# Irrigation well permits in Colorado — 47,689

> 47,689 Colorado wells are permitted for irrigation. What that allows, where they are, and how deep they go.

## Irrigation

**47,689** of Colorado’s 600,017 well permits are decreed for this — 7.9%.

### What this use allows

Irrigation means watering land, at the volume the permit allows.

*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 | **94 ft** | 368 ft | 148 ft — shallower here (28,791 permits, 60 %) |
| Yield | **700 gpm** | 1500 gpm | 10 gpm — higher here (8,010 permits, 17 %) |
| Static water level | **26 ft** | 172 ft | 58 ft — lower here (23,527 permits, 49 %) |

### Where they are

| County | Permits | Share |
|---|---|---|
| [Weld](/county/weld/irrigation.md) | 6,468 | 13.6% |
| [Yuma](/county/yuma/irrigation.md) | 4,622 | 9.7% |
| [Alamosa](/county/alamosa/irrigation.md) | 3,228 | 6.8% |
| [Baca](/county/baca/irrigation.md) | 2,904 | 6.1% |
| [Morgan](/county/morgan/irrigation.md) | 2,625 | 5.5% |
| [Kit Carson](/county/kit-carson/irrigation.md) | 2,480 | 5.2% |
| [Saguache](/county/saguache/irrigation.md) | 2,476 | 5.2% |
| [Rio Grande](/county/rio-grande/irrigation.md) | 2,407 | 5.0% |
| [Adams](/county/adams/irrigation.md) | 1,926 | 4.0% |
| [Prowers](/county/prowers/irrigation.md) | 1,430 | 3.0% |
| [Pueblo](/county/pueblo/irrigation.md) | 1,399 | 2.9% |
| [Phillips](/county/phillips/irrigation.md) | 1,345 | 2.8% |
| [Logan](/county/logan/irrigation.md) | 1,288 | 2.7% |
| [El Paso](/county/el-paso/irrigation.md) | 1,164 | 2.4% |
| [Washington](/county/washington/irrigation.md) | 1,098 | 2.3% |
| [Larimer](/county/larimer.md) | 914 | 1.9% |
| [Arapahoe](/county/arapahoe.md) | 829 | 1.7% |
| [Otero](/county/otero.md) | 796 | 1.7% |
| [Sedgwick](/county/sedgwick.md) | 765 | 1.6% |
| [Costilla](/county/costilla.md) | 603 | 1.3% |
| [Conejos](/county/conejos.md) | 562 | 1.2% |
| [Douglas](/county/douglas.md) | 535 | 1.1% |
| [Jefferson](/county/jefferson.md) | 505 | 1.1% |
| [Cheyenne](/county/cheyenne.md) | 481 | 1.0% |
| [Elbert](/county/elbert.md) | 467 | 1.0% |
| [Bent](/county/bent.md) | 445 | 0.9% |
| [Lincoln](/county/lincoln.md) | 328 | 0.7% |
| [Denver](/county/denver.md) | 316 | 0.7% |
| [Boulder](/county/boulder.md) | 308 | 0.6% |
| [Kiowa](/county/kiowa.md) | 261 | 0.5% |

### What happened to these permits

**19,442** of the 47,689 permits decreed for irrigation ended with a
well the Division was told about — 40.8%. And
**4,473** expired without one: 9.4%.

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 | 19,442 | 40.8% |
| Application Denied | 6,230 | 13.1% |
| Final Permit | 5,538 | 11.6% |
| Permit Expired | 4,473 | 9.4% |
| Permit Canceled | 3,033 | 6.4% |
| Well Abandoned | 2,384 | 5.0% |
| Permit Issued | 1,789 | 3.8% |
| Well Replaced - Abandonment Required | 1,266 | 2.7% |
| Application Information Requested | 1,246 | 2.6% |
| Application Received | 553 | 1.2% |

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

47,689 well permits are on the Division’s register in Colorado, 4,473 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
- [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/irrigation/
Fonte: Well Application Permit — Colorado Division of Water Resources
Recolha: 2026-08-21