NEWS RELEASE
Arizona Supreme Court
Administrative Office of the Courts
1501 West Washington Street
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
602-452-3301
www.azcourts.gov

CIVIL FILING FEE INCREASE TO TAKE EFFECT MARCH 18, 2013

Phoenix, Arizona - The policy-making body for the Arizona Judicial Branch, the Arizona Judicial Council, has approved a 5% increase in civil filing fees for justice and superior courts. The increase will go into effect on March 18, 2013.

The last filing fee increase was enacted by the state legislature in 2007. As part of the 2007 law, statutes were changed to authorize the Judicial Branch to review and increase civil filing fees periodically, in amounts not to exceed the consumer price index (CPI.)

The Arizona Judicial Council recently reviewed filing fees, and in recognition of a still recovering economy, a 5% increase will be enacted, which is substantially less than the 9% CPI increase since 2007.

Additional information may be found in the following documents:

Arizona Revised Statutes §§ 12-284(L) and 22-281(F) provide for increases to civil filing fees. Statutes may be found at online HERE. 

Notice posted on Arizona Corporation Commission Corporations Division web site:

A new computer system that will replace the current STARPAS system has been in development and is projected to come online in the early fall, possibly around Labor Day (September 3, 2012). The new system is called STARPLUS. The new system is designed to allow for electronic submission of all document types.

During the transition to the new system, we anticipate that there will be no system availability at all for one or more business days. While the system is unavailable, customers will not be able to file annual reports, obtain certificates of good standing, search for entity records, or access any entity documents. (No corporations will be marked delinquent for missing the annual report due date during the time the system is unavailable because of this transition.) It also means that staff will not be able to provide copies of documents that are not on microfilm. We will maintain regular office hours of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on regular business days, and we will be accepting documents in person, by mail, and by fax during the transition. In addition, our website will remain operational, and we encourage customers to check it frequently for updates.

It is quite likely that our document processing times will increase in the few weeks before, during, and immediately after the transition to the new system. We are planning for this possibility, and we hope to minimize the impact to our customers. Our document processing times are posted on our website each Monday. We appreciate your patience as we convert to this new system.