Yavapai County tax sales, Arizona

Verified

Yavapai County publishes the most complete investor FAQ in this Arizona set, and its sale is built for proxy bidding: register at yavapai.arizonataxsale.com, place the deposit by the first Monday in February, and bid an interest rate in 1 percent increments down from 16 percent, with batches of about 500 certificates closing hourly on the second Tuesday of February. Certificates are paperless, registered electronically, and payment is by ACH auto debit the day after the auction. Unsold liens return in a county held certificate sale that runs online from March through mid December.

Selling office: Yavapai County Treasurer Chip Davis

Next sale: No dated 2027 sale published as of November 9, 2026; the county pattern is the second Tuesday of February, which in 2027 is Tuesday, February 9, 2027. The pattern date is derived from the Treasurer's FAQ, which states the sale is held annually on the second Tuesday of February, with bidding opening about mid January. It is a pattern date, not a published 2027 date. On the same pattern, deposits are due the first Monday in February, which in 2027 is Monday, February 1, 2027.

Batches run about 500 certificates each, per the Treasurer's FAQ, so the Yavapai list is one of the larger rural lists in the state. Treasurer: Chip Davis, 1015 Fair St., Prescott, AZ 86305, (928) 771-3233.

Dates and deadlines

Next sale	No dated 2027 sale published as of November 9, 2026; the county pattern is the second Tuesday of February, which in 2027 is Tuesday, February 9, 2027
The sale	Held annually online on the second Tuesday of February, per the Treasurer's FAQ. Bidding commences about mid January and continues until the sale date; batches open at 8:00 a.m. MST and close hourly, the first at 9:00 a.m. and the final batch at 4:00 p.m. In 2027 the second Tuesday is February 9; no dated 2027 sale was published as of November 9, 2026.
The list	The sale is advertised in the Daily Courier in Prescott and on the county website in January, under ARS 42-18106 and 42-18109.
Registration and deposit	Register at yavapai.arizonataxsale.com; a bidder number is assigned, and new and existing bidders must register online. The deposit is $25 or 10 percent of the certificate face, whichever is greater, due the first Monday in February. A training site is at demo.arizonataxsale.com.
Bidding and the certificate	Bid by proxy on the interest rate: rates start at 16 percent and are bid down in 1 percent increments, and valid bids run 0 to 16 percent. Tie bids are selected at random by the auction software. Certificates are paperless electronic registered certificates. The FAQ states a $10 non-refundable processing fee per parcel, per tax year, and no participation fee.
Redemption	The owner or another person with a legal or equitable claim may redeem at any time before delivery of a treasurer's deed, paying the sale amount with interest at the certificate rate, plus subsequent taxes the holder paid at the same rate, plus statutory fees, under ARS 42-18151 to 42-18153. Foreclosure may begin three years after the sale under ARS 42-18201.
County held sale	Unsold liens are offered in the County Held Tax Certificate Sale from March through mid December, online at the same auction site; the bidder must be registered.
Format	Online only: RealAuction, at yavapai.arizonataxsale.com
Selling office	Yavapai County Treasurer Chip Davis

Sources: Yavapai County Treasurer, FAQ: Investing in Tax Lien Certificates. Yavapai County tax lien sale, RealAuction. ARS 42-18112, Time of sale. Confirm with the selling office before relying on any date on this page: sales move, terms change, and parcels are pulled up to sale day.

Research Yavapai County parcels before you bid

A sale list gives you the parcels, the date, and the opening terms. It does not give you the owner, the value, or the rest of the picture: liens, foreclosure status, and parcel history. PropertyRadar is the data platform for that layer. It carries owner records, assessed and market values, foreclosure and tax data, and property history for parcels across Yavapai County, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.

Open a PropertyRadar account See plans and pricing

Pine and Brass is a PropertyRadar partner. If you open an account through these links, we may earn a commission; it does not change the price you pay.

How Arizona tax lien sales work

Unpaid taxes become a lien, and the lien is what sells. Property taxes in Arizona are a lien on the property, and when they stay unpaid the county treasurer prepares the delinquent list (by December 31 under ARS 42-18106), advertises it, and sells the tax lien at the annual sale under Title 42, Chapter 18. What the buyer receives is a certificate of purchase: a lien position against the property, not the property, not a deed, and no right to enter or use it.
The sale runs every February, mostly online. The treasurer of each county holds the annual sale in February. Most Arizona counties now sell through an online vendor the treasurer names on its tax lien sale page; registration and a funded account come before bidding, and each county sets its own registration deadline and deposit rule on top of the statute.
Bidding is the interest rate, and it goes down. Buyers bid the annual interest rate the lien will earn, starting at the 16 percent per annum maximum in ARS 42-18053 and bidding down under ARS 42-18114; the lowest rate wins. The winner pays the treasurer the full amount of delinquent taxes, interest, penalties and fees for the parcel on the day of sale. Competition, not the county, sets the rate a lien actually carries.
Redemption is the normal exit, and it runs through the treasurer. The owner, or another party in interest, may redeem at any time before a court enters judgment foreclosing the lien, by paying the treasurer the certificate amount plus interest at the bid rate, plus any subsequent taxes the holder paid and the statutory fees. The treasurer then pays the holder. Most certificates are redeemed; the interest, not the property, is the usual return.
The deed is a court case that cannot start for 3 years. If the lien is still unredeemed 3 years after the sale, the certificate holder may bring a foreclosure action in superior court under ARS 42-18201. Only a final judgment in that action bars the owner's right to redeem and directs the treasurer to issue a treasurer's deed. Liens nobody buys at the sale are struck off to the state, and the state held liens can later be bought by assignment from the treasurer.

How bidding works in Yavapai County

Register online at yavapai.arizonataxsale.com before bidding; a bidder number is assigned at registration. RealAuction offers a training site at demo.arizonataxsale.com.

The rate is the price. A lien bid at 16 percent and redeemed in year two is a different asset from the same lien bid at 4 percent and redeemed in month three. Arizona returns are set in the bid room, before any property question is reached, so model the rate and the likely redemption window first.
The certificate is not the property. No possession, no rents, no right to enter, and no deed for at least 3 years, and then only through a court foreclosure. Buyers who need the property itself should be reading the deed state pages, not this one.

Terms: what a bid actually costs

Deposit, Yavapai County	$25 or 10 percent of the certificate face, whichever is greater, due the first Monday in February, one week before the auction, per the Treasurer's FAQ. The FAQ's examples: a $10,000 goal requires a $1,000 deposit, and a $180 certificate requires the $25 minimum. Unused deposit money is returned by ACH within two weeks of the close of the auction.
Payment, Yavapai County	Payment is by ACH from a checking or savings account through the Payment Wizard on the auction site. The account used to make the deposit is auto debited for any balance due on winning certificates the day following the auction; if funds are not available by the auto debit deadline, the bidder forfeits the certificates and the deposit, and the county revokes future bidding privileges.
What is sold	A certificate of purchase: a lien on the property for the delinquent taxes, penalties, interest and fees. Not the property, not a deed, and no right of possession. A deed exists only at the end of a foreclosure action, years later, if the owner never redeems.
The bid	An annual interest rate, bid down from the statutory maximum of 16 percent. The lowest rate wins the lien. The buyer pays the full certificate amount at the sale and earns the bid rate on the amount while the lien is outstanding.
Redemption	At any time before a foreclosure judgment, through the county treasurer, by paying the certificate amount plus interest at the bid rate, subsequent taxes the holder paid, and statutory fees. The state frame is Title 42, Chapter 18; the county page carries the treasurer's own redemption instructions.
Foreclosure	Available to the certificate holder once the lien has been outstanding 3 years from the sale date, by action in superior court under ARS 42-18201, and not later than 10 years after the last day of the month in which the lien was acquired. Judgment bars redemption and directs the treasurer to issue a treasurer's deed. Before that judgment, the holder owns a claim, not a property.
Lien life	A certificate does not last forever. Under ARS 42-18127, if the lien is not redeemed and no foreclosure action is commenced within 10 years after the last day of the month in which the certificate was acquired, the certificate expires and the lien is void. The treasurer must notify the holder before the deadline, but the deadline runs whether the holder acts or not.
Costs on top of the certificate amount	The sale day payment covers the delinquent taxes, accrued interest, penalties and fees in the certificate amount. A holder who later pays subsequent delinquent taxes on the parcel adds them to the lien position under ARS 42-18121, at the certificate rate; a foreclosure, if it comes, carries court and notice costs the redemption math must also cover.

Unsold liens: the county held sale

Liens that do not sell in February return in the County Held Tax Certificate Sale, open March through mid December online at yavapai.arizonataxsale.com to registered bidders. Liens assigned to the state under ARS 42-18113 are also sold by assignment under ARS 42-18122.

Before you bid

Know the redemption window before the rate. Interest accrues at the bid rate from the sale, and the owner can cut it off at any time by redeeming. A lien priced for a 3 year hold that redeems in 90 days pays a quarter of the model; run the short case first.
Read the treasurer's current terms, not a recap. Vendors, registration deadlines and deposit rules change between sales, and county pages are rewritten each season. Re-read them on the treasurer's page before funding a deposit.
Subsequent taxes are part of the position. A holder can pay later delinquent taxes on the parcel and add them to the lien. Budget for carrying the position, not just buying it.
Set the maximum before the sale opens. The free Max-Bid Calculator below works backwards from your exit value to the highest certificate amount you can carry, with the costs shown.

Every Arizona county in this set

One page per county, each verified against its own treasurer source. Arizona has 15 counties; this set is all 15.

VERIFY BEFORE YOU GO

Keep going

Run your maximum bid

The free Max-Bid Calculator works backwards from your resale price to the highest hammer bid you can pay, with the fees shown line by line.

Open the Max-Bid Calculator

Get the Arizona alerts

The Pine membership is built on alerts: members pick their counties, get an email when a sale is scheduled or a list posts, and receive the full property list with the analysis done. Arizona counties are being added from the interest list first, in the order readers ask for them.

Join the Arizona interest list below

Once a deadline puts you in a sale, the Land Investor Due Diligence Toolkit is the checklist and bid worksheet to run on each parcel before you bid. The same desk runs Florida tax deed sales, Texas tax sales, Pennsylvania tax sales, Georgia tax sales, North Carolina tax foreclosure sales, Ohio tax foreclosure sales, Illinois tax lien sales, Michigan tax foreclosure sales, Arizona tax lien sales and California tax defaulted property sales, and the proven New York season, with the live membership, sits in the NY tax sale hub.

Pine Parcel Alerts · The paid tier

Yavapai County · ARIZONA

The sale dates are free. The parcels are the product.

Members set their counties and their parameters, parcel size and back taxes among them, and every matching parcel arrives by email with a one-page deal analysis: what the parcel is, when it sells, and what to bid. The dates and the basic alerts on this page stay free; Pine Parcel Alerts is $4.99 a month or $49 a year for the parcels themselves, screened and analyzed.

See Pine Parcel Alerts

Arizona sale lists and county data, first.

One email when an Arizona county opens for alerts, plus new county pages as they post. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

More state guides

New York tax sales · Florida tax deed sales · Texas tax sales · Pennsylvania tax sales · Georgia tax sales · North Carolina tax foreclosure sales · Ohio tax foreclosure sales · Illinois tax lien sales · Michigan tax foreclosure sales · California tax defaulted property sales