Home to some of the most unique hunting opportunities in the United States, Arizona offers 10 big game species, all accessible through public land hunts. Unique terrain, including mountains, mesas, canyons, and deserts, helps support a healthy population of big game, and presents unique opportunities and challenges for hunters. Most Arizona hunting licenses are processed through a draw system, with the number of allocated permits adjusted annually. Application season is the first step of most Arizona hunts—keep reading for the information you need to get started.

Arizona has some of the best elk hunts in the nation, and is a must-apply-for state if a trophy bull is your long term goal. The state uses a bonus point system, but it is possible to draw a premium big game tag in Arizona with zero points if you’re lucky enough in the random portion of the drawing. There are two separate application periods in Arizona: a February deadline for elk/antelope and a separate, early June deadline for deer/sheep/bison.

New In 2024 From Huntin’ Fool

New 2024 elk/antelope or 2024 deer/sheep regs, season dates and quotas can be found on the Arizona Game & Fish website here.

Application deadlines for pronghorn antelope and elk have been moved up one week earlier than normal, and close on 11:59 PM (Arizona time) Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024, and tags for deer, bighorn sheep, and fall bison are drawn June 2. More detailed information on Arizona big game draws can be found below. 

Unit-specific changes include:

• Elk units 9, 21, and 27 were taken out of the early muzzleloader pool.
• Elk units 9 and 27 will have early rifle hunts.
• Elk unit 27 stratified the late rifle elk hunt; it will now have two back-to-back late rifle hunts.
• Elk unit 5B added 97 more late rifle elk tags, for a total of 772 tags. This unit now has the most tags for any rifle hunt in Arizona.

Arizona (fall edition)

• Deer permits have been cut by 845 this year across all hunts for Coues and mule deer.
• Despite losing two Desert hunts for 2024, with the addition of a couple new resident hunts, overall sheep tag numbers are the same as 2023.
• 46A East and 46A West were combined for sheep.
• Non-residents picked up 40A for sheep but lost 15C North and 44A East.
• 46B East sheep hunts were combined for one hunt this year.
• 46B West sheep hunts were combined for one hunt this year.
• Unit grouping 28, 31, and 32 for youth deer hunts has been separated into their own hunts for each unit.
• Unit grouping 29, 30A, and 30B for youth deer hunts has been separated into their own hunts for each unit.

Hunters may apply for tags with Arizona Game & Fish.

Huntin’ Fool’s Arizona page is an excellent, updated resource for ongoing Arizona draw changes. 

Arizona Draw Process Basics

Application Dates and Deadlines: Huntin’ Fool lines out Arizona dates and deadlines.

Free for onX Elite members, Hunt Reminder’s Arizona page is also an excellent resource for timely application season reminders.

Hunting license and species costs for tags usually include:

• Application Fee
• Hunting License Fee to apply (usually need a qualifying license before you can apply)
• Species Fee (This is what you pay for the animal you want to hunt. Some you pay upfront at application, some you pay for once you get the tag.)
• Points-Only fee (fees for people just buying points and not actually applying for a hunt)

Point System

Arizona uses a traditional bonus point system. bonus points are like raffle tickets: the more you have, the more “chances” you have in the draw. You get one chance for your current application, and then one additional chance for every bonus point you have (so with three points, you’d get four chances. If you apply for a tag and are unsuccessful, you will be awarded a bonus point for that species that will apply to next year’s application, or you can also choose to apply for a bonus point each year to accumulate bonus points.

If you apply for five consecutive years for any species, you will be awarded an additional loyalty bonus point for that species, but you will lose that if you fail to apply in a year. You can also accumulate an additional and permanent bonus point for every species if you complete an approved Hunter Education course in the state of Arizona.

Tag Allocation

For every individual hunt code, 20% of the total number of tags for that hunt will be awarded to the applicants with the most bonus points (called “bonus pass”). The remaining 80% of tags for any given hunt code will be issued in the random draw (called the “half pass”).

For elk, deer, and antelope up to 10% of the total number of tags can be issued to nonresidents. This 10% is not guaranteed, but most buck or bull tags have sufficient nonresident demand to trigger the full 10% allocation. Of the 10% nonresident tag pool, a maximum of half (50%) of those tags may be issued in the bonus point drawing.

As an example:

Hunt Code X has 100 total tags:

• 20% will be issued in the bonus pass: 20 tags
• 80% will issued in the random draw (half pass): 80 tags
• 10% of the total number of tags can be issued to nonresidents: 10 tags total
• 50% of the total number of nonresident tags can be issued in the bonus pass: 5 tags total
• The remaining nonresident tags will be issued in the random draw: 5 tags total
• Of the 100 total tags, nonresidents can draw 10 (five in the bonus pass, five in the random draw)
• Residents will draw a minimum of 90 tags (15 tags in the bonus pass, and 75 in the random draw)

Useful Links

• Access the onX Complete Package for Western Application Research.

• Look Up Your Arizona Preference Points.

• Log Into onX Hunt Research Tools To Start Your 2024 Application Season.

• View Arizona Hunting Regulations.

• Apply for Your Arizona Hunting Tags.

onX Hunt’s Top Arizona Application Tips

1. If you’re hoping to draw a tag in the random draw, on your application you generally want to put the harder-to-draw hunt as your first choice, and the easier-to-draw hunt as your second choice. If you’d actually prefer to go on the easier-to-draw hunt, move it to your first choice and consider choosing another easier-to-draw hunt as your second choice so you can maximize your overall odds to at least draw.

2. You must purchase an annual hunting license ($160 for nonresidents) to apply, in addition to a $15 application fee per species. Once you’ve purchased the hunting license, it’s cost-effective to apply for multiple species even if your primary intent is to hunt a specific species (elk, for example). Arizona has a number of late-season rifle elk hunts—in good units—that are outside of the rut but traditionally have much better draw odds.

3. For $10 per species (or $25 for PointGuardPlus, an additional tier of PointGuard service that allows hunters to surrender their hunt permit-tag for any reason without losing their coveted bonus points), you can also purchase “Point Guard,” an insurance of sorts that allows you to give your tag back AND still keep your accumulated points in case you draw and are for any reason unable to go on the hunt.

Your One-Stop Application Season Stop

To maximize your time spent researching and applying—and to help you build your strategy to successfully draw in 2024 and beyond—we’re providing onX Hunt Elite Members with FREE services in one comprehensive package:

• Hunt Research Tools: In-Depth Draw Odds and Application Tools
• Huntin’ Fool: Boots-on-the-Ground Research and Insight
• HuntReminder: Worry-Free Text and Email Reminder Service
• onX Hunt: Map Your Hunt With Research Layers