# Household Use Only well permits in Colorado — 105,372

> 105,372 Colorado wells are permitted for household use only. What that allows, where they are, and how deep they go.

## Household Use Only

**105,372** of Colorado’s 600,017 well permits are decreed for this — 17.6%.

### What this use allows

Household Use Only means the narrowest domestic permit there is: water inside the house, and nothing else. No lawn, no livestock, no garden. It is the use most often misunderstood by a buyer who assumes a well means water for the land.

*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 | **250 ft** | 560 ft | 148 ft — deeper here (72,178 permits, 68 %) |
| Yield | **7 gpm** | 15 gpm | 10 gpm — lower here (42,266 permits, 40 %) |
| Static water level | **60 ft** | 195 ft | 58 ft — higher here (68,614 permits, 65 %) |

### Where they are

| County | Permits | Share |
|---|---|---|
| [Park](/county/park/household-use-only.md) | 14,356 | 13.6% |
| [Jefferson](/county/jefferson/household-use-only.md) | 13,857 | 13.2% |
| [Teller](/county/teller/household-use-only.md) | 7,077 | 6.7% |
| [Grand](/county/grand/household-use-only.md) | 6,408 | 6.1% |
| [Larimer](/county/larimer/household-use-only.md) | 6,200 | 5.9% |
| [Boulder](/county/boulder/household-use-only.md) | 5,582 | 5.3% |
| [Summit](/county/summit/household-use-only.md) | 4,534 | 4.3% |
| [Fremont](/county/fremont/household-use-only.md) | 3,535 | 3.4% |
| [Clear Creek](/county/clear-creek/household-use-only.md) | 3,399 | 3.2% |
| [El Paso](/county/el-paso/household-use-only.md) | 3,204 | 3.0% |
| [Chaffee](/county/chaffee/household-use-only.md) | 3,098 | 2.9% |
| [Custer](/county/custer/household-use-only.md) | 3,056 | 2.9% |
| [Gilpin](/county/gilpin/household-use-only.md) | 2,799 | 2.7% |
| [La Plata](/county/la-plata/household-use-only.md) | 2,545 | 2.4% |
| [Gunnison](/county/gunnison/household-use-only.md) | 2,538 | 2.4% |
| [Douglas](/county/douglas/household-use-only.md) | 1,632 | 1.5% |
| [Weld](/county/weld/household-use-only.md) | 1,617 | 1.5% |
| [Lake](/county/lake/household-use-only.md) | 1,456 | 1.4% |
| [Garfield](/county/garfield/household-use-only.md) | 1,443 | 1.4% |
| [Costilla](/county/costilla/household-use-only.md) | 1,399 | 1.3% |
| [Rio Grande](/county/rio-grande/household-use-only.md) | 1,399 | 1.3% |
| [Alamosa](/county/alamosa/household-use-only.md) | 1,102 | 1.0% |
| [Pitkin](/county/pitkin/household-use-only.md) | 1,064 | 1.0% |
| [Pueblo](/county/pueblo.md) | 983 | 0.9% |
| [Saguache](/county/saguache.md) | 939 | 0.9% |
| [Conejos](/county/conejos.md) | 920 | 0.9% |
| [Archuleta](/county/archuleta.md) | 776 | 0.7% |
| [Delta](/county/delta.md) | 756 | 0.7% |
| [Mineral](/county/mineral.md) | 739 | 0.7% |
| [Routt](/county/routt.md) | 707 | 0.7% |

### What happened to these permits

**64,724** of the 105,372 permits decreed for household use only ended with a
well the Division was told about — 61.4%. And
**21,622** expired without one: 20.5%.

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 | 64,724 | 61.4% |
| Permit Expired | 21,622 | 20.5% |
| Permit Issued | 4,630 | 4.4% |
| Permit Canceled | 3,490 | 3.3% |
| Well Replaced - Abandonment Required | 2,683 | 2.5% |
| Application Information Requested | 2,569 | 2.4% |
| Well Abandoned | 1,639 | 1.6% |
| Application Denied | 1,178 | 1.1% |
| Application Withdrawn | 609 | 0.6% |
| Application Received | 607 | 0.6% |

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

105,372 well permits are on the Division’s register in Colorado, 21,622 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
- [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/household-use-only/
Fonte: Well Application Permit — Colorado Division of Water Resources
Recolha: 2026-08-21