Arizona at a Glance
Arizona doesn’t hand tags to the highest bidder in a single pass. Its three-pass structure means a low-point hunter has a real shot at a tag in any given year, while high-point hunters still get a meaningful edge through the Bonus Pass. That’s a genuinely different design than Nevada’s squared-point formula or Wyoming’s hard preference floors, and it shows up in the draw rate data.
Two things stand out for NR hunters in the 2025 data. First, accessible bull elk opportunity in Arizona is narrower than the state’s reputation suggests. Unit 22N at 3 pts is the primary entry point: 22 NR tags, 18% success. Unit 22S at 5 pts is the secondary with 6 NR tags. After those two codes, the next bull opportunity doesn’t appear until 23+ pts, with the premium early codes sitting at 29–30 pts NR, up sharply from 22–23 pts in 2024. Second, Arizona offers both mule deer and Coues whitetail through the same draw, and Coues is a species most NR hunters don’t think about, which is an edge.
Draw Rate Overview
The table below shows what percentage of all NR tags (by volume) flowed through hunt codes where the Bonus Pass floor was at or below each point level. This is a system-level view, not individual draw odds for a specific code. A hunter with 7 bonus points could access 82% of all NR deer tags and 38% of NR elk tags by total tag count, meaning they’d be eligible to draw in codes covering that share of the NR tag pool. Whether they actually drew depends on applicant pressure at the code they chose.
| Points | Mule Deer / Coues (NR) | Elk (NR) | Pronghorn (NR) † |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 pts | 8% | 6% | 62% † |
| 3 pts | 57% | 17% | 62% † |
| 5 pts | 78% | 28% | 62% † |
| 7 pts | 82% | 38% | 62% † |
| 10 pts | 88% | 61% | 62% † |
| 12 pts | 90% | 77% | 62% † |
| 15 pts | 95% | 84% | 62% † |
| 19 pts | 97% | 94% | 62% † |
| 24 pts | 99% | 98% | 67% |
| 25+ pts | 99% | 99% | 73% |
Mule Deer & Coues Whitetail
Arizona draws both mule deer and Coues whitetail through the same draw. They require separate tags, coded by unit and sub-species. Coues occupy the southeastern corner of the state (Units 22–36 range), while mule deer dominate central, western, and northern Arizona. For NR hunters, Coues are worth a closer look: they attract less out-of-state pressure than mule deer, and several units have NR Bonus Pass floors at 1–3 points with solid success rates. Most NR hunters don’t know what they’re looking at when they see a Unit 36 tag. That’s an edge.
The 2025 NR ceilings: mule deer at 16 pts, Coues at 18 pts, both notably lower than the elk ceiling. One meaningful year-over-year shift: Unit 27 mule deer jumped from 5 pts NR (2024) to 13 pts NR (2025), a +8 surge that moved it out of the accessible tier entirely. Accessible mule deer options below 5 pts thinned in 2025 compared to the prior year.
Accessible Coues Whitetail Units (1–3 pts NR), 2025
| Unit | NR Floor | Res Floor | NR Tags (per season) | Success % | Total Hunters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit 33 Muzzleloader | 1 pt | 1 pt | 25 | 34% | 253 |
| Unit 36B General | 2 pts | 2 pts | 42–70 | 18–24% | 533–576 |
| Unit 34A General | 2 pts | 2 pts | 27–54 | 24–28% | 454–556 |
| Unit 35B General | 2 pts | 2 pts | 23–40 | 29–31% | 263–346 |
| Unit 35A General | 2 pts | 2 pts | 33–35 | 23–33% | 291–319 |
| Unit 36A General | 2 pts | 2 pts | 21–37 | 20–37% | 307–323 |
| Unit 30A General | 2 pts | 2 pts | 15–17 | 40–42% | 114–146 |
| Unit 34B General | 3 pts | 2–3 pts | 8–11 | 41–52% | 97–125 |
| Unit 32 General | 3 pts | 3 pts | 21–27 | 32–36% | 228–230 |
| Unit 24A General | 3 pts | 3 pts | 14–27 | 23–42% | 216–221 |
| Unit 36C General | 3 pts | 2–3 pts | 17 | 29–46% | 130–155 |
| Unit 24B General | 3 pts | 3 pts | 7–14 | 24–27% | 166–237 |
Accessible Mule Deer Units (2–5 pts NR), 2025
| Unit | NR Floor | Res Floor | NR Tags | Success % | Total Hunters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit 30A General | 2 pts | 2 pts | 8 | 31% | 131 |
| Unit 30B General | 3 pts | 2 pts | 13 | 27% | 262 |
| Unit 36B General | 3 pts | 3 pts | 7 | 30% | 93 |
| Unit 06B General | 4 pts | 4 pts | 5 | 28% | 176 |
| Unit 22 General | 5 pts | 12 pts | 10 | 15% | 292 |
Figuring out which of these fits your point stack and timeline? The strategy guide has a framework for it.
Read the Strategy GuideCompetitive Mule Deer Units (12+ pts NR), 2025
| Unit | NR Floor | Res Floor | NR Tags | Success % | Total Hunters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit 27 General | 13 pts | 5 pts | 33 | 58% | 429 |
| Unit 06A General | 16 pts | 5 pts | 9 | 41% | 365 |
Unit 27 moved from accessible to competitive in 2025, it now requires 13 pts NR while the resident floor sits at just 5 pts, meaning NR hunters need significantly more points than residents for the same code. It still delivers 58% success with a 429-hunter sample, making it one of the better-value competitive mule deer options once you’re pointed up. Unit 06A at 16 pts runs a similar resident-favorable gap and delivers 41% success.
Elk
Arizona elk has a reputation as one of the more accessible big game draws in the West, and for residents that holds. For NR hunters building toward a bull tag, the picture is more specific. Accessible bull elk codes at 1–5 NR bonus points are thin: Unit 22N at 3 pts (22 NR tags, 18% success) is the primary option, and Unit 22S at 5 pts (6 NR tags, 17% success) is the secondary. That’s effectively it at the accessible end. Antlerless codes exist throughout the low-point range, but bull is what most NR applicants are building toward.
The NR elk ceiling in 2025 sits at 29–30 pts for the premium early bull codes. The general early-September bull code is new for 2025; the closest 2024 premium comparisons were muzzleloader early bull at 27 pts NR and archery early bull at 21. The 1/2B/2C general early bull drew at 29 pts NR in 2025. Plan accordingly if those are your targets.
Accessible Elk Units (1–5 pts NR), 2025
| Unit | NR Floor | Res Floor | NR Tags | Success % | Total Hunters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit 22N | 3 pts | 3 pts | 22 | 18% | 171 |
| Unit 22S | 5 pts | 3 pts | 6 | 17% | 52 |
Competitive Elk Units (23+ pts NR), 2025
| Unit | Hunt Type | NR Floor | Res Floor | NR Tags | Success % | Total Hunters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit 01/02B/02C | Early Bull | 29 pts | 25 pts | 3 | 97% | 32 |
| Unit 10 | Early Bull | 30 pts | 24 pts | 4 | 83% | 29 |
| Unit 9 | Early Bull | 26 pts | 17 pts | 9 | 55% | 77 |
| Unit 10 | Early Bull | 25 pts | 14 pts | 10 | 41% | 96 |
| Unit 15A/15B/18A | Early Bull | 25 pts | 11 pts | 3 | 67% | 30 |
| Unit 22N | Early Bull | 25 pts | 19 pts | 3 | 67% | 30 |
| Unit 27 | Bull | 23 pts | 20 pts | 4 | 78% | 36 |
| Unit 03A/04B | Any Elk | 23 pts | 4 pts | 11 | 59% | 29 |
| Unit 03A/03C | Early Bull | 23 pts | 14 pts | 7 | 45% | 62 |
| Unit 03B | Early Bull | 25 pts | 17 pts | 3 | 64% | 25 |
The 1/2B/2C early bull hunt (one combined hunt area, not three separate units) is the benchmark AZ elk tag: 29 pts NR, 97% success. Do not anchor on 2024: the general bull hunt that year was the late-November season, which drew at 18 pts NR, while the 2024 premium-early hunts were muzzleloader at 27 and archery at 21. The new general early code arrived priced at 29. If it is your long-range target, plan against that number. Unit 10 early bull at 30 pts / 83% success is the adjacent option. For hunters looking for the best entry into the competitive tier, Unit 27 bull at 23 pts with 78% success on a 36-hunter sample is the lower-point competitive pick. The Unit 03A/04B “any elk” code at 23 pts shows a striking resident-favorable gap (NR=23 vs. Res=4 pts), illustrating that NR-favorable and resident-favorable gaps both exist depending on the code.
Pronghorn
Bottom line: Arizona pronghorn is effectively a resident draw. Total statewide NR tags in 2025: 45, distributed across 64 hunt codes. Of those, 28 NR tags went through random Pass 2–3 selection on codes with no recorded Bonus Pass floor (averaging less than one NR tag per code). Only 6 codes had any NR Bonus Pass floor recorded, requiring 22–33 pts, with a ceiling of 33 pts at Unit 05B.
The 62% figure in the draw rate table at 0–19 pts reflects those random-draw codes, not accessible opportunity. With 45 total NR tags split across 64 codes, there is no strategic path into AZ pronghorn without decade-plus point accumulation, and even then, the total NR tag pool severely limits how many hunters can draw regardless of points held.
How the Arizona System Works
The Three-Pass Draw
Arizona’s draw runs through three sequential passes before any tag goes unfilled. Pass 1, the Bonus Pass, distributes up to 20% of available tags per hunt code by sorting applicants in descending bonus point order and filling from the highest point tier downward until that 20% is used. The lowest tier it reaches is that hunt’s bonus pass floor, and the random number only breaks ties inside a tier. Applications with zero bonus points are not included in Pass 1. Pass 2 handles the remaining 80% using applicants’ first and second hunt-code choices in a random draw weighted by points: each applicant holds one random number per bonus point, plus one. Pass 3 sweeps up any tags still unfilled using third, fourth, and fifth choices. A hunter who doesn’t win in Pass 1 is automatically re-entered in Pass 2, and again in Pass 3, no elimination between rounds.
The practical implication: your first and second hunt-code choices are your primary draw entries. Choices three through five are Pass 3 fallbacks on leftover tags after two full passes, useful, but not a strategy anchor. Don’t burn your top two choices on reach codes with near-zero NR tag allocations.
Points Don’t Lapse
Arizona has no lapse rule. Bonus points carry forward indefinitely regardless of how many years you skip applying, they only zero out when you draw a tag. Hunter Education (HE) points and Loyalty points (earned after five consecutive years of applying for a species) are retained even after drawing. This makes AZ a genuinely low-maintenance state to bank points in: no pressure to apply every year just to protect your stack.
Group Applications
Arizona allows group applications. Point totals are averaged across the group (total points divided by group size, rounded to the nearest whole number, with 0.5 rounding up) and the group competes at that averaged level. Mismatched point groups should think carefully about whether averaging serves their individual goals.
Application Windows
Arizona does not run one draw a year. It runs two separate cycles for the species covered here. Elk and pronghorn apply in the winter window, which typically opens in January and closes in early February, with results posted around mid-March. Deer, both mule deer and Coues whitetail, applies in a separate spring window that typically closes in early June, with results later that month. Verify the exact 2026 dates at draw.azgfd.com before submitting. NR applicants must hold a valid Arizona combo hunting and fishing license before applying.
- Elk & pronghorn: Application window typically opens in January and closes in early February. Verify exact dates at draw.azgfd.com.
- Deer (mule deer and Coues whitetail): A separate draw. Application window typically closes in early June. Verify exact dates at draw.azgfd.com.
- Draw results: Elk and pronghorn around mid-March; deer in late June.
- NR requirement: Valid Arizona combo hunting and fishing license required before applying.
Where Arizona Fits in Your Portfolio
Arizona earns its place in a western portfolio for a few reasons: thin but real accessible bull elk at 3–5 pts (Unit 22N and Unit 22S) before a steep climb to 29–30 pts for premium codes, Coues whitetail as a bonus species most NR hunters overlook, and no lapse rule making it a low-maintenance state to accumulate points in over time.
If you’re starting from zero, the Coues accessible units (2–3 pts) give you real draw shots within a few cycles. For elk, Unit 22N at 3 pts is the most accessible bull option (22 NR tags, 18% success) and Unit 22S at 5 pts is the secondary, after those two, the next bull opportunity sits at 23+ pts. Mule deer accessible options thinned in 2025, so expect more patience needed there. Pronghorn is a long-horizon project, start the clock now if it’s in your lifetime plan, but don’t build your near-term strategy around it.
If you’re building toward premium elk, the 2025 ceiling of 29–30 pts for early bull codes is the number to plan against. That’s a decade-plus of annual applications, and points don’t lapse, so the clock stops for no one who keeps applying. If you’re weighing which draw odds tool fits your situation, the draw odds tools comparison breaks down the major options side by side.
Comparing Arizona against Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming? The state-by-state draw odds posts cover all five.
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