Arizona Living Will Requirements
In Arizona, the living will is its own distinct legal document, not a section folded into a combined form: Arizona Revised Statutes Sections 36-3261 to 36-3262 define and govern it independently of the health care power of attorney statute, Sections 36-3221 to 36-3224.
Introduction
In Arizona, the living will is its own distinct legal document, not a section folded into a combined form: Arizona Revised Statutes Sections 36-3261 to 36-3262 define and govern it independently of the health care power of attorney statute, Sections 36-3221 to 36-3224. Yet if you sign a living will on its own, without attaching it to a power of attorney, Arizona's own living-will law reaches back into that power-of-attorney statute by direct cross-reference to borrow its notary-or-witness verification rule, so the same signing procedure ends up governing both. The document itself is simply your own written statement of which treatments you want, or want withheld, once you are too ill or injured to say so, with no agent named in it at all. You can sign it alone, sign a health care power of attorney alone, or attach the two together as one packet. This guide covers the living will: what to say, how to sign it, and what makes it valid under Arizona law. If you also want to name someone to make decisions for you, that agent-designation document is covered separately on the Arizona Healthcare Power of Attorney page.
Key Things to Know
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Arizona Revised Statutes directly define 'living will' as its own legal term, separate from a health care power of attorney, not just a colloquial label the way some other states use it: your own written statement of the medical care you want, or want refused, once you are seriously ill or hurt and unable to say so, naming no one to decide for you.
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A living will is not a last will and testament. A living will governs medical care while you are alive but unable to communicate; a last will and testament governs who inherits your property after you die. Most people preparing one eventually want the other too.
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Arizona has its own living will statute, Arizona Revised Statutes Sections 36-3261 to 36-3262, separate from its health care power of attorney statute. You can sign either document alone, or attach the living will to your power of attorney.
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If you sign a stand-alone living will, Arizona verifies it exactly like a health care power of attorney: dated, signed, and either notarized or witnessed by just one adult, not two. See the execution section of this document for who is disqualified from serving as that witness.
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Arizona's optional living will form lets you refuse cardiopulmonary resuscitation and refuse artificial nutrition and hydration as two separate initialed choices under its terminal condition, irreversible coma, and persistent vegetative state paragraph. You do not have to refuse both together.
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Arizona's optional form includes a pregnancy provision you may initial, directing continued life-sustaining treatment during a known pregnancy. It only applies if you choose to initial it; nothing in Arizona law imposes it automatically.
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If you never sign a living will, Arizona law presumes in a court dispute that you want to be fed and hydrated to sustain your life, and a surrogate who is not your named agent or guardian cannot authorize permanently withdrawing that care.
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Registering your living will with Arizona's health care directives registry is optional. It is not required for your document to be valid.
Key decisions before you file
Before you file a Living Will in Arizona, a few decisions shape the document: which option to choose and what each one means. The Living Will guide walks through them.
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Arizona Requirements for Living Will
Arizona Revised Statutes Section 36-3261 gives an adult the right to prepare a written living will controlling their own health care treatment decisions, usable alone, attached to a health care power of attorney, or to disqualify a surrogate. The optional statutory form at Section 36-3262 provides specific language for trigger conditions like a terminal condition or persistent vegetative state.
Only an adult may prepare a living will under Section 36-3261. The requirement that you sign while of sound mind and free from duress is part of the witness-verification procedure defined in Section 36-3221, which applies to living wills through Section 36-3261(B).
If you do not use a notary, Arizona requires only one adult witness, not two, who affirms you signed while appearing of sound mind and free from duress. That witness cannot be your named agent, or a person directly involved in providing you health care at the time of signing. If that single witness is the only witness used, they also cannot be related to you by blood, marriage, or adoption, or entitled to any part of your estate. This verification procedure applies to a stand-alone living will by cross-reference from Section 36-3261(B).
Acknowledging your living will before a notary public is an equally valid alternative to using a witness. Section 36-3221, applied to living wills through Section 36-3261(B)'s cross-reference, treats the notary route and the one-witness route as equally valid, independent options.
Arizona's optional Section 36-3262 form structures your choice as up to four separately initialed paragraphs, not one blanket choice. Paragraph 2, covering a terminal condition, irreversible coma, or persistent vegetative state, breaks life-sustaining treatment into three separately initialed sub-choices: cardiopulmonary resuscitation, artificially administered food and fluids, and hospital transfer. You may refuse one without refusing the others. Paragraph 1 is a separate, blanket refusal of all life-sustaining treatment beyond comfort care for a terminal condition, with no separate line for nutrition and hydration.
Arizona's optional living will form lets you initial a specific pregnancy paragraph directing that life-sustaining treatment continue during a known pregnancy if your embryo or fetus could still develop to the point of live birth. This is a choice you initial, not a rule Arizona automatically imposes on every directive.
You may revoke your living will, or disqualify a surrogate, at any time by a written revocation or disqualification statement, by orally notifying your surrogate or a health care provider, by making a new health care directive, or by any other act that shows a specific intent to revoke. Revocation is governed by Section 36-3202.
A health care provider must comply with decisions consistent with your living will, or transfer your care to a provider who will, continuing to provide any life-sustaining treatment, food, or fluids that are in place at the time of the transfer request until the transfer is complete.
A health care provider who makes a good faith decision relying on your apparently genuine living will is immune from civil and criminal liability and professional discipline.
A living will or other health care directive signed before September 30, 1992, or signed in another state, is valid in Arizona if it was valid where and when it was adopted, and only to the extent it does not conflict with Arizona's criminal laws.
Chapter 32 of Title 36 does not approve or authorize suicide, assisted suicide, or mercy killing. Signing or following a living will under this chapter does not constitute either.
No one can require you to sign, or refuse to let you sign, a living will as a condition of getting health care or insurance. If your death follows withholding or withdrawing care under a surrogate's decision not expressly barred by your directive, that death does not count as homicide or suicide and cannot impair or invalidate a life insurance policy or annuity.
Federal law requires Medicare- and Medicaid-participating hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities to inform patients in writing of their right under Arizona law to make a health care directive, including a living will stating their own treatment wishes.
Federal HIPAA regulations let you authorize your health care agent or surrogate to access your protected health information. This authorization supports whoever is deciding for you when you cannot communicate; it does not change the treatment wishes you state directly in your living will.
Arizona's Uniform Anatomical Gift Act provisions let you authorize organ and tissue donation, and Arizona's own optional Section 36-3224 health care power of attorney form includes a dedicated organ-donation section alongside its living will attachment question.
If you have no living will, or it does not address a situation, Arizona law lists who may act as your surrogate decision-maker, in order: your spouse, an adult child, a parent, your domestic partner if you are unmarried, a sibling, then a close friend who is familiar with your health care wishes.
Arizona's own sample health care power of attorney form asks whether you have also completed and attached a living will, and directs your agent to implement the choices you initialed in it. Keeping the two documents consistent, or attaching them together, avoids conflicts between what you state directly and what you authorize your agent to decide.
Under the terminal condition, irreversible coma, or persistent vegetative state paragraph of Arizona's optional living will form, artificially administered food and fluids has its own initialed line, separate from cardiopulmonary resuscitation and separate from hospital transfer. You can refuse one without refusing the others.
If you have no valid living will, health care power of attorney, or other directive, Arizona law presumes in a court dispute that you want food and fluid provided to sustain your life, including through a medically invasive procedure. A surrogate decision-maker who is not your named agent or a court-appointed guardian cannot authorize permanently withdrawing artificially administered food or fluid at all, regardless of what the surrogate believes you would want.
Does your Living Will need to be notarized in Arizona?
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Check my Living WillFrequently Asked Questions
In Arizona, a living will is its own legal document, defined directly in Arizona Revised Statutes Section 36-3201(10), separate from a health care power of attorney. It lets you write down, in your own words or using the optional Section 36-3262 form, whether you want life-sustaining treatment continued or withheld if you become terminally ill, fall into an irreversible coma, or enter a persistent vegetative state. You can sign it alone, or attach it to a health care power of attorney.
These are two separate Arizona documents. The living will, Sections 36-3261 to 36-3262, states directly what treatment you want or refuse, naming no agent. The health care power of attorney, Sections 36-3221 to 36-3224, names an agent to decide for you on anything your living will does not cover. You can sign either alone, or attach the living will to your power of attorney as one packet. If you sign a stand-alone living will, you verify it using the same procedure as a power of attorney. For the agent-designation document specifically, see Arizona Healthcare Power of Attorney.
They control completely different things. A living will states your medical treatment wishes while you are alive but unable to communicate. A last will and testament says who inherits your property after you die, and only takes effect at death. Having one does not replace the other. Most people signing an Arizona living will for end-of-life planning also want a separate Arizona Last Will and Testament for their estate.
Just one, if you skip the notary. Arizona Revised Statutes Section 36-3221, applied to living wills by Section 36-3261(B)'s cross-reference, requires either notarization or signing before at least one adult witness who confirms you appeared of sound mind and free from duress. That single witness cannot be related to you by blood, marriage, or adoption, and cannot be entitled to any part of your estate.
No. Arizona's optional Section 36-3262 form gives artificial nutrition and hydration its own initialed line, separate from cardiopulmonary resuscitation, under the paragraph covering a terminal condition, irreversible coma, or persistent vegetative state. You can refuse CPR and keep artificial nutrition and hydration, or the reverse. If you initial the blanket paragraph 1 refusal instead, it covers all life-sustaining treatment together, without a separate line for nutrition and hydration.
It depends on what you initial. Arizona's optional form lets you initial a specific pregnancy provision directing that life-sustaining treatment continue during a known pregnancy if your embryo or fetus could still develop to live birth. If you do not initial that provision, nothing else in Arizona's living will law automatically changes your directive because of pregnancy.
Arizona law presumes, in a court dispute over withdrawing artificial nutrition and hydration from someone in an irreversible coma or persistent vegetative state, that a person with no valid living will, power of attorney, or other directive wants to be fed and hydrated to sustain life. On top of that, a surrogate decision-maker who is not your named agent or a court-appointed guardian cannot authorize permanently withdrawing that care at all.
No. Arizona's Department of Health Services designates an organization to run a voluntary health care directives registry, but Arizona Revised Statutes Section 36-3294 says entering your document there does not affect its validity. Your living will works once it is properly signed, registered or not.
Yes, with limits. Arizona Revised Statutes Section 36-3208 recognizes a health care directive executed in another state if it was valid where and when it was signed, and only to the extent it does not conflict with Arizona's criminal laws.