stop driving — it intends for them to drive supervised. A.R.S. § 28-1401 creates the special ignition interlock restricted driver license, which lets eligible drivers suspended under § 28-1385 or for certain convictions resume driving with a certified interlock installed. Eligibility windows, application timing and which suspensions qualify are technical — and getting them wrong means driving on a suspended license, a new criminal charge. This is the piece of post-conviction work where counsel most directly buys back your daily life. If the conviction itself is still in play, start with our top defenses to DUI charges instead — the best after-conviction plan is not needing one.