In Colorado, the age of majority is 18. Colorado Revised Statutes 13-22-101 declares that every otherwise competent person is “deemed to be of full age” at 18 for purposes of entering contracts, being sued, and making decisions about their own body and the bodies of their children.1Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 13-22-101 – Competence of Persons Eighteen Years of Age or Older That is the legal line between childhood and adulthood in the state. It is not, however, the age for everything people associate with being an adult: alcohol and tobacco stay at 21, child support in Colorado runs until 19, and a parent’s health plan can cover you until 26. The single number is 18, but the picture around it has more moving parts than most families expect.
What Changes the Day You Turn 18
Once C.R.S. 13-22-101 applies to you, parental consent stops being part of legal, financial, or medical decisions. The statute also specifies that contracts an 18-year-old signs are not treated as family expenses of the parents, which draws a clean line between the young adult’s obligations and the household’s.
- You can vote. The 26th Amendment sets the voting age at 18 for local, state, and federal elections.
- You can be summoned for jury duty. Colorado requires jurors to be at least 18, a U.S. citizen, an English speaker, and a Colorado resident for at least six months of the year, with no professional or student exemptions. Ignoring a summons can lead to a contempt finding.
- You can sign contracts in your own name — leases, loans, credit accounts, property purchases — without a co-signer, and you are fully bound by them.
- You are no longer covered by federal child labor rules under the Fair Labor Standards Act, so jobs involving hazardous equipment and certain mining or manufacturing work open up.
- You are prosecuted as an adult. Charges brought at 18 or older move through adult court, with adult sentencing and a permanent adult record rather than the juvenile process.
What 18 Does Not Unlock
The gap between what feels like full adulthood and what the law actually allows catches a lot of new 18-year-olds off guard.
The minimum age to buy alcohol is 21 under both federal and Colorado law. Tobacco and nicotine products, including e-cigarettes, are also 21, matching the federal Tobacco 21 rule. These are not areas where turning 18 changes anything.
Child support is the other place the numbers diverge, and it runs the other direction. Under Colorado Revised Statutes 14-10-115, a support obligation does not end at 18. It continues until the child turns 19, which the statute labels the “age of emancipation” for support purposes. Support can extend past 19 if the child is still in high school or has a physical or mental disability that prevents self-sufficiency. Using 18 for the age of majority but 19 for support termination is a frequent source of confusion in Colorado custody and divorce cases.
When Adult Rights Come Early
Emancipation
A minor who is at least 16 and a half can petition a Colorado court for emancipation. The court grants it only if emancipation serves the minor’s best interests and the minor can show the ability to be financially self-supporting and to manage their own affairs. Once emancipated, the minor has essentially the same legal standing as an adult, including the right to sign contracts and make independent medical decisions. Filing fees vary, and families should budget for several hundred dollars in court costs plus potential attorney fees.
Marriage Before 18
A marriage license in Colorado normally requires both parties to be 18. A 16- or 17-year-old can ask a court to approve marriage, but the court must find the marriage is in the minor’s best interests, and the age difference between the parties cannot exceed three years. A married minor is treated as a legal adult for matters tied to the marriage, including property ownership and contracts.
Medical Consent for Minors
Two carve-outs let minors get certain medical care without parental involvement. A minor 12 or older can consent to outpatient psychotherapy, provided the mental health professional determines the minor is voluntarily seeking care and that treatment is clinically necessary. A licensed physician can also examine and treat a minor of any age for a substance use disorder without notifying the parents.
How Parents’ Legal Position Shifts
Reaching 18 changes what parents can be held responsible for and what they can find out.
Under Colorado Revised Statutes 13-21-107, parents can be held financially responsible for property damage or personal injury caused by their minor child’s willful or malicious conduct, up to a statutory cap of $3,500. That exposure ends the moment the child turns 18. From then on, the young adult is solely responsible for any harm they cause.
Colorado law also does not require parents to pay for college. Financial support past the age of majority is voluntary unless a court order says otherwise. Parents who take out federal Parent PLUS loans should know those loans stay with the parent borrower and cannot be transferred to the student, regardless of the student’s age.
Two federal privacy laws kick in at 18 and quietly cut parents out of information they used to receive automatically. Under FERPA, control over a student’s educational records passes to the student at 18 or upon enrollment in a postsecondary institution at any age. After that, a college cannot share grades, disciplinary records, or enrollment status with a parent without the student’s written consent. HIPAA does the same on the medical side: once the patient reaches the age of majority, the parent loses access to their child’s medical records absent a signed authorization. Setting up a HIPAA release before or shortly after the 18th birthday keeps parents in the loop for ongoing conditions or emergencies.
Federal Rules That Ignore the Age of 18
Several federal programs use their own age thresholds, and they do not line up with Colorado’s.
Tax dependency. Parents can claim an 18-year-old as a qualifying child dependent on a federal return as long as the child is under 19 at year end, or under 24 if a full-time student. The child must live with the parent for more than half the year and not provide more than half of their own support. Turning 18 by itself does not end the dependency claim.
FAFSA. Turning 18 does not make a student independent for federal financial aid. The FAFSA treats almost every undergraduate as a dependent of their parents until age 24, regardless of whether the student lives at home, files their own taxes, or is fully self-supporting. The narrow exceptions for younger students are marriage, active military service, having dependents of your own, being an orphan or ward of the court, or having been legally emancipated. Families who assume an 18-year-old will qualify for aid on their own income are often surprised.
Health insurance. Under the Affordable Care Act, a young adult can stay on a parent’s health plan until turning 26. That coverage applies whether the child lives at home, is married, is financially independent, or has access to employer coverage of their own. It is one of the few areas where the law extends a benefit well past the age of majority.
Selective Service. Nearly all male U.S. citizens and male immigrants between 18 and 25 must register with the Selective Service System. Dual nationals must register within 30 days of the 18th birthday, no matter where they live. Failing to register is a federal crime carrying up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, although prosecution is rare. The practical penalties bite harder: a man who fails to register can be permanently disqualified from federal student aid, federal job training programs, and federal government employment, and non-citizens can be denied U.S. citizenship.
Documents a New Adult Should Actually Have
At 18 you gain the legal capacity to create your own estate planning documents, and one of them earns its keep immediately. A durable power of attorney names someone — usually a parent — to handle financial decisions if you become incapacitated, and an advance health care directive does the same for medical decisions. Without those, your parents may not be able to access your bank accounts or authorize treatment in an emergency, even though they raised you and paid the bills the week before. A will directing where your property should go rounds out the set, though most 18-year-olds have little to distribute. The power of attorney and the health care directive are the pieces worth putting in place around the birthday itself.