Colorado People Search

Colorado's state business, prison, license, sex offender and vital records are free to search, while trial court records cost a small fee per search through CoCourts.com. City municipal court records are rarely online.

• Colorado Secretary of State business databaseCorporations, LLCs, nonprofits and trade names with agents and addresses
• CDOC offender searchState inmates and parolees by name or DOC number, with facility
• DORA, check a business or professional licenseLicense lookups for about 50 professions, with discipline history
• CBI Sex Offender RegistryColorado Bureau of Investigation registered sex offender search
• Colorado Judicial Branch court records searchHow to search district and county court cases; per-search fees
• CDPHE Vital RecordsCertified birth, death, marriage and civil union certificates

Colorado's public records environment is shaped by two statutes: the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA, C.R.S. § 24-72-200.1) for general government records and the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act (CCJRA, § 24-72-301) for law enforcement and criminal justice data. CORA presumes openness with defined exemptions; CCJRA gives custodians more discretion over sensitive investigative material. For researchers, this means administrative records (property, licensing, business filings) are broadly accessible while certain arrest and investigative records may be redacted or withheld.

The state has 64 counties and 22 judicial districts. Denver County Court is statutorily separate from the rest of the state judicial branch, and both Denver and Broomfield are consolidated city-counties.

• Colorado Judicial BranchCourts, rules, forms and appellate opinions

Colorado's state courts are the district courts (felonies, larger civil cases, domestic relations, probate) and the county courts (smaller civil cases, misdemeanors, traffic, small claims) in every county except Denver. Denver County Court is separate because Denver is a consolidated city and county, and it runs its own criminal and traffic case search.

• Denver County CourtDenver misdemeanor, traffic and small civil cases
• Colorado Supreme Court and Court of AppealsOpinions, oral argument calendars and rules

Common Mistake: A clean CoCourts search does not cover Denver County Court unless you add it, the city municipal courts, or the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, which is searched through PACER.

Property research in Colorado is handled at the county level by three separate offices in most counties: the Clerk and Recorder (records deeds, liens, marriages), the Assessor (valuations and ownership rolls), and the Treasurer (tax billing and collection). In Denver and Broomfield, these functions all sit within the consolidated city-county government.

• City and County of Denver Assessor's OfficeDenver ownership verification and address history
• DOLA Division of Property Taxation, county assessorsLinks to all 64 county assessor websites
• Colorado Energy and Carbon Management CommissionOil and gas operators, permits and wells

Besides the Secretary of State and DORA, two more registries matter. The Marijuana Enforcement Division in the Department of Revenue publishes its licensed cannabis businesses, and the Division of Insurance verifies insurance producer and adjuster licenses separately from DORA.

• Marijuana Enforcement Division licensee lookupLicensed cultivation, manufacturing, retail and testing businesses

Colorado's correctional data is split cleanly between state prisons (CDOC), parole (also under CDOC), county jails (run by each sheriff), and the federal Bureau of Prisons for federal inmates. Pre-trial detention for most serious cases happens at county jail until a plea or verdict.

Vital Records in Colorado are issued by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). Birth certificates are restricted for 100 years and death certificates for 25 years, after which they move into the public-access realm and can often be obtained through state archives or third-party genealogy platforms. Marriage and divorce records are maintained at the county level, marriage licenses at the Clerk and Recorder, divorce decrees at the District Court of the county where the case was filed.

The Colorado Secretary of State makes voter registration lists available to political parties, candidates, and committees for election related purposes. Researchers and members of the general public can verify their own registration through the "Go Vote Colorado" portal. Bulk voter data is not sold for commercial or general-commercial use, and CORA exemptions apply to protected voter categories (judges, victims of domestic violence under the Address Confidentiality Program, and others).

• Go Vote ColoradoCheck your own registration and polling place

The Colorado State Archives in Denver holds historical court dockets, territorial records, naturalization files, state prison registers and older vital records, with indexes to some older divorce records. For obituaries, the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection has digitized papers from across the state and is most useful for people who lived before 1950.

• Colorado State ArchivesHistorical state records, prison ledgers, court indexes and naturalizations
• Colorado Historic Newspapers CollectionFree full text search of digitized Colorado newspapers

Most Coloradans live along the Front Range: Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins and Pueblo. The Western Slope resort counties (Eagle, Summit, Pitkin, San Miguel), the southern farm counties and the energy counties of Weld and Garfield each keep their own records. The table below covers the counties that come up most.

For subjects whose last known address was in a smaller county, consult the CDOLA county assessor directory and the county judicial district map published by the Colorado Judicial Branch. Rural counties often share judicial districts and may share a single District Court bench rotating across courthouses.

Start statewide: the Secretary of State business search, DORA licensing and the CDOC offender search show business, professional and custody records. Then run a CoCourts name search, for a small fee, for district and county court cases, and finish with the Clerk and Recorder, Assessor and Treasurer of the right county for addresses and ownership.

For a Denver subject, also search Denver County Court. For someone in cannabis, real estate, health care, insurance or energy, check that industry's registry as well as DORA. In the resort counties (Eagle, Summit, Pitkin, San Miguel), property records often show the trusts and LLCs that hold vacation homes.

Researcher Tip: Colorado LLC filings are cheap and fast to make, so there are many short lived LLCs. One dormant LLC means little on its own; look for several filings that share a registered agent or a principal address.

Colorado was among the first states to pass a general consumer data privacy law. The Colorado Privacy Act, in force since July 1, 2023, gives residents the right to access, correct, delete and get a copy of their personal data, and to opt out of targeted advertising, sale and some profiling. The Colorado Attorney General enforces it.

Colorado also operates an Address Confidentiality Program (ACP) through the Secretary of State for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and certain other crimes. Participants receive a substitute address that can be used on public-facing records. Researchers should expect that records involving ACP participants will show the substitute address rather than their real residence.

Privacy Note: Colorado residents can reduce exposure by keeping home addresses off business filings through a registered agent, using a P.O. Box or CMRA for general correspondence, and exercising CPA rights with major data brokers and controllers. Those with safety concerns should review ACP eligibility through the Colorado Secretary of State.