Affidavit of Financial Information Arizona

What the AFI Is and Why It Matters

The Affidavit of Financial Information (AFI) is a sworn financial statement required in every Arizona divorce case that involves spousal maintenance, child support, or a request for attorney's fees. It's the only core disclosure document that must be filed with the Clerk of the Court — and because it's filed under oath, inaccurate information carries the risk of perjury.

The AFI captures a detailed snapshot of your financial life: income from all sources, monthly living expenses, assets, liabilities, and employment history. Judges rely on it to set child support, evaluate spousal maintenance eligibility, and verify that proposed property divisions are equitable.

The Sections You'll Complete

The AFI (Form 2 under ARFLP Rule 97) runs approximately 12 pages and covers several distinct financial areas:

Income. Every source of income must be listed: wages, salaries, bonuses, commissions, self-employment income, rental income, dividends, Social Security benefits, disability payments, and any other recurring income. The form asks for both gross and net monthly amounts.

Employment history. Current employer, position, length of employment, and work schedule. If you're unemployed or underemployed, the court may impute income based on your education, skills, and work history.

Monthly expenses. This is the section that causes the most difficulty. You need to list actual monthly expenses — housing, utilities, food, transportation, insurance, medical, childcare, clothing, personal care, entertainment, and debt payments. The court wants real numbers, not rounded estimates. If your rent is $1,350, write $1,350.

Assets. Real estate, vehicles, bank accounts, retirement accounts, investments, business interests, personal property of significant value. Each item needs an estimated fair market value.

Liabilities. Every debt: mortgage balances, car loans, student loans, credit cards, medical debt, personal loans, and tax obligations.

How to Calculate Monthly Expenses

The biggest mistake people make is guessing at their monthly expenses. Judges notice when someone claims $800 per month in food costs for a household of two, or when monthly expenses conveniently total more than monthly income to support a maintenance claim.

The better approach: pull six months of bank statements and 11 months of credit card and debt statements and categorize every transaction. Average each category over the period to get a genuine monthly figure. This is time-consuming but produces defensible numbers.

For irregular expenses — car insurance paid quarterly, property taxes paid annually — divide by the appropriate number of months to get a monthly equivalent.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Listing future expenses instead of current ones. The AFI asks what you spend now, not what you plan to spend after the divorce. If you're living in the family home with your spouse paying the mortgage, your current housing expense reflects that arrangement. Post-divorce projected expenses may be relevant in spousal maintenance arguments, but they don't belong in the current expenses section.

Leaving sections blank instead of writing zero. A blank line looks like an oversight. If you have no income from a specific source, write $0. If you have no debt of a specific type, write $0. Blank spaces invite questions about incomplete disclosure.

Rounding to conspicuously even numbers. A monthly expense sheet where every line item ends in $00 signals estimation rather than documentation. Use actual figures from your bank statements.

Forgetting to include the children's expenses. If you're the primary caretaker, the AFI needs to reflect what you actually spend on the children — school costs, activities, medical copays, clothing. These figures directly influence child support calculations.

Filing and Service

The AFI must be served on the other party as part of your initial Rule 49 disclosures and simultaneously filed with the Clerk of the Court. Unlike other disclosure documents (which are exchanged between parties and not filed), the AFI becomes part of the public court record.

Because it's a sworn document, sign it in front of a notary or under penalty of perjury as allowed by Arizona law. Providing materially false information can result in sanctions or adverse rulings.

Preparing a Solid AFI

The Arizona Divorce Financial Split Guide includes an AFI preparation worksheet that helps you reconstruct actual monthly expenses from bank statements, organize your asset and debt inventory, and cross-reference your numbers against the court form's categories before you fill out the official document.

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