Home › Guardianship filing costs › Arizona

How much does it cost to file for guardianship in Arizona?

Filing a guardianship petition in Arizona costs a $149 state base filing fee. Arizona Revised Statutes §12-284 places guardianship in its Class C fee tier for the clerk of the superior court: a petition to appoint a guardian costs $149, a petition to appoint a conservator or make another protective order costs the same $149, and an opposing petition in a guardianship or conservatorship appointment proceeding costs the same $149 again. The symmetry is deliberate — Arizona prices the request and the objection identically, so neither side of an incapacity dispute gets a cheaper door into court. Class C is also the tier that carries probate filings generally, which is why this site's Arizona probate costs page starts from the same $149 figure.

Arizona guardianship fees at a glance

Read the classes carefully, because Arizona's fee statute is a ladder. Class A ($188) carries general civil complaints and name change petitions; Class C ($149) carries the Title 14 world — formal testacy and appointment proceedings, informal probate applications, supervised administration, guardianship and conservatorship; Class D ($74) carries what happens after judgment in those cases; Class E ($30) is the minimum clerk fee for everything from filing a power of attorney to issuing a writ; and Class F prices copies at fifty cents a page. A guardianship filer therefore meets Class C once, at the petition, and Class D or E only if the case generates postjudgment filings or unlisted clerk acts later. Counties add their own surcharges on top of the state base — Maricopa County's clerk publishes its own chart — so the amount collected at a given counter can exceed $149; this page publishes the verified state base and directs filers to the clerk's county chart for the county total, rather than printing a built total as if it were the statute. The national comparison is on the guardianship filing costs hub.

Guardianship of an adult, a minor, or both kinds of protection

Arizona guardianship lives in Title 14, chapter 5: article 3 governs guardians of incapacitated persons, article 4 governs protective proceedings and conservators, and guardianship of minors sits in the same title's earlier articles. The fee statute does not split its Class C price by the ward's age — the $149 petition fee is the price of asking the superior court to appoint a fiduciary, whichever article the petition proceeds under. What does change with the kind of case is everything around the fee. An adult guardianship requires proof of incapacity and triggers the appointment machinery of §14-5303 and related sections, including an investigator and independent counsel for the alleged incapacitated person in contested matters; a minor guardianship more often turns on the parents' inability to care for the child. A conservatorship, priced identically, protects property rather than the person, and many petitions ask for both appointments in one proceeding.

The appointee costs the fee statute does not set

Section 12-284 prices the clerk. The people the court appoints are priced by a different statute: A.R.S. §14-5314 provides that an investigator, accountant, lawyer, physician, registered nurse, psychologist, guardian or guardian ad litem appointed in a guardianship proceeding — including independent counsel for the alleged incapacitated person — is entitled to reasonable compensation from the ward's estate if the petition is granted, or from the petitioner if it is denied, with the court able to pay reasonable compensation itself where payment by the ward or petitioner is not feasible. Reasonable is doing real work in that sentence: there is no schedule, no cap and no standard figure, and the amounts turn on the professionals involved and the length of the case. This page therefore names those costs without pricing them. A filer budgeting only the $149 clerk fee is budgeting for the smallest line in the case.

How the case runs

1. File the guardianship or conservatorship petition in the superior court of the county where the ward lives and pay the Class C fee $149
2. Serve the ward and the interested persons the Title 14 articles require
3. The court appoints an investigator and, where required, independent counsel for the alleged incapacitated person
4. Attend the hearing; an opposing petition carries the same Class C fee $149
5. After appointment, later probate filings are priced at Class D $74 or the Class E minimum $30

What guardianship really costs beyond the clerk

Beyond the clerk's classes, an Arizona guardianship budget has three moving parts, none of them scheduled: the appointee compensation described above under §14-5314, the filer's own attorney fees where counsel is engaged, and the ongoing cost of administering the guardianship or conservatorship after appointment, including accountings. Bond, where the court requires it for a conservator, is priced by the bonding company. What can be predicted exactly is the court-side spine in §12-284: $149 to petition, $149 to oppose, $74 for postjudgment probate activity, $30 minimum clerk acts and fifty-cent pages. Compare other states' structures on the guardianship hub, including North Carolina guardianship costs and Georgia guardianship costs, and see the probate side of the same fee ladder on the probate court costs hub.

Can't afford the fee?

Arizona superior courts can defer or waive filing fees for a filer who cannot pay, on an application and sworn financial statement filed with the petition — deferral, which spreads or postpones the charge, is granted more readily than outright waiver, and the clerk's office supplies the current forms. Ask for the deferral and waiver packet when you collect the guardianship forms, and file it with the petition rather than after, because the clerk cannot open the case on a promise to pay later without an order. A fee deferral does not touch the §14-5314 appointee compensation question, which the court handles on its own terms. The general mechanics of fee waivers are explained in the fee waiver guide.

Sources: A.R.S. §12-284, official text at azleg.gov, read directly — Class C $149: petition to appoint guardian; petition to appoint conservator or make other protective order; opposing petition in testacy, appointment, guardian or conservator proceedings; Class D $74 postjudgment activities in probate cases; Class E $30 minimum clerk fee; Class F copies $0.50 per page; Class A $188 comparison · A.R.S. §14-5314 — reasonable compensation of court appointees in guardianship proceedings, payable from the ward's estate if the petition is granted or by the petitioner if denied (no schedule published). County surcharges are additional to the state base; the county clerk's chart states the county total. Last verified: October 2026 — confirm current figures with the clerk of the superior court.