What are rules?
What is the Arizona Administrative Code?
What is the Arizona Administrative Register?
When did the Secretary of State start to print rules?
Are online rules official rules?
What is an effective date of a rule?
How do I subscribe to a paper copy of the Arizona Administrative Code or Register?
Who do I contact if I have a question about a rule?
Why does an agency have an exemption to the rulemaking process?
How can the public find out about changes to rules?
How can the public get involved in the rulemaking process?
What is a Semi-annual Index?
How can I find copies of Governor Executive Orders?
How can I find copies of Governor Proclamations?

The Arizona Administrative Code is where the official rules of the state of Arizona are published. The Code is the official compilation of rules that govern state agencies, boards, and commissions. The 10-volume set includes rules divided into 20 Titles and 230 Chapters.

The Code contains all rules made by the regulatory agencies of the state and filed with the Office after either certification by the Attorney General or approval by the Governor's Regulatory Review Council. The Code also contains rules exempt from the rulemaking process or exempt from certification or approval.

The office has a Code editor, who makes revisions to Code Chapters as agencies change or make new rules.

Code Supplements
The Secretary of State's Office publishes Code supplements at least once each calendar quarter.

The office publishes about 325 copies of each Code supplement, for paid subscribers and government agencies.

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The Arizona Administrative Register (A.A.R.) is the official publication to track rulemaking activity - from an idea or concept of the making of a rule (docket opening) - to the proposal of the rule (proposed rule) and public participation of the making of the rule - to an agency making a final rule and getting it approved by the Governor's Regulatory Review Council or the Attorney General's Office.

The A.A.R. as published by our office is an official publication of the state of Arizona and contains the rulemaking activity of the state's agencies, including proposed, final, emergency, summary, and exempt rules.

The Secretary of State's Office prints the Register weekly. Rulemakings initiated under the Administrative Procedure Act as effective Jan. 1, 1995, include full text of rules.

In addition, the Register contains the full text of the Governor's Executive Orders and Proclamations of general applicability, summaries of Attorney General opinions, notices of rules terminated by the agency, and the Governor's appointments of state officials and members of the state's boards and commissions.

Other documents may be included if the documents are concerned with rulemaking or if state statute requires that they be published in the Register.

The Office has a Register editor who compiles the rulemaking activity every week into the publication. We publish around 230 copies each week for paid subscribers and government agencies. An average issue is about 100 pages. To print the weekly Register we average over 560,000 sheets of paper a year.

The use of paper has significantly decreased over the years with the posting of the Administrative Code and Register online.

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When did the Secretary of State start to print rules?

Laws 1972, Ch. 35, § 1 required all administrative rules in the state to be printed in one official publication.

In 1975 the Secretary of State's Office completed the codification of the rules and published the first multi-volume set referred to as the Official Compilation of Administrative Rules and Regulations.

In January 1987, the name of the set was statutorily changed to its current title, the Arizona Administrative Code.

Until 1990 supplements were published on 6” x 9” paper as “replacement pages.”

Since then the Office has published supplements by full Chapters on standard 8 1/2” x 11” paper, making Code set updates faster and easier.

Starting in 1997 the Code was posted online at the Secretary of State's Web site. Beginning in 1999 we put the Register on our Web site.

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How can the public find out about changes in rules?

That's where the Arizona Administrative Register comes in.

The Register is an official state publication that contains the rulemaking activity of the state's agencies, including proposed, final, emergency, summary, and exempt rules.

The Office prints the Register weekly. The rulemaking process is lengthy and can be complicated, but the Register is the medium for “tracking” a rule as it makes its way through the process.

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Exemptions to the Rulemaking Process

Please read the editor's notes appearing at the beginning of each Administrative Code Chapter to learn if any or all of the rules in that Chapter were adopted via a rulemaking exemption.

Refer to the Administrative Procedure Act (Arizona Revised Statutes, Title 41, Chapter 6, Articles 1 through 10) for more information about exemptions to the rulemaking process.

Often an agency's exemption is written in law from the Arizona State Legislature. Sometimes an agency can be exempt from the entire rulemaking process. Other times the Legislature will give an agency an exemption from a specific part of the process, such as they do not have to receive final approval from the Governor's Regulatory Review Council, but still have to conduct public meetings about the proposed exempt rules.

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How can I find copies of Governor Executive Orders? How can I find copies of Governor Proclamations?

The Register contains the full text of the Governor's Executive Orders and Proclamations of general applicability, summaries of Attorney General opinions, notices of rules terminated by the agency, and the Governor's appointments of state officials and members of state boards and commissions. Refer to Semi-Annual Indexes in the Register Table of Contents. Copies of these filings can also be obtained by calling 602-542-4086.

Executive Orders are also available online from the Law and Research Library Division of Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records. Visit State of Arizona Executive Orders. This is a numeric listing of the Executive Orders issued since April 22, 1965.

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What is a Semi-Annual Index?

The Secretary of State’s Office is required to publish a Semi-Annual Index to the Register under the Arizona Administrative Procedure Act.

A.R.S. § 41-1013(A) states, “The secretary of state shall publish the register at least once each month, including the information which is provided under subsection B of this section and which is filed with the secretary of state during the preceding thirty days. The secretary of state shall publish an index to the register at least twice each year.”

Included in this Index are Governor's appointments of state officials and members of boards and commissions; Governor's Executive Orders; summaries of Attorney General Opinions; and Administrative Code sections affected in a six-month period. They are published in June and December of each year and can be found in the Arizona Administrative Register Table of Contents.

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Are online rules official rules?

The rules as posted on our Web site do NOT appear as they are published by the Arizona Secretary of State's office.

We offer the rules online, in HTML, PDF, and RTF formats, but by law, the official copy of the Arizona Administrative Code is still the paper copy published