Arizona Identity Theft Laws: A.R.S. 13-2008 Penalties and Rights

Arizona criminalizes identity theft under two connected statutes: A.R.S. § 13-2008 for the base offense and A.R.S. § 13-2009 for the aggravated version, which also reaches an employer who knowingly accepts a stolen identity from a job applicant. Arizona backs both with a mandatory police-report right, court-ordered restitution for the full amount of economic loss, and a separate civil remedy layered on top of that restitution.

This page covers the elements and penalties of both statutes, your right to a police report, restitution and civil remedies, and where to report identity theft in Arizona. For the broader picture, see our identity theft laws hub and our guide to reporting identity theft.

Arizona's Identity Theft Statute: A.R.S. § 13-2008

Arizona's base identity theft offense makes it a crime for a person to knowingly take, purchase, manufacture, record, possess, or use any personal identifying information or entity identifying information of another person or entity, real or fictitious, without that person's or entity's consent. The statute requires intent, specifically to obtain or use the identity for any unlawful purpose, to cause loss, whether or not actual economic loss results, or to obtain or continue employment. The statute also builds in a police-report right, discussed below, and lets prosecutors consolidate multiple violations into a single complaint. It excludes minors under 21 who violate the state's alcohol statute using a fake identification. A.R.S. § 13-2008 is a class 4 felony, with no dollar-amount tiering built into the base offense itself.

Aggravated Identity Theft and the Employer Offense: A.R.S. § 13-2009

Arizona elevates identity theft to aggravated identity theft, a class 3 felony, in three situations: taking or using the identifying information of three or more people or entities; taking or using one person's identifying information and causing that person $1,000 or more in economic loss; or taking identifying information with intent to obtain employment. A separate clause in the same statute criminalizes an employer who knowingly accepts another person's identifying information from a job applicant, knowing that the applicant is not who the information identifies. That employer offense carries the same class 3 felony classification as aggravated identity theft itself.

Your Right to a Police Report

Arizona law gives identity theft victims a concrete, enforceable reporting right. On request, a peace officer in any jurisdiction where an element of the offense occurred, a result of the offense occurred, or where the victim resides or is located, must take a report, and may share copies with agencies in other relevant jurisdictions. This matters in practice because identity theft frequently crosses jurisdictional lines, with the victim in one city, the thief operating from another, and the fraudulent transaction processed somewhere else entirely; Arizona's statute is written so a victim is not turned away simply because their local department did not handle the underlying crime itself.

Restitution Is Mandatory

Arizona's general sentencing statute, A.R.S. § 13-603(C), requires the sentencing court to order a convicted person to make restitution to the identity theft victim in the full amount of the economic loss as determined by the court. This is a mandatory obligation built into every qualifying sentence, not a discretionary option the court can decline to consider.

A Separate Civil Remedy on Top of Restitution

Arizona does not treat restitution as the end of a victim's options. Under A.R.S. § 13-807, an order of restitution does not preclude the victim from bringing a separate civil action and proving damages in that action in excess of the amount of restitution actually paid. In other words, restitution sets a floor, not a ceiling, and Arizona gives identity theft victims a real, independent civil remedy on top of it. The same statute also gives victims a practical advantage if they do sue: a criminal conviction, including a no-contest plea, precludes the defendant from denying the essential allegations of that offense in the later civil case.

Reporting to the Arizona Attorney General

The Arizona Attorney General's Consumer Protection & Advocacy division recommends three steps for identity theft victims: file with the FTC to obtain an Identity Theft Affidavit, report to local city or county law enforcement, and notify credit agencies and debt collectors, using the office's own letter templates. It links out to FTC guidance, the National Identity Theft Victims Assistance Network, and free credit reports from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The office's contact information is 2005 N Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85004, (602) 542-5025. A companion general consumer-complaint channel is available online in English and Spanish, or by mail, email, or fax, with separate phone lines for Phoenix at (602) 542-5763 and Tucson at (520) 628-6648; complaints are confidential.

Credit Freezes for Minors in Arizona

The Arizona Attorney General's site references a general security-freeze resource under its data privacy and breach-reporting section, but this page could not confirm whether Arizona has enacted its own protected-consumer or minor-specific credit freeze statute, distinct from the federal minimum. Either way, Arizona parents and guardians already have a right here: federal law, 15 U.S.C. § 1681c-1(j), requires all three nationwide credit bureaus to let a parent or guardian freeze a child's credit file for free, even before the child has a credit file at all. See our credit freeze vs. fraud alert page for how the freeze right works generally.

Federal Rights That Apply in Every State

On top of Arizona's own statutes, every identity theft victim also has federal rights that do not depend on state law. IdentityTheft.gov, run by the FTC, is a free national recovery site that builds a personal recovery plan once you describe what happened. Once you have an FTC Identity Theft Report, 15 U.S.C. § 1681c-2 (FCRA § 605B) requires a credit bureau to block fraudulent information from your report within 4 business days of receiving your documentation. Federal law has also made both credit freezes and fraud alerts free at all three bureaus since 2018, under 15 U.S.C. § 1681c-1. See our guides to reporting identity theft and credit freeze vs. fraud alert for the full mechanics of both.

No 2025-26 amendment to A.R.S. § 13-2008 or § 13-2009 surfaced during this page's research. The Arizona Legislature's own bill search tool for the 57th Legislature's 2025 and 2026 sessions was confirmed reachable, but a keyword search inside it could not be completed with the tools available this session, so treat this as a partial check rather than an exhaustive one.

Information last verified on 2026-08-13, drawn directly from A.R.S. §§ 13-2008, 13-2009, 13-603, and 13-807, and from the Arizona Attorney General's identity theft page. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

Related Resources

• Identity Theft Laws: Federal Rules and State Penalties
• How to Report Identity Theft
• Credit Freeze vs. Fraud Alert

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Last updated: 2026-08-13.