Coyote Hunting Arizona, Laws, Regulations, Season, & License Info

Coyote classification & license in Arizona

What is the classification of coyotes in Arizona?

Coyotes are predatory animals, on a four-species statutory list: “‘Predatory animals’ means foxes, skunks, coyotes and bobcats.”¹

Note what coyotes are not. They are not fur-bearing animals — that list is “muskrats, raccoons, otters, weasels, bobcats, beavers, badgers and ringtail cats,”² which is why a bobcat pelt needs a seal and a coyote pelt does not. They are not game mammals either.³

In most western states that classification is the key that unlocks the page, because the restrictions are written for game animals and coyotes sit outside them. Arizona is the state where that reasoning fails. The rules that matter most here — the optics ban, the daylight-only rule, the trail camera ban — are written against wildlife, and Arizona defines wildlife as “all wild mammals, wild birds and the nests or eggs thereof, reptiles, amphibians, mollusks, crustaceans and fish.”⁴ Coyotes are squarely inside that. Read the optics ban before you buy anything for a night hunt here.

Are coyotes protected in Arizona?

No, but they are regulated more tightly than in any other western state on this site. There is no closed season and no bag limit, yet you still need a license, you may only shoot during daylight hours unless you are in one of 26 units during a six-month window, and thermal is illegal.

Is a hunting license required to hunt coyotes in Arizona?

Yes. “To hunt predatory and fur-bearing mammals in Arizona, you need a valid hunting or combination license.”⁵

The catch that trips up visiting hunters is which license you can actually buy:⁶

There is no non-resident hunting-only license in Arizona. A visiting coyote hunter buys the $160 combination license or the $20-a-day short-term combination — you are paying for a fishing license you did not want either way. For a long weekend the short-term is the obvious buy: it may “be purchased for any day” and you pick the dates when you buy.⁶

All licenses run 365 days from the date of purchase rather than to a fixed year end,⁶ so a September license covers the following September.

The prices above are resident prices. A non-resident pays more, and may need a different license — see what a non-resident needs.

Is hunter education required?

Not for coyotes. Arizona’s hunter education requirement is written around big game: no one under 10 may hunt big game, and “Persons ages 10 through 13 must have satisfactorily completed a Hunter Education Course that is approved by the Director.”⁷ Nothing in that reaches a predator hunter of any age.

Trapping is the exception, and it runs the other way — see trapping.

Can a non-resident hunt coyotes in Arizona?

Yes, on the $160 combination license or the $20-a-day short-term. No tag, no draw, no permit.

See also is a hunting license required — the license rules there, and the exemptions and add-ons that go with them, apply to you too.

Coyote season, hours & bag limits in Arizona

What is the season for coyote hunting in Arizona?

Year-round. Commission Order 13 opens the general coyote season “Jul 1, 2026 – Jun 30, 2027” statewide.⁸ That is a full calendar year with no gap.

Two exclusions ride on it. The season is statewide “excluding National Wildlife Refuges and Units 11M, 25M, 26M, and 38M”⁸ — the four metro units around Phoenix and Tucson. Several refuges are then opened separately on their own dates.⁸ And open areas never include “areas within municipal parks, municipal preserves, county parks, county preserves, airports, golf courses, or posted water treatment facilities.”⁹

What is the bag limit for coyotes in Arizona?

None. “Unlimited.”¹⁰

What are the legal hunting hours for coyotes in Arizona?

Daylight only, unless you are in a daylong unit during the daylong season. This is the single most important sentence on the page, and it is statutory: “A person may take wildlife, except aquatic wildlife, only during daylight hours unless otherwise prescribed by the commission.”¹¹

The commission has prescribed otherwise for coyotes, but only narrowly. See night hunting for where and when.

Can you hunt coyotes during deer or big game season?

Yes. Coyotes are open year-round, so every big game season overlaps one. Arizona attaches no coyote-specific orange requirement.

Two cautions that are real here. The optics ban applies to whatever you are hunting, so it does not become stricter during deer season — it was already absolute. And if you are hunting the units where Mexican wolves live, read protected areas before you call.

Night hunting coyotes in Arizona: lights, night vision & thermal

Can you hunt coyotes at night in Arizona?

Only in 26 units, and only from 1 December to 31 May. Both halves of that matter: the unit list is as much of the answer as the dates.

The baseline is the daylight-only statute above.¹¹ The exception is a second, separate coyote season in Commission Order 13 with daylong hours — “Daylong means the 24-hour period between midnight and midnight”¹² — running “Dec 1, 2026 – May 31, 2027” in these units:¹³

4A, 4B (north of Interstate 40), 5A, 5B, 8, 10, 12A, 12B, 13A, 13B, 15A, 15B, 15C, 15D, 16A, 17A, 17B, 18A, 18B, 19A, 19B, 20A, 31, 32, 42 and 44A

Outside those 26 units, or outside those dates, shooting a coyote after dark in Arizona is taking wildlife outside legal hours. The general season stays open all year, but it is a daylight season.

Check the current booklet before every trip: the unit list and the dates are set annually by Commission Order, not by statute, and they have moved before.

Can you use artificial lights for coyote hunting in Arizona?

Yes, inside that daylong season, and never from a vehicle. Artificial light is a lawful method for taking coyotes “during seasons with day-long hours, provided the light is not attached to or operated from a motor vehicle, motorized watercraft, watercraft under sail, or floating object towed by a motorized watercraft or a watercraft under sail.”¹⁴

The note attached to the daylong units repeats it: “In units listed with this note, coyotes may be taken at night with the aid of artificial light; however, the light may not be attached to or operated from a vehicle.”¹⁵

Outside the daylong season the statutory ban is flat: a person “shall not take any species of wildlife by the aid or with the use of a jacklight, other artificial light, or illegal device, except as provided by the commission.”¹⁶

One more trap, and it catches people who are not hunting at all. “The use of spotlights from a vehicle is illegal if you have any weapons readily available in your vehicle.”¹⁷ AZGFD’s own advice is to make weapons in the vehicle incapable of use — leave the ammunition, arrows or bolts in camp.¹⁷ Scanning a field from the truck with a rifle behind the seat is the violation, whether or not you get out.

Can you use night vision in Arizona?

No. See the optics ban. This is not a scoping question in Arizona — the prohibition names wildlife, and coyotes are wildlife.

Can you use thermal in Arizona?

No. Same rule, same answer.¹⁸ Arizona is the western outlier here: thermal is legal for coyotes in Texas, Nevada, Idaho and Washington, and illegal in Arizona for every species, all year, on every acre.

Are there specific weapons restrictions for hunting coyotes at night in Arizona?

No. The daylong coyote season is a general season, so any lawful method under firearms applies after dark unchanged.¹⁹ This is the one place Arizona loosened up: it used to run the night season as a shotgun-only hunt.

The separate Limited Weapon–Shotgun Shooting Shot season is a daylight season and does not restrict the daylong one.²⁰

The optics ban

If you read one section on this page, read this one. It is the rule Arizona is unusual for, and it carries no exception for coyotes.

A person shall not use or possess any of the following while taking wildlife:

Electronic night vision equipment, electronically enhanced light-gathering devices, thermal imaging devices or laser sights projecting a visible light; except for devices such as laser range finders projecting a non-visible light, scopes with self-illuminating reticles, and fiber optic sights with self-illuminating sights or pins that do not project a visible light onto an animal.¹⁸

Four things about it that matter:

1. It names wildlife, not big game. There is no predatory-animal carve-out. Idaho exempts predatory wildlife from its optics law by name; Arizona does not.
2. Possession counts. The rule reads “use or possess … while taking wildlife.” A thermal monocular in your pack that you never raised is still possession while taking wildlife.
3. Scouting is taking. Locating an animal to hunt it is aiding the take. Glassing a canyon with thermal before first light is not a loophole.
4. What is still legal: laser rangefinders that project a non-visible beam, illuminated reticles, and fibre-optic pins — provided none of them project visible light onto the animal.¹⁸ An ordinary lamp is not an “electronically enhanced light-gathering device,” which is why a $40 red light is legal in December and a $3,000 thermal never is.

The same rule catches two other things a predator hunter would otherwise reach for. Trail cameras may not be placed, maintained or used “for the purpose of taking or aiding in the take of wildlife or locating wildlife for the purpose of taking or aiding in the take of wildlife,”²¹ and audio location devices are prohibited on the same terms.²² Both reach coyotes for the same reason the optics ban does.

The practical read: Arizona is a lamp state. Plan the night hunt around a light and the December–May window, and leave the thermal at home — or in another state.

Firearms, ammunition & suppressors in Arizona

Are suppressors allowed for coyote hunting in Arizona?

Yes, and the protection is statutory rather than discretionary: “The commission shall not adopt or enforce any rule that prohibits the lawful possession or use of a firearm silencer or muffler, including for the taking of wildlife or while hunting.”²³ Federal National Firearms Act rules still govern owning one.

What firearms are allowed or restricted for coyote hunting in Arizona?

Arizona lists lawful methods for predatory and fur-bearing animals rather than restricting calibers. The full list is: firearms; pre-charged pneumatic weapons .22 caliber or larger; bow and arrow; crossbow; traps not prohibited under R12-4-307; artificial light while taking raccoon; artificial light while taking coyote during daylong seasons; and dogs.²⁴

“Firearms” is unqualified — no caliber floor, no ceiling, no action restriction. The practical pick is a flat-shooting centerfire in .223, .22-250, .204 Ruger or .243; Arizona’s open desert and grassland asks for reach. See the best coyote gun.

Are there any ammunition restrictions?

Two prohibitions reach coyotes. A third does not.

Reaching all wildlife: “Fully automatic firearms, including firearms capable of selective automatic fire”²⁵ and “Tracer or armor-piercing ammunition designed for military use.”²⁶

Not reaching coyotes: the full-metal-jacket rule. “A person shall not take big game using full-jacketed or total-jacketed bullets that are not designed to expand upon impact.”²⁷ That is a big game restriction, and coyotes are not big game.³ It sits in a separate subsection from the tracer and armour-piercing ban above, which is what makes the two easy to read as one list.

Legal is not the same as sensible. A non-expanding bullet on a coyote gives you a pencil hole and a long track, which is why the answer barely matters in practice.

Can you hunt using a .22 LR or other rimfire cartridge?

Yes. “Firearms” carries no caliber restriction for predatory animals.²⁴ Whether a rimfire is enough cartridge is a different argument, and in Arizona’s open country the honest answer is no much past 75 yards.

Is there a magazine capacity limit for hunting coyotes in Arizona?

No. Arizona’s only magazine restriction is the three-shell shotgun limit for migratory game birds.²⁸ An AR-15 with a standard magazine is legal for coyotes.

Calls, decoys, bait & dogs in Arizona

Are electronic calls allowed for coyote hunting in Arizona?

Yes. Arizona’s electronic call prohibition is scoped to migratory game birds — “Using electronically amplified bird calls or baits”²⁸ — and nothing restricts callers for predatory animals.

Do not confuse this with the audio location device ban, which is about devices that locate wildlife for you, not devices that call it in.²²

Are decoys allowed for coyote hunting in Arizona?

Yes, including motion decoys.

Is baiting allowed for coyote hunting in Arizona?

For coyotes, yes. Arizona’s baiting prohibition is written for big game: “A person shall not use edible or ingestible substances to aid in taking big game.”²⁹ Coyotes are not big game,³ so the rule does not reach them.

One prohibition does reach you: “Any lure, attractant, or cover scent containing any cervid urine” is unlawful while taking any wildlife.³⁰ Check the label on a coyote attractant before you buy it.

Land-manager rules and municipal wildlife-feeding ordinances can apply on top, so confirm before you put bait out on public ground.

Can you use dogs to hunt coyotes in Arizona?

Yes — dogs are a listed lawful method for predatory animals.²⁴

Two limits. You may not “use dogs to pursue, tree, corner or hold at bay any wildlife for a hunter, unless that hunter is present for the entire hunt,”³¹ and you may not “hold wildlife at bay other than during daylight hours, unless authorized by Commission Order.”³²

Private property, vehicles & public land access in Arizona

Is it legal to shoot coyotes on private property (e.g. in your backyard) in Arizona?

On rural private land with permission, yes. In a backyard, almost certainly not, and the reason is a quarter-mile rule that catches firearms as well as archery gear.

It is unlawful to “discharge a firearm while taking wildlife within one-fourth mile of an occupied farmhouse or other residence, cabin, lodge or building without permission of the owner or resident.”³³ That is 440 yards from any occupied structure — not just yours. AZGFD’s own guidance is to assume every structure, “including barns, sheds and cabins,” is occupied.³⁴

Arrows, bolts, hybrid devices and pneumatic weapons .35 caliber or larger carry the same quarter-mile restriction.³⁵ City and county discharge ordinances then sit on top of all of it, and the four metro units are outside the season entirely.⁸

Can you hunt coyotes from a motorized vehicle in Arizona?

No. “A person shall not take wildlife, except aquatic wildlife, or discharge a firearm or shoot any other device from a motor vehicle, including an automobile, aircraft, train or powerboat.”³⁶ The same subsection adds that “No person may knowingly discharge any firearm or shoot any other device upon, from, across or into a road or railway.”³⁶

Arizona also treats road hunting as a vehicle offence in itself: “You are unlawfully using a vehicle to take wildlife if you intentionally drive around until you see the animal you wish to harvest and then make an attempt to take … You do not have to shoot from the vehicle to be in violation.”³⁷

Can you hunt coyotes on public land in Arizona?

Yes, and there is a great deal of it. Federal ground — BLM, Forest Service, and the five BLM national monuments, which “are open to hunting when the unit they occur in is open to hunting”³⁸ — is the default.

The Arizona-specific detail worth knowing is state trust land, which is scattered in sections across the whole state and is frequently signed as though it were closed. It is not: “State trust land may be posted with signs that read ‘State Land No Trespassing,’ but such posting shall not prohibit access to such land by any person lawfully taking or retrieving wildlife.”³⁹ A valid hunting license is what gets you in; you do not need a separate recreation permit to hunt there.

Two things that are genuinely closed to you: National Wildlife Refuges outside their own separately opened dates,⁸ and tribal land, which is roughly a quarter of the state, is not governed by these rules at all and needs a tribal permit.

Is it legal to trap or snare coyotes in Arizona?

Yes on private land, with a license — and the traps most people mean are banned on every acre of public land in Arizona. This is a 1994 ballot measure, not an agency rule:

It shall be unlawful to take wildlife with any leghold trap, any instant kill body gripping design trap, or by a poison or a snare on any public land, including state owned or state leased land, lands administered by the United States forest service, the federal bureau of land management, the national park service, the United States department of defense, the state parks board and any county or municipality.⁴⁰

The trapping season is also far narrower than the hunting season: coyotes may be trapped 1 November – 28 February, statewide with the usual metro-unit and refuge exclusions.⁴¹ You need a trapping license, and unlike hunting there is an education requirement — “An individual born on or after January 1, 1967 shall successfully complete a Department-approved trapping education course before applying for a trapping license.”⁴² Traps must be inspected daily,⁴³ and licensed trappers file an annual report of what they took.⁴⁴

Is it legal to poison coyotes in Arizona?

No, not as a private individual. Poison is named in the same public-land prohibition above,⁴⁰ and predator toxicants are restricted-use pesticides confined to authorized agency programs. Contact AZGFD or USDA Wildlife Services.

Are there protected areas or additional local restrictions in Arizona?

Yes, and one of them is a species rather than a place. Mexican gray wolves are present across eastern Arizona and are federally protected, and AZGFD is blunt about why this is a coyote hunter’s problem: “many wolves have been shot, and it is probable that some of these shootings were cases of mistaken identity, where the shooter believed the target was a coyote.”⁴⁵

Wolves may be present in Units 1, 2A, 2B, 2C, 3A, 3B, 3C, 4A, 4B, 5A, 5B, 6A, 6B, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11M, 22N, 22S, 23N, 23S, 27, 29 and 30A, and near the Mexican border.⁴⁶ Six of those — 4A, 4B, 5A, 5B, 8 and 10 — are also daylong coyote units,¹³ which means Arizona’s legal night hunting happens in the country where wolves live, by lamplight, on an animal you are identifying at distance in the dark. Hunters are told to “exercise extra caution from July to November because wolf pups are active, and their appearance and behavior can make them appear like coyotes.”⁴⁵

Killing one carries criminal penalties of up to $50,000 and up to a year in jail, plus civil penalties.⁴⁷ Not all wolves are collared.⁴⁵ Identify your target.

AZGFD publishes the comparison, and it is the most useful one in the West — because it is the only agency chart on this site that tells you how the animal moves:⁴⁸

Every figure is AZGFD’s. The gait line is the one to carry into the field, because it is the only cue on that list that survives the conditions you will actually be in. Ear shape and nose profile need a steady animal at reasonable range in decent light. How something crosses two hundred yards of open ground reads at a glance, in poor light, through mediocre glass — and a coyote bounces where a Mexican wolf plods.

Note also how narrow the size gap is compared with the northern states. A Montana wolf is 70–120 pounds against a 30–40 pound coyote. Here it is 50–80 against 20–35 — a big Arizona coyote and a small Mexican wolf are perhaps fifteen pounds apart, which is nothing at distance.

Beyond that: the four metro units and municipal parks, county parks, airports, golf courses and posted water treatment facilities are out,⁹ refuges run their own dates, military ranges need access permits, and city and county discharge ordinances apply everywhere.

After the shot: pelts, bounties & contests in Arizona

Are there regulations for possessing or transporting dead coyotes or pelts across state lines?

Coyotes carry no tag, seal or check-in requirement in Arizona. Bobcats do — “Any raw bobcat pelt sold or exported must have a seal attached”⁴⁹ — so if you take both on the same trip, only one of them needs paperwork.

Interstate movement is the receiving state’s business. Check the rules where you are going.

Can you sell coyote pelts, and do you need a fur handler’s license?

You can sell pelts from lawfully taken coyotes, and selling your own hides does not make you a fur dealer. Arizona defines a “fur dealer” as “any person engaged in the business of buying for resale the raw pelts or furs of wild mammals”⁵⁰ — the license attaches to the buyer, not the hunter.

What is a felony is selling wildlife that was taken unlawfully, taken in a closed season, or imported in violation of the title.⁵¹ Given that Arizona’s coyote season is open year-round in most units and closed at night in most of the state, “closed season” is doing real work in that sentence.

If you trap rather than hunt, your annual trapper report has to account for the disposition of what you took.⁴⁴

Is there a coyote bounty program in Arizona?

No. AZGFD runs no bounty, and none appears in the 2026–27 regulations. Given the contest ban below, a privately funded per-animal payment would sit on very thin ice.

Are coyote contests legal in Arizona, or can I hunt in Arizona for an out-of-state contest?

No on both counts. Arizona banned predator hunting contests in 2019, and the ban is written to catch participation, not just organizing:

Participate in, organize, promote, sponsor, or solicit participation in a contest where a participant uses or intends to use any device or implement to capture or kill predatory animals or fur-bearing animals as defined under A.R.S. § 17-101.⁵²

Coyotes are predatory animals under that definition,¹ so they are squarely in it.

“Contest” is defined narrowly, and the definition is the part worth reading: “a competition among participants where participants must register or record entry and pay a fee, and prizes or cash are awarded to winning or successful participants.”⁵³ All three elements — entry, fee, prize — have to be present. An informal group hunt with no fee and no prize is not a contest. A jackpot is.

The rule catches “participate in,” so hunting in Arizona to enter a contest run from another state is the same offence. Arizona is one of a growing group of western states here: California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and New Mexico have all banned contests, while Idaho, Nevada and Texas have not.

Ordinary predator hunting is untouched. The ban is about organized competitions with prizes, not about shooting coyotes.

Coyotes in Arizona

Are there coyotes in Arizona? How many, and where?

Yes, statewide and in numbers — Sonoran desert, high desert grassland, chaparral, the Mogollon Rim country and the ponderosa forest above it, and every golf course and wash in Phoenix and Tucson. Arizona coyotes are smaller and lighter-coated than northern animals, and the desert ones are noticeably so.

The hunting country is the country outside the four metro units.

Are Arizona coyotes dangerous to people or pets?

To people, very rarely. To unattended pets they are a genuine and routine threat, and Arizona’s urban-edge coyotes are among the boldest in the country because there are so many of them living permanently inside city limits. Small dogs and cats left out at night in a desert-adjacent yard are at real risk.

Remember that shooting one in that yard runs straight into the quarter-mile rule and the metro-unit closure. Urban coyote problems in Arizona are a call to your municipality, not a hunting opportunity.

When is coyote mating season in Arizona, and when do pups arrive?

Breeding runs through late winter, with pups on the ground in spring — earlier in the low desert than on the Rim. That timing lines up well here: late winter falls inside the 1 December – 31 May daylong window,¹³ so Arizona’s best calling of the year is also the part of the year you can legally hunt it after dark.

When are coyotes most active in Arizona?

First and last light year-round, and in summer heat that compresses to a narrow window at each end of the day. For the full breakdown of season, weather and moon phase, see when to hunt coyotes.

What’s changing in Arizona

Arizona’s coyote rules are stable. The two changes that matter both landed years ago, and both are still in force. Newest first:

• 1 January 2022 — trail cameras banned for hunting. The Commission voted unanimously in June 2021; the rule took effect on 1 January 2022 and applies to using a camera, or its images, to take or locate any wildlife.^{21 54} It reaches coyotes.
• Early November 2019 — predator hunting contests banned. The Game and Fish Commission approved the rule unanimously in June 2019, the Governor’s Regulatory Review Council approved it 6–0 on 4 September 2019, and it took effect 60 days after that.⁵⁵ Arizona was the third state in the country to ban wildlife killing contests.

No Arizona legislation has changed coyote season, bag limits or night hunting since. The bag limit remains “Unlimited,”¹⁰ and the general season remains statewide with no county-level closures.⁸

These answers get re-checked before they go stale. The verification date at the top of the page is the record of when that last happened, not decoration.

Anything else worth noting about coyote hunting in Arizona

Arizona does not work like its neighbours, so a plan carried over from Texas or Nevada will not hold here.

Three things to get right:

Thermal is illegal here. Not restricted, not seasonal, not scoped around big game — illegal for all wildlife, and possession while hunting counts.¹⁸ This is the single most expensive mistake available on this page.

Night hunting is 26 units and six months, not a right. Everywhere else, and every other month, coyotes are a daylight animal in Arizona.^{11 13}

Non-residents cannot buy a hunting-only license. It is the $160 combination or $20 a day.⁶

What Arizona gives you in return is a year-round open season with no limit, enormous public access including state trust land that looks closed and is not,³⁹ and some of the best desert calling country in the West. Bring a light, not a thermal, and go in February.

Is it legal to own a coyote as a pet in Arizona?

No. Coyotes are restricted live wildlife in Arizona — all species of the order Carnivora are — and the Department issues holding permits only in narrow circumstances such as educational display, advancement of science, or fostering an animal that cannot return to the wild. A pet is not one of them. Contact AZGFD before assuming any exception applies.

Know something we missed? Contact me and I’ll get it fixed.