Arizona says a used car lot can be a vacant lot.

Ohio tells you to put three chairs in the office. Michigan wants a working restroom and a repair shop within ten miles. Arizona read the same problem and wrote the opposite answer.

Its statutory definition of an established place of business starts out strict, then carves used car dealers straight back out of it. The result is the only state on this site where the licensed premises can legally be an empty piece of ground.

Almost everything below comes from Arizona Revised Statutes Title 28, Chapter 10, quoted by section so you can check it. Where Arizona publishes no figure, this page says so rather than filling the gap.

Seven cars, not three and not five

Arizona sets the line higher than any other state covered here. A used motor vehicle dealer, in §28-4301(34), is a person who buys, sells, auctions, exchanges or offers to negotiate the sale of, or is engaged in the business of selling, seven or more used motor vehicles in a continuous twelve month period.

Six is therefore legal without a licence. Compare that with Florida at three or more, and North Carolina and Michigan at five.

Note the word continuous. The twelve months roll backwards from today, so it is not a calendar allowance that resets each January. Five in November and three in February is eight in a continuous twelve month period.

The premises rule, in full

§28-4301(7)(a) sets the general standard: a permanent enclosed building or structure, owned in fee or leased, with sufficient space to display two or more motor vehicles of a kind and type the dealer is licensed to sell, devoted principally to the use of a motor vehicle dealer in the conduct of the business.

Then §28-4301(7)(b) applies to used motor vehicle dealers, trailer dealers and semitrailer dealers, and takes most of that back:

• It need not be a permanent building or structure, or part of one
• It may be a vacant lot, or part of a vacant lot
• It may not be a residence, a tent, a temporary stand, temporary quarters, or permanent quarters occupied under a temporary arrangement

That is the whole physical requirement. Read the rest of the chapter and what is absent is as striking as what is there.

Texas measures the ceiling height of the office. North Carolina specifies block letters not less than three inches. Ohio names the furniture. Arizona names none of it, and that is a deliberate feature of the statute rather than a gap in this page.

One thing it does require indirectly: §28-4361(B)(5) says the application must contain the business hours of the applicant. Arizona does not tell you what those hours have to be. It tells you to write them down and then holds you to them.

The bond, which the state will not price

This is the honest problem with Arizona, and it is worth being precise about.

§28-4362(2)(b) requires a bond in an amount prescribed by the director, of at least twenty thousand dollars for an automotive recycler's licence and not more than one hundred thousand dollars for all other licences. That is a floor for one licence type and a ceiling for everything else. There is no figure in the statute for a used motor vehicle dealer.

The MVD's own page headed vehicle dealer bonds does not fill the gap either. It is a referral list of bond and insurance agencies. The bond form itself, 38-1301 revised August 2026, leaves the penal sum as a blank line to be filled in.

So this page states no Arizona bond figure. What the statute does fix:

• Sixty days' prior notice to the director before the surety may cancel, which is twice the thirty days Michigan and North Carolina allow
• It covers two things, under §28-4362(2)(e): nonpayment by the dealer of customer prepaid title, registration or related fees or taxes, and failure to deliver a valid title certificate free and clear of prior owners' interests and all liens, except a lien the buyer created or assumed in writing
• A surety company authorised in Arizona, with the applicant as principal obligor and the state as obligee

What you actually pay

Unlike the bond, the fees are written into statute at §28-4302(A), in words rather than numerals.

The third-party lender clause is unusual enough to be worth reading twice. A dealer with a contractual relationship with a third-party lender pays four hundred dollars for the licence instead of one hundred, and two hundred and fifty for the continuation instead of one hundred. The statute splits the difference between the state general fund and the state highway fund.

Arizona does not publish a dealer plate fee in this section, a duplicate licence fee, or a late fee. The word renewal does not appear: the statute calls it continuation.

The background check

§28-4361(C) applies to each applicant, partner or stockholder who owns twenty per cent or more of the entity and is seeking a new licence. They submit a full set of fingerprints to ADOT for a state and federal records check, and pay a nonrefundable fee to the Department of Public Safety. The statute does not state that fee.

Three exemptions in §28-4361(E) are worth knowing:

• A person under eighteen on the date the application is filed
• Anyone who has submitted to a criminal records check during the past five years
• Anyone currently licensed under the section

Add or change a twenty per cent owner later and you have thirty days to tell the department. If that person turns out to be ineligible, the director writes to say the licence will be revoked unless they are removed.

The inspection, which may not be a visit

§28-4364(A) is triggered on the filing of the application. The director must investigate the matters in the application, inspect the place from which the applicant proposes to transact business, and investigate anything else the director deems necessary. §28-4364(B) leaves the date and time to the director, as reasonable and necessary.

The clause worth noticing is three words long: the inspection may be done physically or through an alternate method established by the director. Every other state here describes a person arriving at your lot. Arizona leaves itself the option not to.

There is also a provisional licence. Under §28-4364(C) the director may approve a provisional dealer licence while the criminal records check is still running, provided the applicant meets every other requirement, and it stays valid until the full application is approved or denied, or until revoked.

The course, which may not exist

Arizona's education provision, §28-4361(F), is written in the permissive. The director may establish education and training for a person applying for an initial or renewal used motor vehicle dealer or wholesale motor vehicle dealer licence, may contract with a private entity to provide it, and that entity may charge a fee.

No hours. No syllabus. No exam. No continuing education requirement. Compare Florida's sixteen hours, North Carolina's twelve, and Texas and Ohio at six each.

The MVD's orientation deck points newly licensed dealers at the Arizona Independent Auto Dealers Association for compliance classes, and presents that as a resource rather than a requirement.

What the licence lets you do

Arizona licenses nine types. The three that matter to a small operator:

• Used. Sell used vehicles retail, wholesale and on consignment
• Wholesale. Sell to other licensed dealers only. You may not advertise or give the appearance of selling retail, and you must title every vehicle in the name of the wholesale licence before transferring title
• Broker. Act as a locater service for a customer. You may not own the vehicles you sell, may not take vehicles on consignment, and may not have an arrangement with a dealer to steer customers to him

The penalty for a wholesale licensee who sells or offers to sell retail is published, and it is not small: civil penalties of $1,000 to $3,000 per sale or offer to sell, plus loss of the licence.

A branch licence, under §28-4301(2), covers a second location within the same county. Across a county line is a separate licence.

After the licence: the parts that bite

• Sell only from your licensed place of business, unless you hold an off-premises permit for a special event or sale
• A temporary registration plate expires 45 days after issue, but the dealer acts as the buyer's agent and must obtain title and registration within 30 days. Those two numbers are not the same deadline, and the gap is where penalty fees live
• A 90-day non-resident permit is available for an out-of-state buyer with a completed affidavit, who then titles, registers and pays tax at home
• Records stay at the licensed place of business. Electronic storage is allowed, but you must produce a legible hard copy on demand
• A deal jacket for every sale, and a dealer plate log
• Clear title for each vehicle in inventory before you offer it for sale
• Tell Dealer Licensing when your hours, name, location or ownership change
• A copy of your current transaction privilege tax licence goes in with the application, under §28-4362(3)

Arizona does not publish a processing time, a dealer plate count, or a dealer plate cost on the pages read for this page.

Cheap to enter is not the same as cheap to run

On paper Arizona is the easiest state here. Six cars before anyone cares, a hundred dollars a year, no course, no exam, no square footage, no sign, and a lot that can be a lot.

Which moves the whole question somewhere else. When the state stops deciding what your overhead is, your overhead is decided entirely by you, and the only thing standing between a low barrier and a bad year is whether you know what each car actually cost you.

That is the number that goes missing. Not the licence, which is one line a year, but the transport, the detail, the two tyres, the title fee advanced for the buyer, the month the car sat. Deelary keeps every one of those on the car it belongs to, so the total cost, the margin and the days in stock on the screen are the real ones. What a good gross profit per car looks like is the figure to measure yours against.

Comparing states? Dealer license requirements by state puts the bond, the office, the sign and the course side by side. Texas measures the ceiling, Florida inspects before you file, California gives you an exam you can fail, North Carolina rations your plates, Ohio counts the chairs, and Michigan counts your hours, and Georgia denies the five-car rule outright. Do you need a dealer license to flip cars covers the threshold question first.