Arizona timeline
Arizona probate timeline: the 30-day wait and creditor deadlines
The simplified route starts 30 days after death.
Arizona creditor deadlines are not verified to this site’s standard, so none is published below.
Sources reviewed August 7, 2026. Latest primary-source re-fetch October 3, 2026.
The one date this page can source
The affidavit for collection of personal property route requires 30 days to elapse from the date of death. This is a precondition: the affidavit or petition cannot be presented before it runs, regardless of how straightforward the estate is.
1. Thirty days have elapsed since the death of the decedent. 2. Either: (a) An application or petition for the appointment of a personal representative is not pending and a personal representative has not been appointed in any jurisdiction and the value of all personal property in the decedent's estate, wherever located, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed $200,000 as valued as of the date of death.A.R.S. § 14-3971 — Arizona State Legislature; verified October 3, 2026.
Creditor deadlines
The creditor-notice and claim-bar deadlines have not been verified to this site's primary-source standard, so no number is published.
Read this: A.R.S. tit. 14, ch. 3, art. 8 (creditors' claims). The probate clerk in the county of filing can also state the local practice, which sometimes differs from the bare statutory minimum.
Arizona’s outer deadline is two years plus whatever is left of the notice period
Most states set a flat outer bar. A.R.S. § 14-3803(A)(1) sets an additive one: claims arising before death are barred unless presented within the earlier of “two years after the decedent’s death plus the time remaining in the period commenced by an actual or published notice pursuant to section 14-3801, subsection A or B,” or the notice periods themselves under (A)(2).
The notice periods are set out in § 14-3801. At the time of appointment the personal representative must publish notice once a week for three successive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the county, announcing the appointment and the representative’s address, and requiring claims within four months after the date of first publication. Known creditors must additionally be given written notice by mail or other delivery, and they have the later of four months after the published notice or sixty days after the mailing.
Two consequences follow. A known creditor mailed notice late in the publication window gets the sixty-day tail rather than the remains of the four months, so the representative cannot shorten a known creditor’s time by delaying the letter. And because § 14-3801(C) provides that the representative “is not liable to a creditor or to a successor of the decedent for giving or failing to give notice under this section,” the sanction for skipping notice is the longer exposure in § 14-3803, not personal liability.
Arizona’s bar runs against the estate, the personal representative, and the heirs and devisees. Unlike Montana and North Dakota, the Arizona text does not extend it to nonprobate transferees.
Source: A.R.S. §§ 14-3801, 14-3803, read from the enacting state’s own published code on 2026-09-17. Quoted wording is the statute’s; the surrounding explanation is this site’s reading of it and is not legal advice.
General sequence: first week, how long probate takes.
Arizona record: 3/3 verified, 10 matched checks, latest source re-fetch October 3, 2026. Source record · method · report a correction