The Arizona ESA program, formally the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, gives any K-12 student eligible to attend an Arizona public school access to a state-funded account that pays for private school tuition, curriculum, tutoring, and other approved educational expenses. A general education student receives roughly $7,000 to $8,000 a year; students with qualifying disabilities receive substantially more. In exchange, the family withdraws the child from public district and charter schools and follows the state’s rules on how the money is spent. Enrollment passed 90,000 students by late 2025.
Who Can Get an ESA
Any Arizona resident eligible to enroll in a public school from kindergarten through twelfth grade can apply, regardless of family income or the type of school the child currently attends. That includes children already in private school, homeschoolers, and students transferring out of public district or charter schools. Preschool-age children with disabilities who would qualify for a district preschool program are also covered.
Kindergarten applicants must be at least five years old by January 1 of the current school year, must not have already completed kindergarten, and must not already be enrolled in first grade.
The statute keeps priority categories that carry additional benefits or let applicants skip requirements such as the 45-day prior public school attendance rule. Those categories include students with disabilities identified under Section 504 or Arizona special education law, children assigned to D- or F-rated schools, children of active-duty or fallen military members, current or former wards of the juvenile court, siblings of ESA recipients, children living on an Indian reservation, and children of parents who are legally blind or deaf.
How to Apply
Applications go through the Arizona Department of Education’s online portal. A parent or guardian creates an ADEConnect account, then uploads a color image of the student’s birth certificate and proof of Arizona residency in the parent’s name. A utility bill, driver’s license, or mortgage document works for residency.
ADE typically processes a completed application within 30 days. Approved families receive a contract to sign, which formally opens the account. Funding begins in the quarter the contract is signed, so applying early in a quarter puts money in the account sooner.
How Much the Account Pays and How Funds Flow
The ESA deposit equals 90 percent of the state funding a charter school would have received for that student, calculated using Arizona’s base support level and additional assistance formulas. Grade level and disability classification both affect the amount.
A general education student without a disability receives about $7,000 to $8,000 a year. Students with disabilities receive significantly more because Arizona’s special education weights multiply the base amount. Those weights run from roughly 0.3 for milder disabilities to nearly 8.0 for the most severe conditions, such as multiple disabilities with sensory impairment, which can push annual funding above $40,000.
Deposits arrive quarterly in a secure online account. Parents pay approved vendors and schools directly, buy items through an integrated marketplace, or submit receipts for reimbursement. Unspent money rolls over automatically into the next year.
What You Can Spend the Money On
Arizona law lists specific approved expense categories, and parents must use a portion of the annual funding to provide instruction in five core subjects: reading, grammar, math, social studies, and science.
Approved expenses for all ESA students:
- Private school tuition and fees, at schools that fingerprint staff with unsupervised student contact
- Textbooks required by the private school or a postsecondary institution
- Tutoring from an accredited individual or facility, provided the tutor has not been disciplined by the State Board of Education
- Curriculum, workbooks, and educational software
- Tuition or fees for nonpublic online learning programs
- Testing fees for nationally standardized achievement tests, AP exams, and the SAT or ACT
- College tuition and fees for high school students taking postsecondary courses
- Individual classes or extracurricular programs at a public school
- School uniforms purchased from or through the private school
- Account management fees from the ESA platform provider
- Insurance or surety bond payments tied to the account
Students with qualifying disabilities have access to additional categories, including educational therapies from licensed practitioners, paraprofessional or educational aide services, vocational and life skills programs, and assistive technology. These are only available to students identified under Section 504 or Arizona special education law.
What the Money Cannot Cover
The statute prohibits ESA spending on entertainment, home theater and audio equipment, primarily noneducational devices, televisions, telephones, and video game consoles. ADE maintains an evolving list of specific banned items that grows as it flags real purchase attempts.
Items already on that list include amusement park tickets, bounce houses, clothing unrelated to school uniforms, day care fees, food and dining, furniture and home furnishings, gift cards, large appliances, lawn equipment, live animals (with narrow exceptions for life-cycle educational projects), medical devices and medications, motorized vehicles, solar panels, swimming pools, trampolines over 10 feet in diameter, weapons, Amazon Prime fees, pizza ovens, and dog training. ADE makes the final call on whether a purchase qualifies as educational, and disallowed expenses must be repaid into the account.
What You Give Up by Accepting an ESA
The contract is a trade, not a supplement. The parent must withdraw the student from any public district or charter school and release that school from all obligations to educate the child. You cannot keep a child enrolled in public school while collecting ESA funds. You also cannot accept a tax credit scholarship from a school tuition organization in the same year you hold an ESA for that student.
ESA funds are not subject to Arizona state income tax under A.R.S. ยง 15-2402.
Disability Trade-Offs
Families of children with disabilities face the sharpest version of the trade. Accepting an ESA and withdrawing from public school means the child loses most protections under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. That includes the right to a free appropriate public education through an IEP, the right to file IDEA complaints with ADE, access to mediation and due process hearings, instruction from a qualified special education teacher, and a manifestation determination review before a long-term suspension or expulsion.
Some limited rights remain. The student can still receive a reevaluation every three years through the local district. Students attending nonprofit private schools or being homeschooled remain eligible for proportionate share services, the pool of special education funding public districts set aside for parentally-placed private school students under IDEA. Students at for-profit private schools are not eligible for proportionate share services.
The higher ESA amounts for students with disabilities are meant to offset some of what families lose by leaving the public system. Whether the money covers comparable private services depends on the child’s needs and what specialized providers charge locally. For families whose children receive intensive services through their district, the math deserves close scrutiny before signing.
Renewal, Audits, and Losing the Account
ADE provides renewal contracts on or before May 1 each year, and parents must submit the signed renewal by June 30. Renewal eligibility depends on having used ESA funds to provide instruction in the five required core subjects during the prior year.
ADE audits every account annually and also runs random quarterly reviews. An account in good standing can only be selected for random audit once in any five-year period. When ADE finds a compliance problem, it suspends the account and notifies the parent in writing. The parent has 15 business days to respond and correct the issue. Missing that window can result in permanent removal from the program. Substantial misuse cases can be referred by the State Board of Education to the Attorney General.
Missing a renewal is treated more gently than a compliance failure. If a parent simply fails to submit the renewal contract, the account is temporarily closed and can be reactivated by submitting a renewal at any point during the next three academic years. After three years without renewal, ADE sends formal notice by certified mail, email, and phone that the account will be permanently closed. The parent then has 60 days from that notice to submit a renewal. If that deadline passes, the account is closed and any remaining balance returns to the state general fund.