Arizona Private Parking Enforcement Laws: Towing, Signs, and Private Citations

In Arizona, towing unauthorized vehicles from a private lot is conditioned on signs that meet A.R.S. 9-499.05 and on the tow company having a police request or the owner’s written permission. Cities, not the state, set maximum tow rates. Booting got its own statewide rules in 2026: a fee between $90 and $150, release within 30 minutes, and a ban on cities prohibiting private booting outright. Arizona has no statute on private parking citations, so those rest on the posted terms as civil claims.

Summary

Arizona keeps the state rules short and lets cities fill in the details. The towing statute has been stable for years. The booting law is new, signed on June 19, 2026, and is the biggest change for operators in the state.

Private parking citations and invoices

No Arizona statute authorizes, limits, or bans private parking citations. A notice on a windshield is a bill for breaking the terms posted at the entrance, a civil claim that rests on how clear those terms were and on the charge itself. It carries no points, no court date, and no government penalty, and it is not a city ticket.

The 2026 booting law does recognize the idea of private parking fees. It lets a booting company act as the owner’s agent to collect unpaid parking fees, and it requires those fees to be paid along with the boot fee before release. That is not authority for citations in general, but it shows the legislature accepts that paid lots charge drivers directly. For the basic theory of private tickets, read can private companies issue parking tickets.

What signs must say

Under 9-499.05(B), the property owner is treated as consenting to unrestricted public parking unless the lot is posted with signs that are "clearly visible and readable from any point within the parking area and at each entrance." Each sign must contain at least:

• The restrictions on parking.
• What happens to vehicles that violate them.
• The maximum cost to the violator, including storage fees and any other charges.
• A phone number and address where the driver can locate the vehicle.

The booting law uses a parallel list: restrictions, disposition, the maximum cost to remove the boot, and a phone number and address for boot removal. Read together, the two lists call for both costs on the signs of a lot that both tows and boots. The state sets no size, color, or mounting height, but cities can, and Tucson does. A proposed statewide size rule of 9 by 12 to 12 by 18 inches was part of HB 2305, which the Governor vetoed on June 19, 2026, so it is not law. See parking lot signage for enforcement for sign wording in general terms.

Towing from private property

Section 9-499.05(C) makes it a class 2 misdemeanor for a private towing carrier to tow from private property without the vehicle owner’s permission unless one of two things is true. Either a law enforcement agency requested the tow, or the carrier has express written permission from the property owner or the owner’s agent and the lot is posted as required. The owner or agent must either sign each tow order or authorize towing through a written contract valid for a specific period. The statute bars the tow company from acting as the owner’s agent, so the tow company does not authorize its own tows.

The state statute does not set a post-tow police notice, a photo requirement, or a storage distance. HB 2305 would have added date and time stamped photos and a one-hour police notice statewide, but it was vetoed. Those rules exist only where a city has adopted them.

Tucson is the clearest example. Its private property towing ordinance, Ordinance No. 12055, passed in November 2023, implements Tucson Code Sections 7-514 and 7-528. According to the City of Tucson FAQ, it requires permission from the property owner or its representative, photo evidence of the violation, and notice to the Tucson Police Department within one hour of the tow. Vehicles must be released immediately once proper documents are shown, and carriers cannot hold a car for a lien or a promissory note. The ordinance does not apply to parking areas tied to a single-family residence.

Booting

Booting was the gap in Arizona law until 2026. Laws 2026, chapter 156 (SB 1205) was approved by the Governor on June 19, 2026, and sets no separate effective date, so it follows the session’s general effective date of September 12, 2026. The bill adds the rules as A.R.S. 9-500.54, but azleg.gov currently shows a different law under that number, so the booting section may be renumbered when it is codified. This page cites it by chapter.

The main rules in the law:

• A city or town may not prohibit booting on private property, but it may regulate rates, signs, and release practices.
• A booting company needs a police request or written permission from the property owner or agent.
• It must release a booted vehicle within 30 minutes of a request and be able to do so 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• No booting of occupied vehicles, marked emergency vehicles, vehicles with tax-exempt plates, or vehicles less than 15 minutes past their paid time.
• The booting company or parking management company must offer a dispute process and decide within 60 days.
• Release-request calls must be time-stamped and kept for 90 days, and handed to the city free within five days of a request.

Violations of the permission, release, fee, damage-fee, and prohibited-vehicle rules are class 2 misdemeanors. One detail to watch: the sign rule refers to a "parking area," which the act defines as private property used for parking for a fee. Whether that reaches free customer lots is not spelled out in the act. Our comparison of booting vs. towing covers how the two tools compare.

Fees, caps, and driver remedies

Towing rates are local. Section 9-499.05(A) lets each city or town set the maximum rate for towing, transporting, or impounding a vehicle from private property within its limits. Tucson ties its caps on towing, after-hours, and storage fees to the current Arizona Department of Public Safety tow rates, and bars charging more than the amount posted on the sign (credit card fees aside). It also forbids storage charges for days the carrier was closed during business hours. Where a city has adopted no cap, the statute's sign rule still requires the maximum cost to the violator to be posted.

Booting fees are set statewide by the 2026 law:

HB 2305 would have taken rate-setting away from cities and tied it to the DPS tow agreement. The Governor vetoed it on June 19, 2026, pointing to a public property towing study committee she had already signed into law, so city rate authority stands as of the review date. The remedies available to drivers include a police complaint for the misdemeanor, the booting dispute process, and small claims for overcharges.

Local ordinances to check

Tucson’s rules are summarized above. They require signs to be red and white or blue and white, readable from any point in the lot, to cite Tucson Code Sections 7-514 and 7-528, and to list the carrier’s hours. Tucson defines business hours as 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday, and requires carriers to accept cash, credit, and debit cards.

Phoenix has its own private property towing provisions in its City Code. We could not load the current code text while writing this, so we could not confirm its exact sign wording and fee cap; the city’s code site has the official text. Mesa, Chandler, Scottsdale, and other cities can set their own tow rates under 9-499.05 and, after September 2026, their own booting sign and release rules.

Questions to raise with your attorney

Arizona's rules come from A.R.S. 9-499.05, the 2026 booting law, and city codes. An attorney licensed in Arizona can work through questions like these for a specific lot:

• Do our signs meet 9-499.05(B)'s visibility and content rules and, where we boot, the parallel list in Laws 2026, chapter 156?
• Do our tow and boot authorizations take the form of signed orders or a written contract for a specific period, as 9-499.05(C) and the 2026 law describe?
• Does the 2026 law's definition of a "parking area" reach our free customer lots?
• How do the 30-minute release rule, the fee table, and the 60-day dispute process in the 2026 law apply to our booting operations?
• What do Tucson's ordinance, the Phoenix City Code, and other city rules say for our lots?
• How should our private notices be worded so they are not read as a city ticket?

Lotably issues citations with photos and lets drivers pay or contest from a phone. Booting and towing records start switched off in Lotably and are turned on when the operator asks. Lotably does not check whether booting or towing is allowed where an operator enforces; the operator is responsible for following the law and assumes all risk of using them. For other states, see private parking enforcement laws by state.