How to Fill Out and Submit the AZPOST Personal History Form

The AZPOST Personal History form is a digital questionnaire you complete inside the myAZPOST portal at my.azpost.gov before any Arizona law enforcement agency can start your background investigation.¹ You create it once, update it as your history changes, and share the same form with every agency you apply to over the course of your career. Filling it out well takes preparation, honest disclosure, and one step people routinely miss at the end: sending the hiring agency your Form ID.

Confirm You Qualify Before You Open the Form

The form is long. If you don’t meet Arizona’s baseline peace officer requirements under Arizona Administrative Code R13-4-105, finishing it changes nothing. Confirm each of these first:

U.S. citizenship.
At least 21 years old, or turning 21 before academy graduation.
High school diploma, GED, recognized homeschool diploma, or an accredited college degree.
No felony conviction, and no conviction for an offense that would be a felony in Arizona.
No dishonorable discharge from the U.S. Armed Forces.
No peace officer certification that was revoked, suspended, or surrendered to avoid discipline in any state.
No pattern of moving violations in the past three years suggesting disregard for traffic safety.

These rules sit in R13-4-105 and can be amended by the Board.²

Drug Use Thresholds

Drug history is where many candidates find out they’re out before they start. Arizona does not impose a lifetime ban on all prior use, but the limits are specific and each category has its own rule:

Marijuana in any form, including edibles and THC extracts: no use within two years before appointment, no use ever as a peace officer, and any lifetime history of selling, producing, cultivating, or transporting marijuana for sale is permanently disqualifying.
Dangerous drugs, hallucinogens, narcotics, and non-prescribed prescription drugs: no use within seven years before appointment, no more than five total lifetime uses across all these substances combined, no more than one use of any of these after age 21, and no use ever as a peace officer.
Steroids: no use within three years before appointment, no use ever as a peace officer.
Adderall without a prescription: no use within three years before appointment, no use ever as a peace officer.

The dangerous-drug rule has three independent limits — the seven-year window, the five-use lifetime cap, and the one-use-after-21 rule. You must clear all three.³

Gather Your Records First

The portal will not let you skip required fields, so having documents in front of you saves hours of stalling. Pull these together before you log in:⁴

Proof of citizenship: birth certificate, U.S. passport, or naturalization papers.
A valid, unexpired driver’s license from any state.
Proof of education: diploma, GED certificate, or college transcript or degree.
If you served in the military, the Member 4 copy of your DD-214 or NGB Form 22, showing character of service, separation code, and reentry code.⁵
Complete addresses for every place you’ve lived in the past ten years.
Every employer and school from the past ten years, with supervisor names, phone numbers, and exact dates.
At least three personal references who aren’t family, with current addresses.
Traffic citations, license suspensions, and reportable accidents.
Every civil action you’ve been a party to: divorces, bankruptcies, lawsuits, restraining orders, small claims.

For older jobs where a supervisor has moved on, track down their current contact information. Investigators will try to reach them.

Set Up Your myAZPOST Account

The Personal History form is entirely digital. There is no paper version. Register first for an AZPOST Okta account at azpost.okta.com, then log in at my.azpost.gov to build the form. Use a personal email you expect to keep for years; AZPOST advises against work or school addresses because you can lose access to those.¹

Once the form exists, it’s yours for your career. You can return to edit it, and you never need to create a second one.

Working Through the Form

The digital form is broken into modules that follow the paper version’s flow: personal identification, citizenship, education, and military service first; then references, residences, family, employment, and schools; then police contacts, civil actions, driving history, drug use, criminal conduct, and any prior law enforcement applications or certifications.⁵

Save often. It’s too long to finish in one sitting, and the system generally blocks you from advancing past a section with blank required fields. Many questions use yes/no toggles; a “yes” opens a narrative box. Keep those narratives plain and factual: dates, locations, what happened, how it resolved. Investigators want honesty and consistency, not justification.

Residences and Employment

List every address from the past ten years chronologically, and account for gaps. If you couch-surfed between leases for two months, note it. Employment covers the same ten-year window, and you’ll explain why you left each position. “Laid off” or “found a better opportunity” is fine when true. What sinks applicants is omitting a short-term job they were fired from; investigators often find it through reference checks anyway.

Criminal Conduct and Civil Actions

The criminal section asks about arrests and law enforcement contacts, not just convictions. The civil section covers every proceeding where you were a party. For each entry, provide case type, court, approximate dates, and outcome. Leaving something off and having an investigator find it through a court records search is worse than disclosing an embarrassing but non-disqualifying event upfront.

Drug Use

You’ll disclose every illegal or non-prescribed substance, the number of times you used it, and approximate first and last use dates. Compare your answers against the thresholds above before you commit. The background investigation includes a polygraph that will cover the same history.⁶

Share the Form and Send Your Form ID

Finishing the form doesn’t send it anywhere. Inside the portal, use the Share menu on the left, search for the hiring agency by name, check the box next to it, and click Submit.⁷

Here is what catches applicants off guard. Sharing the form does not notify the agency. The portal generates a Form ID, an alphanumeric code tied to your submission, and it is your job to send that number to the agency contact handling your file. Without it, the background unit cannot pull your form. If you’re applying to more than one agency, share the form separately with each and give each one the Form ID.⁷

What the Agency Does With Your Form

Once the agency pulls your file, the formal background investigation begins. R13-4-106 requires the agency to complete these checks before you can be appointed:⁴

Law enforcement records queries in every jurisdiction where you lived or worked in the past ten years.
Driving records from every state where you lived or worked.
Fingerprint submission to the FBI and Arizona Department of Public Safety.
Criminal history queries through federal and Arizona databases.
Calls to every personal reference and former employer you listed.
An AZPOST records query for any prior certification issues.

You’ll also sit for a polygraph and a medical examination that meets AZPOST standards under R13-4-107. The medical exam must occur within a year before appointment, and if it happened more than 180 days before your appointment date, you’ll submit a written statement confirming nothing about your medical condition has changed.²

A background investigator will walk through your form with you and press on anything unclear. This is where your written narratives either hold up or fall apart. Consistency between what you wrote, what you say in the interview, and what the polygraph shows is the single biggest factor in whether you move forward.

1
Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board. my.AZPOST
2
Legal Information Institute. Arizona Code R13-4-105 – Minimum Qualifications
3
Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board. Handout 5 – MQs for Appointment
4
Arizona Secretary of State. Arizona Administrative Code Title 13 Chapter 4
5
Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board. AZPOST Form PHOE – Statement of Personal History and Application for Open Enrollment in a Community College Program
6
Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board. Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board
7
Arizona Peace Officer Standards & Training Board. How To