We consider an active run-and-tumble particle (RTP) in d dimensions and compute exactly the probability S(t) that the x-component of the position of the RTP does not change sign up to time t. When the tumblings occur at a constant rate, we show that S(t) is independent of d for any finite time t (and not just for large t), as a consequence of the celebrated Sparre Andersen theorem for discrete-time random walks in one dimension. Moreover, we show that this universal result holds for a much wider class of RTP models in which the speed v of the particle after each tumbling is random, drawn from an arbitrary probability distribution. We further demonstrate, as a consequence, the universality of the record statistics in the RTP problem.The first time t f at which a stochastic process reaches a fixed target level is a fundamental observable with many applications. Statistics of t f plays a crucial role in various situations, including e.g., the encounter of two molecules in a chemical reaction [1], the capture of a prey in a hunting scenario [2], or the escape of a comet from the solar system [3, 4]. In the context of finance, agents often use limit orders to buy/sell a stock only when its price is below/above a target value. Thus, it is important to estimate if and when that target value will be reached and this question has been intensively studied during decades (for recent reviews see [2,[5][6][7][8][9]). Due to the ubiquity of these problems, novel applications are constantly being identified, raising in turn new challenging questions.In recent years, tremendous efforts have been devoted to the study of statistical fluctuations in active matter systems [10][11][12][13]. In contrast to a passive matter such as a Brownian motion (BM), whose dynamics is driven by thermal fluctuations of the environment, this class of active non-equilibrium systems is characterized by selfpropelled motility based on continuous consumption of energy from the environment. For example, models of active matter have been used to describe vibrating granular matter [14], active gels [15,16], bacteria [17,18] or collective motion of "animals" [15,[19][20][21]. In this context, one of the most studied model is the run-andtumble particle (RTP) [22,23], also known as "persistent random walk" [24,25]. In the simplest version of the model, an RTP performs a ballistic motion along a certain direction at a constant speed v 0 ≥ 0 ("run") during a certain "time of flight" τ . Following this run, it "tumbles", i.e., chooses a new direction uniformly at random and then performs a new run along this direction again with speed v 0 during a random time τ and so on (see Fig. 1). Typically these tumblings occur with constant rate γ, i.e. the τ 's of different runs are independently distributed via exponential distribution p(τ ) = γe −γτ , though other distributions will also be considered later. Despite its simplicity, this RTP model exhibits complex interesting features such as clustering at boundaries [11], 0 0 1 1 O l l l 3 1 4 5 l l 6 2 l l n FIG. 1: Ty...