How much does unemployment pay in Arizona?

Arizona adds nothing for dependants, so your weekly benefit amount comes from one figure: the wages in your best-paid quarter. Once DES sets it on your Monetary Determination, Arizona law does not redetermine it during the benefit year just because a new minimum or maximum takes effect.

How your best-paid quarter sets the weekly amount

1. DES looks at the wages paid to you during your base period, the year of earnings explained on the eligibility page. Only wages from employers who paid Arizona unemployment tax count.
2. It picks the quarter of that base period in which your wages were highest.
3. It pays 4% of those wages, which the statute writes as 1/25.
4. It rounds to the nearest whole dollar, with half a dollar or more rounding up.
5. It caps the result at $320.

Between those lines, your amount is 4% of the quarter, rounded. Your exact figure is printed on the Monetary Determination DES mails after you apply.

Where the $236 minimum and $320 maximum come from

The $320 maximum is written into Arizona's benefit statute. It replaced a $240 cap and covers claims effective on or after July 3, 2022. DES says it has no authority to raise the amount on a claim opened before then.

The $236 minimum has no line of its own in the statute. It falls out of the wage test: to qualify, your highest quarter must hold at least 390 times the Arizona minimum wage in effect when you file. The Industrial Commission of Arizona set that wage at $15.15 an hour from January 1, 2026, so the smallest qualifying quarter is $5,908.50, and 4% of it rounds to $236. The minimum wage rises every January 1 with the cost of living, which moves the lowest weekly amount on new claims each year.

The U.S. Department of Labor's table of state laws in force July 1, 2026 prints the same pair for Arizona, $236 and $320. Some older DES pages still show a lower minimum from years when the minimum wage was lower; the wage test, not those pages, sets the floor on a claim you file now.

Can you collect if you work part time?

Yes, for a week of less than full-time work that is not your fault, as long as that week's wages stay below your weekly benefit amount. DES pays a partial payment, sometimes called a partial check. Its reported-earnings page says earnings of more than $160.50 in a week reduce the payment. DES works the amount out like this:

1. It subtracts the week's earnings from your weekly benefit amount.
2. It adds an allowance of $160.
3. It rounds the result to the nearest dollar, with half a dollar rounding up.

The rounding in the last step is why earnings of up to $160.50 still leave your full payment, and why DES's pages print that line variously as $160, $160.49, and $160.50.

A week in which you earn as much as your weekly benefit amount, or more, pays nothing. The payment falls from a partial amount straight to nothing at that line. With a $250 weekly benefit amount, earning $200 means $40 is deducted and you are paid $210. Earning $249 pays $161. Earning $250 pays $0, because under Arizona law you are not unemployed in a week whose wages reach your weekly benefit amount. These figures are worked from the statute's rule, not taken from a DES page.

DES works its own example on its reported-earnings page:

What you must report on each weekly claim:

• Your total earnings before deductions, for the week you did the work, even if your employer has not paid you yet.
• Tips, meals, lodging, merchandise, or any other payment for your services.
• Pay for show-up or processing time, such as paid training for a new job, even though you did no other work.
• Earnings from partial or temporary work, commissions, odd jobs, and self-employment.

Selling your own personal belongings does not count as wages. One DES page still mentions an older earnings allowance from before July 1, 2022; the $160 figure in the statute and in DES's worked example is the current one. How to file the weekly claim itself is on the weekly claims page.

How does severance pay affect unemployment benefits?

Severance delays your benefits for the weeks it covers, and you report it when you apply. Arizona law says you are not unemployed while you are receiving severance pay or wages in lieu of notice, and it assigns that money to specific weeks:

• If you had a written contract with your employer when the job ended, the pay is assigned as the contract says.
• If you had none, it is assigned to the work days right after your last day of work.
• Either way, it covers as many work days as it would pay at your regular wage or salary.

DES puts the result in its own terms. If the amount assigned to a week is more than your weekly benefit amount, you get no benefit for that week. If it is less, it is deducted as earnings.

For example, a worker paid $1,000 for a 5-day week who leaves with $2,000 in severance and no written contract has it assigned to the 10 work days after the last day worked. For those 2 weeks the worker is not unemployed, and no benefit is paid. This example is worked from the statute; it uses an amount above any weekly benefit amount, so the statute and DES's pages give the same answer.

The law counts as severance everything an employer pays because you resigned, were let go, took an exit incentive, or were included in a reduction in force, and anything paid for releasing claims about the termination. Employer payments for health benefits or under an employee benefit plan are not severance. DES's rule adds that it makes no difference whether the money comes as a lump sum or by keeping you on the payroll for one or more pay periods.

Vacation, holiday, and sick pay are handled the same way on DES's eligibility page and in its handbook: more than your weekly amount in a week means no benefit, and less is deducted as earnings. DES's administrative rule words it more bluntly, calling that pay earnings that result in denial of benefits for the weeks it is assigned to. Either way, the pay is assigned to weeks and you must report it.

What to do:

• When you apply, give the amount (before deductions) and the date of any severance, vacation, holiday, or unused sick pay. DES asks for it on the application.
• If a payment arrives after you apply, contact the UI Call Center right away.
• Expect your first payment to wait until someone at DES verifies the amount and dates.

If you disagree with how DES assigned the money, the decision it sends you can be appealed, as the appeals page explains.

Other things that can lower a week's payment

• A pension. A pension from a plan a base-period employer kept up or paid into can lower each week's payment, as set out below this list.
• Child support. The application asks whether you owe child support. DES withholds the amount set by the child support agency or a court, or an amount you choose if neither applies, and what it withholds still counts as benefits paid to you. DES says the law allows a deduction of up to 50%. If your case is with the DES Division of Child Support Services, call 602 252-4045, Monday to Friday, 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
• A training allowance. A public training allowance that equals or exceeds your benefit means no payment for that week; a smaller one is treated like wages.
• An overpayment. DES can take part or all of an earlier overpayment out of later benefits. The limits are on the appeals and overpayments page.
• Income tax you ask DES to withhold. Nothing is withheld unless you choose it; the rates are on the taxes page.

How a pension lowers a week's payment

Arizona's pension statute reduces a week's benefit by the full weekly share of the pension if you paid in less than 45% of it, and by 45% of that share if you paid in at least 45% but less than 100%. DES's rule finds the weekly share by dividing the monthly pension by 4.333 and rounding down to the dollar.

That example is worked from the rule, with $1,000 as an illustration. The reduction starts with the first week you receive a pension payment, or an official notice from the pension source giving the amount and start date for that week. Back pension payments for weeks before that notice do not create an overpayment, and neither does a later recomputation of the pension unless you fail to disclose it. A pension paid in a single lump sum counts in the week you receive it, a yearly lump sum is spread over 52 weeks, and a lump sum rolled over into a non-taxable retirement plan is disregarded. Survivor's benefits do not count as a pension.

The statute does not reduce benefits for a pension your base-period work did not affect or increase, but that exception does not cover Social Security or Railroad Retirement, which the statute puts under the reduction rule. It also says benefits are not reduced by Social Security retirement to take account of your own contributions.

DES's own pages leave Social Security out. Its eligibility page lists retirement pay "not including Social Security" among the things that affect a claim, and its paper application's pension question excludes Social Security and Social Security Disability. When you apply, report the start date and monthly amount of any pension other than Social Security, as DES's checklist asks. The law and DES's pages do not settle between them how Social Security is treated, so if you receive it, ask the UI Call Center at 1-877-600-2722 whether it lowers your payment.

Checking the amount DES gave you

Within about a week of applying, DES mails a Monetary Determination. It shows the quarters in your base period, the wages paid in each, your weekly benefit amount, and your total benefit amount if you meet every other rule.

If wages or an employer are missing or wrong, file a wage protest in CACTUS any time before your benefit year ends. DES asks for it within 10 working days of the notice to avoid payment delays, and you keep filing weekly claims while it is reviewed. How many weeks your amount is paid for is on the how long benefits last page.