Arizona accident report: which agency has your copy

Arizona keeps reports with the agency that wrote them

In some states one office sells every police crash report. Arizona is not one of them. A report written by a Phoenix officer is released by Phoenix police. A report written by a state trooper is released by the Department of Public Safety. A deputy's report comes from that county's sheriff. Each agency has its own website, its own fee and its own waiting time.

State law does give every report a second home. Under A.R.S. 28-667 the agency "shall immediately forward a copy of the report to the department of transportation for its use". The agencies below still release copies themselves, so the agency that investigated remains the place to ask.

That makes the first question in Arizona a simple one. Who came to the crash?

Working out who wrote your report

The Department of Public Safety, whose troopers are the Arizona Highway Patrol, describes the split itself. Its records unit holds collisions that troopers investigated on an interstate or a state highway. For a collision on a town, city or county road, it tells you to contact the law enforcement agency in that jurisdiction. Reports from county sheriffs, city or local police departments and town marshals' offices are not retained by DPS.

If you were handed a card or a slip at the scene, the agency's name and its report number are on it. A DPS number is easy to recognise. It is a capital letter I followed by 8 digits.

Three Arizona agencies side by side

Read on each agency's own page on 12 November 2026. More Arizona agencies are added as each one is checked.

Who may get an Arizona report

One statute governs every agency in the state, A.R.S. 28-667. It does two things.

It names who receives the unredacted report

On request, the agency "shall provide a copy of the unredacted report" to:

• "A person who is involved in the accident or the owner of a vehicle involved in the accident or a representative of the person or owner."
• An insurer of a person or vehicle involved in the accident, and insurers investigating fraudulent claims.
• "An attorney licensed to practice law or to a licensed private investigator representing a person involved in the accident".
• An insurance support organization that provides services for claims investigation, rating or underwriting.

It closes the report to commercial solicitation

The agency "shall not allow a person to examine the accident report" when "the request is for a commercial solicitation purpose". It "may require a person requesting the accident or related investigative report to state under penalty of perjury that the report is not examined or copied for a commercial solicitation purpose."

Two limits worth knowing

If the report shows that a criminal complaint has been issued, the personal identifying information of any victim is redacted before release to a person involved or to an attorney. And an agency may deny an unredacted copy altogether if it decides that release would be harmful to a criminal investigation. Either can explain a delay after a serious crash.

What an Arizona report costs

Payment rules differ as much as prices. DPS takes online payment only through its portal, and it does not accept personal checks. Tucson police send an invoice first and ask you not to pay before it arrives.

How long it takes

At DPS the clock has two parts. The Department Records Unit receives a trooper's completed report within 14 days of the incident, and it asks you to wait at least that long before checking. After that, a person entitled to the unredacted report who asks through the portal is generally served within 48 hours by an automated process the department introduced in November 2024.

That fast route has exceptions. Reports with supplements, reports with attachments and reports categorized as fatalities are not eligible for it.

Phoenix works differently. Its bureau handles requests in the order they arrive and gives no fixed time. The city has said that wait times for traffic crash reports can take as much as 6 weeks.

A short checklist before you ask

Whichever Arizona agency holds your report, the same handful of details gets you through its form in one pass.

• The name of the agency that came to the scene, not just the city.
• The report or incident number, typed exactly as the agency writes it. At DPS that means a capital I, 8 digits and no hyphens.
• The date and the place of the crash, and the names of the drivers.
• Your connection to the crash: a person involved, a vehicle owner, a representative, an insurer or an attorney. Arizona law ties the unredacted report to that answer.
• How you want the report delivered, and a form of payment that agency accepts.

Asking in person

All three agencies have a public counter. Call first when the crash is recent, because the report may not be finished yet.

The Phoenix bureau sits downtown. The city lists its own parking garage at 305 W. Washington St. and the light rail stop Central/Washington for people coming without a car.

For DPS, a paper copy can also be requested by mail. The request must include a stamped envelope addressed to yourself, and payment by business check, cashier's check or money order made out to Arizona Department of Public Safety.

Photos, 911 calls and video from the same crash

The report is often not the only record. Scene photographs, the 911 call and camera video are kept separately, cost extra and take longer. Each agency prices them its own way.

Two practical points follow from that table. First, ask for a 911 recording early. DPS keeps dispatch and 911 recordings for one calendar year and no longer. Second, video is slow because it has to be reviewed and redacted before release. DPS asks people not to call its Public Records Unit about status until at least 30 business days after a request.

When it goes wrong

The agency says it has no report

You may be asking the wrong agency. DPS does not keep city or county reports, and a city does not keep a trooper's. Go back to who came to the scene. When Phoenix police find no record, they tell you by email and issue a refund.

You have no report number

Call the records unit of the agency that came, with the date, the place and the drivers' names. The DPS Department Records Unit answers at (602) 223-2230 and (602) 223-2236. The Phoenix bureau answers at 602-534-1127. Tucson's Records Section answers at 520-791-4462.

The report is taking longer than the agency said

Ask whether the crash is still under investigation, whether it involved a death, or whether a criminal complaint was issued. Each of those changes how and when an Arizona report is released.

If no officer came

DPS has a tool named Citizen's Report of a Collision for minor collisions, and it keeps the records made through it. Filing your own report is a different task from getting a police report, and this site does not cover it.

Reading an Arizona report

This page covers where to get the report. For what its boxes and codes mean, FairSettlement.org has a full guide: how to read an Arizona crash report.

Arizona pages on this site

• AgencyArizona Highway Patrol (DPS)Crashes on interstates and state highways: the incident number, the portal, the $9.00 fee and the 48 hour release.
• AgencyPhoenix Police DepartmentThe city's own records portal, the Traffic Crash request, free digital copies for personal requests and the current wait.

Arizona accident report questions