Are tribal loans legal in Arizona?

Only within limits that most tribal lenders do not observe. Arizona applies a rate cap or licensing regime that these lenders generally do not hold, so a loan made to you anyway may be challengeable. Non-tribal payday loans are effectively barred by the 36% cap, but tribal lenders continue lending online to Arizonans under sovereignty claims at APRs up to ~700%. A non-tribal loan over the cap is challengeable.

36% APR small-loan cap; storefront payday lending ended in July 2010 when its enabling law sunset. Tribal lenders claim exemption. The controlling law is the Arizona consumer-lender 36% cap (A.R.S. § 6-632); the payday statute expired in 2010 after voters rejected Proposition 200 (2008). Tribal lenders argue this cap does not bind them because they answer to tribal law — that argument is exactly what state enforcement and private litigation have been testing.

Arizona’s own enforcement against tribal lenders is comparatively weak; no major recent state action verified. Sovereign immunity protects a lender from being sued; it does not give it extra power to collect from you, and it does not override Arizona law on whether the debt is enforceable in the first place. Threats of arrest are always false.

Possibly not — and this is the question worth answering before you pay anything more. Where a loan exceeds Arizona's limits it may be void or uncollectable regardless of what you signed. Get the answer before you keep paying, and check whether your lender is one of the closed brands whose balances were cancelled in a settlement.

File a complaint with the Arizona Attorney General and the Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions. A non-tribal loan above 36% may be void or unenforceable. You can also file with the federal CFPB, which accepts complaints about tribal lenders regardless of your state.