Arizona Residential Lease Agreement

What a Arizona lease must include

Standard lease elements

• Parties and the Arizona county + street address of the rental.
• Lease term — fixed end date or a periodic (month-to-month) tenancy.
• Monthly rent amount, due date, and accepted payment methods.
• Security deposit amount with the 1.5× monthly-rent cap enforced at /review.
• Utilities — which the landlord covers and which the tenant pays.
• Occupancy rules, pets, smoking, and entry procedures.
• Default, eviction-notice tiers, and 30-day periodic-tenancy termination language.
• 14-business-day itemized return + double-damages exposure for wrongful withholding.
• Mandatory move-in checklist + bed-bug educational disclosure (multi-family) + owner-identification disclosure.
• Signatures of all parties.

Arizona-required disclosures

• Federal lead-paint disclosure and EPA pamphlet for any unit built before 1978. (42 U.S.C. § 4852d; 24 C.F.R. Part 35)
• Move-in condition form — landlord must provide a signed checklist describing existing damages and notify the tenant of the right to be present at the move-out inspection, prior to collecting any portion of the security deposit. (A.R.S. § 33-1321(C))
• Bed-bug educational disclosure — for multi-family rentals only, landlord must provide educational materials about bed-bug prevention and may not knowingly rent an infested unit. Single-family residences are exempt. (A.R.S. § 33-1319)
• Owner / agent identification — name and address of the landlord (or the agent authorized to manage the premises and to receive notices and demands) must appear in the lease. (A.R.S. § 33-1322)
• Shared-utility (RUBS) disclosure — if the landlord allocates utility charges by ratio, the method, administrative fee, and tenant rights must be disclosed in writing. (A.R.S. § 33-1314.01(B))

Arizona-specific workflow

• 1.5× security-deposit cap, including any prepaid rent applied as security. A.R.S. § 33-1321(A).
• 14 business days (excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays) to provide an itemized statement and any refund after termination, delivery of possession, and the tenant's written demand. A.R.S. § 33-1321(D).
• Double-damages exposure plus attorney's fees and court costs for wrongful withholding of any portion of the deposit. A.R.S. § 33-1321(E).
• Move-in checklist required before collecting any portion of the deposit. A.R.S. § 33-1321(C).
• 2 days' written notice required before non-emergency entry; entry must occur at reasonable times. A.R.S. § 33-1343(D).
• Eviction notice tiers: 5 days (nonpayment) / 10 days (curable noncompliance) / 5 days (health & safety) / immediate (irremediable acts). A.R.S. § 33-1368.
• 30 days' written notice required to terminate a month-to-month tenancy. A.R.S. § 33-1375(B).
• Self-help eviction prohibited; tenant has cause of action for damages plus reasonable attorney's fees. A.R.S. § 33-1367.
• Domestic-violence / sexual-assault early termination right with statutory documentation. A.R.S. § 33-1318.
• Statutory mutual prevailing-party attorney's fees in any litigation arising under the lease. A.R.S. § 33-1315(A)(2).
• Rent-control preemption: no city, town, or county in Arizona may impose rent control on private residential property. A.R.S. § 33-1329.

Arizona Department of Housing — Landlord and Tenant Act

How a Arizona lease is structured

1. The document opens with parties, the Arizona county, and the rental-property address.
2. The property-location subphase surfaces the rent-control preemption + the Arizona Civil Rights Act non-discrimination + a single combined major-city overlay informational callout for Phoenix, Tucson, Mesa, and Scottsdale.
3. The term section identifies the arrangement as fixed-term with an end date or as a periodic tenancy with the 30-day termination floor under A.R.S. § 33-1375(B).
4. The rent section sets the monthly amount, due date, accepted payment methods, and surfaces the case-law reasonableness standard for late fees.
5. The security-deposit section captures the deposit amount and renders the 1.5× cap, the 14-business-day itemized return, the double-damages exposure for wrongful withholding, and the move-in checklist obligation.
6. A dedicated Arizona-disclosures subphase informs the user that the lease will automatically include the bed-bug educational disclosure (for multi-family rentals), the RUBS disclosure, and the owner-identification disclosure.
7. The document closes with the eviction notice tiers, the statutory mutual prevailing-party attorney's fees clause, the service-member + DV/sexual-assault early-termination protections, the self-help-eviction prohibition, and the non-discrimination clause covering A.R.S. § 41-1491.14 et seq. + the federal Fair Housing Act — followed by signatures.

BuildMyLease assembles all of this for you in a guided interview.

Free Arizona lease template vs BuildMyLease

Free Arizona lease templates are everywhere, but most miss the 1.5× cap, get the 14-business-day return wrong (treating it as 14 calendar days), and ignore the multi-family bed-bug disclosure entirely. Here is the honest side-by-side.

Who this is for

This is for

• Arizona landlords managing 1–25 private-market units (single-family, condo, small multi-family).
• Owners who want the 1.5× deposit cap, the 14-business-day return, the move-in checklist obligation, and the bed-bug disclosure baked in without researching each statute.
• Landlords issuing a new fixed-term lease OR a periodic tenancy that needs the 30-day termination floor under A.R.S. § 33-1375(B).
• Owners who want the statutory mutual prevailing-party fees clause and the rent-control preemption rendered automatically.

This isn't for

• Mobile-home park tenancies (separate Arizona statutory regime under Title 33, Chapter 11).
• Section 8 / federally subsidized tenancies — those carry separate HAP-contract requirements that this document does not encode.
• Roommate or co-tenant arrangements — separate document type.
• Ongoing eviction or special-detainer proceedings — those require court forms, not a lease.
• Commercial leases.