Arkansas statutes are the written laws enacted for the state, collected in a single compilation called the Arkansas Code of 1987 Annotated. The code covers criminal offenses, taxes, family law, property, business regulation, and nearly every other subject the General Assembly has legislated on. You can read the entire code for free online through the Arkansas State Legislature’s website, and specific provisions are cited by a Title-Chapter-Section number such as A.C.A. § 1-2-113.
What the Arkansas Code Contains
The official name of the compilation is the “Arkansas Code of 1987 Annotated,” though “Arkansas Code Annotated,” “Arkansas Code,” and “the Code” all refer to the same body of law. It gathers the statutes currently in force into one organized collection so that a reader looking for the rule on a given subject does not have to hunt through decades of individual session laws.
The word “Annotated” in the title points to editorial material a publisher adds alongside the statute text: case summaries, cross-references, and historical notes. Those annotations are research aids, not binding law. The statute text itself is treated by courts as prima facie evidence of the law, meaning it is accepted as accurate unless someone proves otherwise.
How Arkansas Statutes Are Organized and Cited
The code uses a nested hierarchy. At the top sit Titles, each covering a major area of law. Title 5 covers criminal offenses. Title 9 covers family law. Within a Title, the code breaks into Chapters and Subchapters, and the smallest unit is the Section, which holds the actual rule. Subsections and subdivisions appear within sections when a rule has multiple parts.
A citation packs this hierarchy into a single string. In the reference 19-11-201, the first number (19) is the Title, the second (11) is the Chapter, and the third (201) combines Subchapter 2 with Section 1. The accepted abbreviation for a code citation is “A.C.A.” followed by the section number, so A.C.A. § 1-2-113 points to Title 1, Chapter 2, Section 113.1Justia. Arkansas Code 1-2-113 – Designation and Citation of Code
One warning about reading statutes: headings, chapter titles, and other organizational labels exist for convenience and carry no legal weight.2Justia. Arkansas Code 1-2-115 – Code Classification and Organization Not to Be Construed – Notes, Headings, Etc., Not Part of Law If the heading says one thing and the section text says something narrower, the text controls.
Where to Read Arkansas Statutes Online
The full text of the Arkansas Code is free through the Arkansas State Legislature’s website, which is maintained by the Bureau of Legislative Research.3Arkansas State Legislature. Arkansas Law You can browse by Title or search for a word or phrase. For most readers who need to look up a specific rule, this is the right starting point.
LexisNexis is the official publisher of the annotated version and works with the state’s revisor’s office on the published text. The LexisNexis edition adds case annotations, cross-references, and historical notes that the free public version does not include, which is why law offices rely on it.4LexisNexis. Arkansas Code of 1987 Annotated Free third-party databases such as Justia also host searchable versions of the code.
For in-person research, Arkansas counties maintain law libraries open to the public under county law library boards.5Justia. Arkansas Code 16-23-102 – County Law Library Boards Holdings vary by county, but they are a good option if you prefer printed volumes or want help finding your way around the code.
How Arkansas Statutes Are Made
Statutes come from the Arkansas General Assembly, made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate.6Arkansas House of Representatives. About the Arkansas General Assembly7Arkansas House of Representatives. How Does a Bill Become a Law?8Arkansas Senate. How a Bill Becomes a Law
Overriding a Veto
Arkansas is unusual in how easily the legislature can override a veto. Under Article 6, Section 15 of the Arkansas Constitution, a veto is overridden when a majority of the total members elected to each chamber votes to pass the bill again.9Justia. Arkansas Constitution Article 6 Section 15 – Approval of Bills – Vetoes That is a majority of the full membership rather than a two-thirds supermajority, which puts the Arkansas threshold among the lowest in the country.
When a New Statute Takes Effect
A new act is not enforceable the day the Governor signs it. The standard rule under the Arkansas Constitution is that an act takes effect 90 days after the General Assembly adjourns the session in which it was passed.10Arkansas Senate. Acts Effective on January 1, 2026 The legislature can override that delay with an emergency clause, which makes the act effective immediately. Declaring an emergency takes a two-thirds vote of the total members elected to each chamber on a separate roll call, and the bill must state the specific facts that justify the emergency.11Justia. Arkansas Constitution Article 5 Section 1 – Initiative and Referendum Emergency clauses cannot be attached to acts granting franchises, special privileges, or vested rights.
Statutes Made Directly by Voters
The General Assembly is not the only source of Arkansas statutes. Article 5, Section 1 of the Arkansas Constitution reserves two lawmaking powers to the people: the initiative and the referendum. A statute approved through either process has the same legal force as one passed by the legislature.
An initiated act is a new statute proposed by citizen petition. Sponsors must gather signatures from at least eight percent of the legal voters, measured by the total votes cast for Governor in the last general election. The petition has to include the full text of the proposed law and draw signatures from at least fifteen counties, with each of those counties contributing at least half the required percentage of its own electorate. The completed petition must reach the Secretary of State at least four months before the election.11Justia. Arkansas Constitution Article 5 Section 1 – Initiative and Referendum
A referendum works in the opposite direction. Six percent of legal voters can petition to put a general act the legislature has already passed onto the ballot, so long as the petition is filed within 90 days of final adjournment. A law challenged by referendum is suspended until voters decide whether to keep it.
How Courts Read the Words of a Statute
When the meaning of an Arkansas statute is disputed, courts start with the plain language. If the words are clear and unambiguous in their ordinary sense, the court applies them as written and looks no further. Only when the text is ambiguous do judges turn to other tools, such as the legislative history, the broader subject the statute addresses, and the problem the legislature was trying to solve.
Arkansas courts also presume that a new statute applies only to future events, not retroactively, unless the text says otherwise with unmistakable clarity. This presumption does not apply to procedural or remedial statutes that simply provide a new method for enforcing existing rights without disturbing vested interests.
Questions of statutory interpretation reach the Arkansas Supreme Court for independent review, without deference to a trial court’s reading. Whatever the high court decides a statute means becomes binding on every lower court. The practical consequence for anyone trying to understand their rights is that the exact words of the code carry enormous weight, and courts are reluctant to read in meaning the text does not support.
Above every statute sits the Arkansas Constitution. When a statute conflicts with the constitution, courts strike it down. As the Arkansas Supreme Court has put it, the General Assembly shapes public policy “within the confines of the constitution,” and courts are “not at liberty to disregard those constitutional limits.”