# Geothermal well permits in Colorado — 3,815

> 3,815 Colorado wells are permitted for geothermal. What that allows, where they are, and how deep they go.

## Geothermal

**3,815** of Colorado’s 600,017 well permits are decreed for this — 0.6%.

### What this use allows

Geothermal means a use the Division records under this heading.

*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 | **300 ft** | 400 ft | 148 ft — deeper here (2,448 permits, 64 %) |
| Yield | **70 gpm** | 343 gpm | 10 gpm — higher here (12 permits, 0 %) |
| Static water level | **56 ft** | 6617 ft | 58 ft — lower here (37 permits, 1 %) |

### Where they are

| County | Permits | Share |
|---|---|---|
| [Boulder](/county/boulder.md) | 453 | 11.9% |
| [Montrose](/county/montrose.md) | 244 | 6.4% |
| [Weld](/county/weld.md) | 237 | 6.2% |
| [Larimer](/county/larimer.md) | 217 | 5.7% |
| [Mesa](/county/mesa.md) | 208 | 5.5% |
| [Delta](/county/delta.md) | 195 | 5.1% |
| [Jefferson](/county/jefferson.md) | 166 | 4.4% |
| [Adams](/county/adams.md) | 165 | 4.3% |
| [El Paso](/county/el-paso.md) | 160 | 4.2% |
| [Arapahoe](/county/arapahoe.md) | 142 | 3.7% |
| [Denver](/county/denver.md) | 124 | 3.3% |
| [Douglas](/county/douglas.md) | 113 | 3.0% |
| [Pitkin](/county/pitkin.md) | 57 | 1.5% |
| [Elbert](/county/elbert.md) | 54 | 1.4% |
| [Washington](/county/washington.md) | 52 | 1.4% |
| [Pueblo](/county/pueblo.md) | 48 | 1.3% |
| [Yuma](/county/yuma.md) | 39 | 1.0% |
| [Garfield](/county/garfield.md) | 30 | 0.8% |
| [La Plata](/county/la-plata.md) | 27 | 0.7% |
| [Gunnison](/county/gunnison.md) | 26 | 0.7% |
| [Eagle](/county/eagle.md) | 26 | 0.7% |
| [Routt](/county/routt.md) | 22 | 0.6% |
| [Morgan](/county/morgan.md) | 22 | 0.6% |
| [Grand](/county/grand.md) | 20 | 0.5% |
| [Kit Carson](/county/kit-carson.md) | 18 | 0.5% |
| [Logan](/county/logan.md) | 18 | 0.5% |
| [Alamosa](/county/alamosa.md) | 16 | 0.4% |
| [Ouray](/county/ouray.md) | 14 | 0.4% |
| [San Miguel](/county/san-miguel.md) | 14 | 0.4% |
| [Chaffee](/county/chaffee.md) | 11 | 0.3% |

### What happened to these permits

**355** of the 3,815 permits decreed for geothermal ended with a
well the Division was told about — 9.3%. And
**7** expired without one: 0.2%.

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 |
|---|---|---|
| NA | 3,301 | 86.5% |
| Well Constructed | 355 | 9.3% |
| Permit Issued | 108 | 2.8% |
| Application Information Requested | 14 | 0.4% |
| Application Received | 11 | 0.3% |
| Permit Expired | 7 | 0.2% |
| Application Withdrawn | 7 | 0.2% |
| Permit Canceled | 4 | 0.1% |
| Application Denied | 2 | 0.1% |
| Permit Extended | 2 | 0.1% |

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

3,815 well permits are on the Division’s register in Colorado, 7 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

- [Domestic](/use/domestic.md) 243,096
- [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

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