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What Counts as Night Driving in Arizona?
Yes, you can drive at night on an Arizona learner’s permit. No curfew applies, and any hour works as long as a qualifying supervisor is in the car.
Arizona requires 10 night hours out of a 30-hour total. That ratio matters: a full third of every required drive needs to happen after sunset. With only 30 hours to log, you can’t afford to treat night hours as an afterthought.
What counts as night in Arizona
Night is sunset to sunrise. That’s the legal definition. No fixed clock time.
Phoenix sunset ranges from about 5:25 PM in December to around 7:40 PM in late June. That’s a 2-hour-plus swing across the year. A 7:00 PM drive in January is solidly after dark. That same drive in July is still daylight.
Arizona doesn’t observe daylight saving time, except for the Navajo Nation, which does. For most Arizonans, the clock stays the same year-round, which actually makes sunset times more predictable relative to clock time than in most states. No spring-forward or fall-back to throw off your planning. Tucson and Phoenix are close enough in latitude that their sunset times are nearly identical.
Permit curfews in Arizona
None. Arizona doesn’t restrict when permit holders can drive. You can log night hours at any hour, as long as your supervisor is present and qualifies.
Your supervisor must be 21 or older and licensed. Arizona also requires driver’s ed before you can get a permit at 15½. If you skip driver’s ed, you have to wait until 16.
Getting your night hours done
10 out of 30 required hours is 33%. That’s the highest ratio of night-to-total of any state that requires both. Two out of every three drives can be daytime, but one out of three has to be after sunset.
Most families do day drives first and night drives last. That works fine in theory. The problem is that if you’re six weeks from the road test and have logged 27 of your 30 hours, all in daylight, you’ve got a problem. You need 10 night hours and you’ve done maybe 3.
The cleaner approach: treat every other weekday evening as a night drive. Even 20 minutes after dinner counts. At that pace you’ll reach 10 night hours well before you hit 30 total.
December and January are the most efficient months. Phoenix sunset around 5:25–5:30 PM means a 5:45 PM drive is already night. Done before 7. No late nights required.
Arizona permit requirements
| Requirement | Details |
|---|---|
| Total supervised hours | 30 |
| Night hours required | 10 |
| Day hours | 20 |
| Night definition | Sunset to sunrise |
| Minimum permit age | 15½ |
| Permit hold period | 6 months |
| Supervisor minimum age | 21 |
| Driver’s ed required | Yes (before permit at 15½) |
| Daylight saving time | Not observed (except Navajo Nation) |
Practical tips for Arizona
10 of 30 is a lot. Arizona’s 33% night requirement is steeper than most people realize when they look at the raw numbers. 30 hours sounds easy. But then you realize 10 of them have to happen at night, and suddenly the planning gets more specific.
No DST makes scheduling predictable. Most states have a wild card in spring and fall when the clock shifts and suddenly sunset is an hour earlier or later than expected. Arizona doesn’t have that. Once you know when sunset falls in Phoenix or Tucson in a given month, that time is accurate all month. Easier to plan around.
The Navajo Nation exception. If you’re in the northeastern corner of the state (around Window Rock, Ganado, Chinle), the Navajo Nation does observe daylight saving time. Sunset times there will differ from the rest of Arizona by one hour during DST season (roughly March to November). Keep that in mind if you’re logging hours in that region.
Driver’s ed is non-negotiable at 15½. Arizona won’t issue a permit at 15½ without it. You can wait until 16 and skip the class, but that’s six months of driving time you won’t get back. If the goal is a license at 16, enroll in driver’s ed at 15 and don’t let enrollment lag.
Arizona’s 10 night hours are the same as most states, but the 30-hour total means they carry more weight per drive. Tracking which hours count as night requires accurate sunset data. It shifts daily and isn’t the same across the state. Moda pulls your GPS location at the start of each drive and tags the hours correctly without any manual lookup.
For full Arizona permit requirements, see our Arizona permit hours guide.
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