Alaska Theft by Degree: $250, $750 and $25,000 Lines

In Alaska, theft is graded by what was taken and what it was worth. Under AS 11.46.120 to 11.46.150, property worth less than $250 is fourth-degree theft (a class B misdemeanor), $250 to under $750 is third degree (a class A misdemeanor), $750 to under $25,000 is second degree (a class C felony), and $25,000 or more is first degree (a class B felony).

Those dollar lines decide most cases, but not all. Some property is a felony to steal at any value, prior convictions can push a small theft up a level, and separate takings can be added together into one larger charge.

This article is general information, not legal advice, and creates no attorney-client relationship. The figures below come from the current Alaska Statutes, AS 11.46 (property offenses) and AS 12.55 (sentencing). For related reading see our guides to criminal defense rights and the Alaska court process, Alaska criminal charges and defenses and protecting your rights after an arrest in Anchorage, and our theft defense practice.

Table of Contents

• ➤ The Four Degrees at a Glance
• ➤ Theft in the First Degree: $25,000 or More
• ➤ Theft in the Second Degree: Value Is Not the Only Trigger
• ➤ Third and Fourth Degree: The Misdemeanor Tiers
• ➤ Shoplifting: Concealment of Merchandise (AS 11.46.220)
• ➤ How Value Is Measured
• ➤ Aggregation: When Small Thefts Add Up
• ➤ Sentencing Ranges and Fines
• ➤ Restitution
• ➤ The Separate Civil Shoplifting Claim
• ➤ How the Thresholds Got Here
• ➤ The Record and CourtView
• ➤ Frequently Asked Questions
• ➤ Talk to a BFQ Law Alaska Attorney

The Four Degrees at a Glance

Alaska folds most kinds of stealing into one offense. AS 11.46.100 defines theft to include taking property with intent to deprive the owner, keeping lost property, theft by deception, receiving stolen property, theft of services, and failing to make a required disposition of funds. Under AS 11.46.110, each is charged as theft in the first, second, third or fourth degree. The jail and fine figures below are statutory maximums, not typical sentences.

Degree	What triggers it	Class	Maximum jail	Maximum fine
First (AS 11.46.120)	$25,000 or more	Class B felony	10 years	$100,000
Second (AS 11.46.130)	$750 to under $25,000; or a firearm, explosive, access device or ID document; property taken from a person; vessel or aircraft survival gear; or $250 to under $750 with two priors in five years	Class C felony	5 years	$50,000
Third (AS 11.46.140)	$250 to under $750; under $250 with three priors in five years; or mail (at least third degree)	Class A misdemeanor	1 year	$25,000
Fourth (AS 11.46.150)	Under $250	Class B misdemeanor	90 days	$2,000

Theft in the First Degree: $25,000 or More

Under AS 11.46.120, first-degree theft applies when the value of the property or services is $25,000 or more, and it is a class B felony. Value is the only trigger at this level. Cases at this level often involve financial records or a series of smaller takings added together, so the valuation and aggregation rules below can matter a great deal.

Theft in the Second Degree: Value Is Not the Only Trigger

Second-degree theft under AS 11.46.130 is a class C felony, and the dollar amount is only one of several ways to reach it. A theft is second degree if:

• The value is $750 or more but less than $25,000.
• The property is a firearm or explosive, whatever its value.
• The property is taken from the person of another, such as a wallet lifted from a pocket.
• The property is vessel safety or survival equipment taken from a vessel, or aircraft safety or survival equipment taken from an aircraft. The statute lists items such as personal flotation devices, immersion suits, life rafts, emergency position indicating radio beacons and fire extinguishers.
• The property is an access device or an identification document, whatever its value.
• The value is $250 or more but less than $750 and, within the preceding five years, the person has been convicted and sentenced on two or more separate occasions of first- or second-degree theft, value-based third-degree theft, felony concealment of merchandise, or value-based ($250 to under $750) class A concealment of merchandise (or similar offenses elsewhere).

The survival-equipment provisions are distinctly Alaskan: taking a survival suit off a fishing boat is a felony even if the suit costs a few hundred dollars. The identification-document category was added by HB 49 in 2019; the Alaska Department of Law’s review of that bill describes an identification document as an item used to establish identity, such as a driver’s license, passport or employee identification.

Third and Fourth Degree: The Misdemeanor Tiers

Under AS 11.46.140, theft in the third degree is a class A misdemeanor and covers three situations:

• The value is $250 or more but less than $750.
• The value is less than $250 and, within the preceding five years, the person has been convicted and sentenced on three or more separate occasions of theft or concealment of merchandise (or similar offenses elsewhere).
• The property is mail. This category was added by HB 239, effective July 1, 2026, for offenses committed on or after that date. The statute defines mail as a letter, card, parcel or other material sent or delivered by the U.S. Postal Service or a private mail delivery company that carries postage or has been accepted for delivery, and that has been placed in a mailbox or other mail receptacle or given to a carrier. Mail that meets a second-degree trigger can be charged higher.

Everything else under $250 is theft in the fourth degree under AS 11.46.150, a class B misdemeanor.

The prior-conviction rules work as a ladder: three or more recent convictions can make a theft under $250 a class A misdemeanor, and two or more can make a theft between $250 and $750 a felony. The five-year look-back and the requirement of separate occasions, each ending in a conviction and sentence, are elements the State must prove, so the details of each prior case deserve close checking.

Shoplifting: Concealment of Merchandise (AS 11.46.220)

Shoplifting can be charged as theft, but Alaska also has a separate crime for it. Under AS 11.46.220, a person commits concealment of merchandise by knowingly concealing a store’s unpurchased merchandise on or about their person, while still on the premises, with intent to deprive the owner of it or to appropriate it. Leaving the store is not required, and unpurchased merchandise found concealed on a person is prima facie evidence of a knowing concealment.

Concealment of merchandise	Class
Merchandise is a firearm (any value)	Class C felony
Value $750 or more	Class C felony
Value $250 to under $750, with two or more qualifying convictions in the preceding five years	Class C felony
Value $250 to under $750	Class A misdemeanor
Value under $250, with three or more theft or concealment convictions in the preceding five years	Class A misdemeanor
Value under $250	Class B misdemeanor

The value tiers mirror the theft statute, and, as with theft, a firearm makes it a felony at any price. The other special categories that make a theft second degree, such as explosives, access devices and identification documents, do not appear in the concealment statute.

How Value Is Measured

AS 11.46.980(a) sets the default rule: value is the market value of the property at the time and place of the crime. Only if market value cannot reasonably be determined does the statute fall back on the cost of replacing the property within a reasonable time after the crime.

Market value is not the original purchase price or the owner’s estimate. A used laptop or a secondhand tool is worth what it would sell for in its condition, where and when it was taken. When a charge sits just above $750 or $25,000, evidence of actual resale value bears directly on which degree applies, because value is an element the State must prove.

Written instruments have their own rules under AS 11.46.980(b). A check, draft or promissory note is valued at the amount due or collected on it, and other instruments affecting a valuable legal right at the greatest economic loss the owner might reasonably suffer from losing them.

Aggregation: When Small Thefts Add Up

Two rules let the State combine amounts:

• One course of conduct. Under AS 11.46.980(c), amounts involved in criminal acts committed under one course of conduct, whether from the same person or several people, shall be aggregated in determining the degree.
• The 180-day rule. Under AS 11.46.980(e), added by HB 49 in 2019, if the combined value of property or services taken from one or more persons or commercial establishments within 180 days is $750 or more but less than $25,000, the value may be aggregated. Several separate shoplifting incidents can therefore be charged as one class C felony even if each was a misdemeanor on its own.

The wording matters. Course-of-conduct aggregation is mandatory and has no ceiling. The 180-day rule is permissive and, by its terms, reaches only the second-degree band. Whether separate incidents really were one course of conduct is a factual question that can be contested.

Sentencing Ranges and Fines

Alaska sentences felonies within presumptive ranges set by AS 12.55.125, which depend on the number of prior felony convictions. A judge can go above or below a range only as allowed by the aggravating and mitigating factor provisions of AS 12.55.155 to 12.55.175.

Felony class	First felony	Second felony	Third felony	Statutory maximum
Class B (first-degree theft)	1 to 3 years	3 to 7 years	6 to 10 years	10 years
Class C (second-degree theft, felony concealment)	0 to 2 years	2 to 4 years	3 to 5 years	5 years

For a first class C felony the presumptive range starts at zero, and the court may grant a suspended imposition of sentence under AS 12.55.085. For a first class B felony that option also exists, but only if the person serves an active term within the one-to-three-year range as a condition of probation, unless the court finds a statutory mitigating factor applies.

Misdemeanors are governed by AS 12.55.135: up to one year for a class A misdemeanor and up to 90 days for a class B misdemeanor. According to the Department of Law’s 2019 review, HB 49 repealed the special jail limits that earlier legislation had placed on theft under $250 and restored the ordinary 0 to 90 day range.

Maximum fines for an individual are set by AS 12.55.035(b): $100,000 for a class B felony, $50,000 for a class C felony, $25,000 for a class A misdemeanor and $2,000 for a class B misdemeanor.

Restitution

Under AS 12.55.045, when presented with credible evidence, the court shall order a convicted defendant to pay restitution unless the victim expressly declines it. Key features of the statute:

• The court may not consider the defendant’s ability to pay in setting the amount, though it may allow payment over time or in installments.
• The order is a civil judgment that the victim, or the State on the victim’s behalf, can enforce like any other judgment.
• It survives a set-aside. If a conviction is set aside after a suspended imposition of sentence, the restitution judgment remains enforceable.
• It does not limit any civil liability arising from the same conduct.
• The defendant must submit financial information on a court form; in a felony case, to the probation office within 30 days after conviction.

The Separate Civil Shoplifting Claim

Apart from the criminal case, Alaska has a civil statute, AS 09.68.110, that gives a merchant a separate civil claim against a person who shoplifts. It is a civil matter, separate from both the criminal charge and court-ordered restitution.

A merchant’s demand letter is not a criminal summons, and paying or ignoring it does not by itself decide the criminal case. Have a lawyer review it before doing either.

How the Thresholds Got Here

Online sources give conflicting dollar figures because the thresholds have been rewritten several times. SB 91 in 2016 enacted an automatic inflation adjustment, under which the Alaska Judicial Council would raise property-crime thresholds every five years based on the Anchorage consumer price index. HB 49, effective July 1, 2019, repealed that statute, AS 11.46.982, before the first adjustment (scheduled for July 1, 2020) took place. The Department of Law notes that any change to the thresholds now requires legislative action, so $250, $750 and $25,000 are fixed numbers in the statute.

The most recent change is narrower: HB 239 in 2026 made theft of mail at least a third-degree theft for offenses on or after July 1, 2026, without changing the dollar thresholds. Mail that is worth $750 or more, or that contains something like a credit card or ID, can still be charged as second degree. Check the date of any source.

The Record and CourtView

Alaska trial court cases are searchable online through the Alaska Court System’s CourtView public access. The court system cautions that a CourtView search is not a criminal history records check, that some case records never appear there, and that some are removed after a time period as provided by statute, court rule or court order. A theft conviction is a record of an offense involving dishonesty, so whether a case ends in a conviction at all, and at what degree, matters beyond the sentence.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is shoplifting a felony in Alaska? It can be. Concealing merchandise worth $750 or more is a class C felony, and so is concealing a firearm at any value. Merchandise worth $250 to under $750 is a felony with two or more qualifying convictions, each on a separate occasion, in the preceding five years. Otherwise it is a misdemeanor.

Can several small thefts become a felony? Yes. Thefts that are part of one course of conduct must be added together, and under AS 11.46.980(e) separate takings within 180 days may be combined if the total is $750 or more but less than $25,000.

Does the court consider whether I can afford restitution? No. AS 12.55.045(g) bars the court from considering ability to pay when it sets the amount, although it may allow installments.

Talk to a BFQ Law Alaska Attorney

Most Alaska theft cases turn on a few questions: what the property was really worth when and where it was taken, whether separate incidents can lawfully be added together, whether a special category such as a firearm or identification document applies, and whether the State’s prior convictions actually meet the statute. Each can change the degree, and with it the possible sentence.

Read about our theft defense practice and our attorneys and legal team, or see our guides to the Alaska criminal court process and Alaska stalking laws. Reach us through our contact page. Nothing here promises an outcome, and every case depends on its own facts.