# Domestic well permits in Colorado — 243,096

> 243,096 Colorado wells are permitted for domestic. What that allows, where they are, and how deep they go.

## Domestic

**243,096** of Colorado’s 600,017 well permits are decreed for this — 40.5%.

### What this use allows

Domestic means household water, and usually a little more — the commonest decreed use in Colorado by a wide margin.

*Medians, on the permits where the Division was told — never a mean, which a few industrial wells would carry away*

| Measurement | Median | 90th percentile | Colorado median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Depth | **200 ft** | 560 ft | 148 ft — deeper here (171,364 permits, 70 %) |
| Yield | **11 gpm** | 15 gpm | 10 gpm — higher here (75,862 permits, 31 %) |
| Static water level | **72 ft** | 260 ft | 58 ft — higher here (147,709 permits, 61 %) |

### Where they are

| County | Permits | Share |
|---|---|---|
| [El Paso](/county/el-paso/domestic.md) | 28,862 | 11.9% |
| [Jefferson](/county/jefferson/domestic.md) | 15,063 | 6.2% |
| [Weld](/county/weld/domestic.md) | 14,428 | 5.9% |
| [Douglas](/county/douglas/domestic.md) | 13,804 | 5.7% |
| [Elbert](/county/elbert/domestic.md) | 10,857 | 4.5% |
| [La Plata](/county/la-plata/domestic.md) | 10,644 | 4.4% |
| [Adams](/county/adams/domestic.md) | 9,364 | 3.9% |
| [Boulder](/county/boulder/domestic.md) | 8,225 | 3.4% |
| [Larimer](/county/larimer/domestic.md) | 7,975 | 3.3% |
| [Arapahoe](/county/arapahoe/domestic.md) | 6,656 | 2.7% |
| [Park](/county/park/domestic.md) | 6,433 | 2.6% |
| [Pueblo](/county/pueblo/domestic.md) | 5,760 | 2.4% |
| [Chaffee](/county/chaffee/domestic.md) | 5,602 | 2.3% |
| [Garfield](/county/garfield/domestic.md) | 5,381 | 2.2% |
| [Fremont](/county/fremont/domestic.md) | 5,023 | 2.1% |
| [Routt](/county/routt/domestic.md) | 4,390 | 1.8% |
| [Rio Grande](/county/rio-grande/domestic.md) | 4,314 | 1.8% |
| [Logan](/county/logan/domestic.md) | 4,286 | 1.8% |
| [Gunnison](/county/gunnison/domestic.md) | 4,179 | 1.7% |
| [Alamosa](/county/alamosa/domestic.md) | 3,719 | 1.5% |
| [Morgan](/county/morgan/domestic.md) | 3,592 | 1.5% |
| [Yuma](/county/yuma/domestic.md) | 3,411 | 1.4% |
| [Conejos](/county/conejos/domestic.md) | 3,242 | 1.3% |
| [Grand](/county/grand/domestic.md) | 3,209 | 1.3% |
| [Saguache](/county/saguache/domestic.md) | 3,063 | 1.3% |
| [Custer](/county/custer/domestic.md) | 3,055 | 1.3% |
| [Teller](/county/teller/domestic.md) | 2,730 | 1.1% |
| [Huerfano](/county/huerfano/domestic.md) | 2,606 | 1.1% |
| [Summit](/county/summit/domestic.md) | 2,336 | 1.0% |
| [Pitkin](/county/pitkin/domestic.md) | 2,295 | 0.9% |

### What happened to these permits

**155,402** of the 243,096 permits decreed for domestic ended with a
well the Division was told about — 63.9%. And
**33,353** expired without one: 13.7%.

An expired permit is the trap in a rural sale. A seller can
produce a permit that lapsed years ago, and a permit is not a water right
— the two are separate, and a purchase turns on both.
[What an expired permit does and does not mean](/expired.md).

| Status | Permits | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Well Constructed | 155,402 | 63.9% |
| Permit Expired | 33,353 | 13.7% |
| Permit Canceled | 10,935 | 4.5% |
| Well Replaced - Abandonment Required | 10,620 | 4.4% |
| Permit Issued | 9,763 | 4.0% |
| Well Abandoned | 9,485 | 3.9% |
| Application Information Requested | 4,291 | 1.8% |
| Application Denied | 1,731 | 0.7% |
| Application Received | 1,269 | 0.5% |
|   | 1,225 | 0.5% |

### Buying land in Colorado, or need a well drilled?

243,096 well permits are on the Division’s register in Colorado, 33,353 of them expired. This site tells you what a permit says; it does not drill, and it is not advice on a water right. Tell us where and we pass the request to drillers and water-rights advisers working in Colorado.

We take no commission and we recommend no driller. We have no arrangement with any firm today — we are collecting these requests in order to go and find them. [What we do with this](/privacy.md).

### The other decreed uses

- [Household Use Only](/use/household-use-only.md) 105,372
- [Monitoring/sampling](/use/monitoring-sampling.md) 91,022
- [Irrigation](/use/irrigation.md) 47,689
- [Stock](/use/stock.md) 31,328
- [Commercial](/use/commercial.md) 22,356
- [Other](/use/other.md) 18,823
- [Not stated](/use/not-stated.md) 15,448
- [Municipal](/use/municipal.md) 9,424
- [Industrial](/use/industrial.md) 8,665
- [Geothermal](/use/geothermal.md) 3,815

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Página: https://wells-co.pages.dev/use/domestic/
Fonte: Well Application Permit — Colorado Division of Water Resources
Recolha: 2026-08-21