Arizona Restitution Payments: Amounts, Interest, and Collection

Arizona restitution payments go to the Clerk of the Superior Court in the county where your case was prosecuted. You can pay online, by mail, or in person, and every payment must include your case number and debtor number so the money is credited to your account.¹ A payment that arrives without that information can sit unallocated, which leaves you technically in default even though the money left your hands.

The obligation doesn’t end when your sentence does. Arizona courts keep jurisdiction over your case until the balance reaches zero.²

Where to Send Your Payment

The Clerk’s Criminal Financial Obligations unit processes payments, allocates them to the correct case, and disburses the money to the victim.¹ Most counties take payment three ways:

Online, through the Clerk’s payment portal, by credit card, debit card, or eCheck. A convenience fee applies to card transactions.³
In person at the Clerk’s office, with cash, a money order, or a card.
By mail, usually with a money order rather than a personal check. Write your case number directly on the money order.

Convenience fees for electronic payments vary by county, running a few dollars per transaction or a small percentage of the amount paid. Money orders avoid the fee entirely. Check the Clerk of the Superior Court website for your specific county, because accepted methods and portal details vary slightly by jurisdiction.

How Your Monthly Amount Is Set

The court orders the full economic loss each victim suffered: medical bills, lost wages, property damage, counseling costs, and similar out-of-pocket harm tied to the offense.⁴ Pain and suffering doesn’t count; that belongs to civil law, not criminal sentencing.

The total itself is fixed. The court cannot reduce it based on your income, savings, or financial situation—if the victim lost $40,000, you owe $40,000. What the court can adjust is the pace. The court or its designee, often your probation officer, sets a monthly payment amount, and that calculation does account for what you can afford.⁴

How Payments Are Applied

If you owe restitution along with fines, surcharges, and court fees, your payments go to restitution first. Arizona law creates an automatic restitution lien in the victim’s favor, and all monthly payments must satisfy the restitution order, including any arrears, before any money moves to anything else.⁴ The same statute redirects any money the state already owes you, including your Arizona income tax refund, to your restitution balance first.

Only after restitution is current does the rest of your payment flow through the remaining priorities: time payment fees, court administrative fees, other costs, then fines and surcharges. The victim gets paid before the state does.

When there are multiple victims in a single case, payments are generally distributed proportionally unless the court orders otherwise. Owe $10,000 to one and $5,000 to another, and each payment splits roughly two-thirds and one-third.

What Happens If You Fall Behind

Missing payments triggers a legal process, but it doesn’t automatically mean jail. The prosecutor, the victim, or the court itself can file a motion requiring you to appear and explain why you haven’t paid. At that hearing, the court examines your finances under oath—income, expenses, employment, assets—to decide whether the missed payments were willful.⁵

That finding drives everything else.

If the court finds you willfully refused to pay or didn’t make a genuine effort to earn the money, it can hold you in contempt and refer the case for revocation of probation, parole, or community supervision.⁵ If the court finds you genuinely couldn’t pay despite honest effort, it can modify your schedule, lower the monthly amount, or enter another reasonable order to keep you in compliance. The total doesn’t change, but the pace can.

The practical lesson: don’t go silent. Contact your probation officer or file a motion asking the court to adjust your payment schedule before you fall into default. Courts treat someone who proactively raises financial hardship very differently from someone who just stops paying.

Why the Debt Outlives Your Sentence

Finishing probation or serving a prison term does not wipe out your restitution. For any unpaid balance when your sentence ends, the court enters a Criminal Restitution Order. A CRO functions like a civil judgment, but with a few advantages for the victim: it never expires, it doesn’t need to be renewed under the ordinary judgment renewal statutes, and there’s no filing or recording fee.² Ordinary civil judgments in Arizona lapse without periodic renewal. A CRO just sits there accruing interest.

Interest

A recorded CRO accrues interest at 10% per year when enforced by or on behalf of the victim, and 4% per year when enforced by the state.² On a $20,000 balance at the victim’s rate, that’s $2,000 a year in interest alone. The longer you wait, the larger the total grows.

Collection Tools

Because a CRO is enforceable as a civil judgment, the full range of civil collection methods applies. Arizona also has tools specific to court-ordered debt:

Arizona income tax refund intercept, redirecting any refund you’re owed to your restitution balance.⁴
Lottery and gambling intercepts. Arizona lottery winnings of $600 or more can be seized, along with fantasy sports and event wagering payouts above $600.⁶
Wage garnishment and earnings liens, with your employer withholding a portion of your pay.
Bank levies, property liens, and writs of execution through standard civil enforcement.

Bankruptcy will not eliminate criminal restitution. It’s a criminal penalty, and the CRO structure—no expiration, no renewal requirement—makes it virtually impossible to outlast. Pay what you can, keep the court informed when you can’t, and the balance will come down. Ignore it, and interest and enforcement will do the opposite.

1
Maricopa County Clerk of Superior Court. Restitution
2
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 13-805 – Jurisdiction
3
Maricopa County Clerk of Superior Court. Make a Payment
4
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 13-804 – Restitution for Offense Causing Economic Loss
5
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Code 13-810 – Consequences of Nonpayment
6
Arizona Judicial Branch. Debt Setoff Program