Arizona does not license scrap metal dealers. It registers them with the state police, and the record it wants from every seller runs well past a signature: a photograph, a physical description checked against your driver license, the plate of the vehicle you arrived in, and a right index fingerprint. Payment is usually mailed rather than handed over at the counter, and on most nonferrous loads the metal sits untouched for seven days.
The governing law is A.R.S. Title 44, Chapter 10, Article 3.1, sections 44-1641 to 44-1648. It's registration rather than licensing. Under 44-1641.03(A), "a person must register pursuant to this article to conduct business as a scrap metal dealer in this state," and the registry is held by the Department of Public Safety. Registration runs two years, the fee is set by the DPS director rather than fixed in statute, and the application names every owner holding at least ten percent along with a copy of each one's driver license.
Section 44-1642(A) sets the list. Date, time and place. A photograph, description and weight of the metal. The dollar amount. Your name, physical description including gender, height, weight, race and eye and hair color, your address and date of birth, validated against your driver license. Your transaction privilege tax number where you have one. The plate number and issuing state of the vehicle you delivered in. A photograph, video or digital record of you.
Then subsection (A)(8), which is the one people don't expect: "A right index fingerprint of the seller." Not a thumbprint. The statute names the finger.
Records stay on the premises for a year after the last entry under 44-1642(B), and remain reachable for a second year after that. Sellers have to be at least sixteen.
Arizona's default is not cash and not a counter check. Under 44-1642(C), "payment shall be made by mailing a check or money order to a physical address provided by the seller." Preregistered industrial accounts are the exception, and a dealer may hand over a check made payable to an industrial account on site.
Where cash is used at all, 44-1642(F) limits a seller to one cash scrap transaction per day.
Within twenty-four hours of receiving reportable metal, a dealer files an electronic record with DPS under 44-1644(A). The hold then runs off that filing rather than off the purchase, which is the detail most summaries get wrong.
Section 44-1644(E): for copper, aluminum wire of at least three-eighths of an inch, and any transaction over $100, the dealer must hold the metal "in the same size, shape and condition in which the scrap metal was received" for seven days after filing the report. Nothing gets cut, baled or stripped in that window. Industrial accounts, dealer-to-dealer trades, used beverage cans, ferrous metal and material a peace officer has released are all outside it.
Burned wire has its own rule. Under 44-1646(A) a dealer can't take metallic wire burned to remove insulation without written evidence from the seller that the burning was lawful, and under (B) can't accept stripped copper wire or aluminum wire three-eighths of an inch or larger at all.
This is stronger than the extra-paperwork framing that gets repeated. Section 44-1642.01(A)(8) puts "catalytic converters or any nonferrous parts of a catalytic converter" on the list of things a scrap metal dealer may not purchase. Subsection (B) leaves three channels open: industrial accounts, other scrap dealers, and metal a peace officer has authorized for release. Violation is a class 1 misdemeanor.
Arizona backs that with a separate criminal statute. A.R.S. 13-3728 makes it unlawful to purchase, solicit, advertise, possess or sell a used detached catalytic converter, with carve-outs for licensed automotive recyclers, the 44-1642.01(B) channels, and parts and repair businesses selling or installing new converters. A lawfully held converter has to be marked with the date it came off the vehicle and the donor VIN, or a number that links straight to it. Possession of ten or more is a class 6 felony.
Different law entirely. Section 44-1642.02 is one sentence: "Notwithstanding any other law, only title 28 governs the purchase by a scrap metal dealer of a vehicle as defined in section 28-101 solely for the purpose of processing the vehicle into a scrap vehicle or into prepared grades of scrap metal." So it becomes a title question under A.R.S. 28-2091 and 28-2094, not a scrap records question, and the owner assigns the certificate of title to the purchaser.
Worth separating two categories that get conflated. A licensed automotive recycler under Title 28, chapter 10 is expressly excluded from the definition of scrap metal dealer in 44-1641. They're different regulated trades.
"Nonferrous metals" isn't defined in 44-1641, although three operative provisions turn on it: the twenty percent exception in 44-1642(I), the converter retention rule in 44-1642(H) and the prohibited items list in 44-1642.01(A)(8). "Ferrous metals" is defined, as "those metals that will attract a magnet." Copper isn't defined either, only named where it's regulated.
Most of the friction at an Arizona yard comes from rules the yard did not write, so it helps to know which is which before you load the truck.
No, it registers them. A.R.S. 44-1641.03(A) requires a person to register with the Department of Public Safety to conduct business as a scrap metal dealer in this state. Registration runs two years and the fee is set by the DPS director rather than fixed in statute.
A long list under A.R.S. 44-1642(A): date, time and place; a photograph, description and weight of the metal; the amount paid; your name, address, date of birth and physical description validated against your driver license; the plate number and issuing state of the vehicle you delivered in; a photograph or video record of you; and a right index fingerprint. Sellers must be at least sixteen.
Because mailed payment is the default here. A.R.S. 44-1642(C) requires payment by check or money order mailed to a physical address the seller provides. Preregistered industrial accounts are the exception. Where cash is used at all, a seller is limited to one cash scrap transaction a day.
No. A.R.S. 44-1642.01(A)(8) puts catalytic converters and their nonferrous parts on the list a dealer may not purchase, leaving three channels open: industrial accounts, other scrap dealers, and metal a peace officer has released. A.R.S. 13-3728 separately makes it unlawful to purchase, possess or sell a used detached converter, and possession of ten or more is a class 6 felony.
For copper, aluminum wire of at least three-eighths of an inch, and any transaction over $100, A.R.S. 44-1644(E) requires the dealer to keep the metal in the same size, shape and condition for seven days after filing its report with DPS. The clock runs from that filing, not from the purchase.