The Colorado Revised Statutes, usually cited as C.R.S., are the official compilation of every general and permanent law passed by the Colorado General Assembly. They fill 44 titles covering subjects from criminal offenses to traffic rules to commercial transactions, and the Office of Legislative Legal Services updates the full set each year after the legislative session ends.1Colorado General Assembly. Colorado Revised Statutes Courts and state agencies treat the CRS as the governing authority in civil and criminal proceedings across the state.
How the Statutes Are Organized
The CRS moves from broad subjects down to specific rules through four levels: Title, Article, Part, and Section. Each of the 44 Titles covers a major area of law. Title 18 holds the Colorado Criminal Code. Title 42 covers Vehicles and Traffic.2Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 42 – Vehicles and Traffic Title 4 contains the Uniform Commercial Code.
Inside a Title, Articles group related provisions, Parts break those down further, and Sections contain the actual language of the law. In Title 18, Article 3 is titled “Offenses Against the Person,” with Part 1 covering homicide, Part 2 covering assaults, Part 3 covering kidnapping, and additional parts covering sexual offenses, human trafficking, and stalking.3Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 18, Article 3 – Offenses Against the Person The Sections within each Part spell out the prohibited conduct and the penalties that go with it.
Colorado has also adopted several uniform laws drafted by national organizations to keep its rules consistent with other states. The Uniform Commercial Code in Title 4 is the most prominent example, and the Uniform Marriage Act appears in Title 14. Colorado’s versions of these acts are interpreted with an eye toward keeping them consistent with the same acts in other adopting states.
How to Read a CRS Citation
A CRS citation is a short address pointing to one specific section. In C.R.S. 18-3-202, the first number is the Title (18), the second is the Article (3), and the third is the Section (202). That citation leads to the statute defining first-degree assault.4Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 18-3-202 – Assault in the First Degree Once you know the pattern, you can decode any citation on a traffic ticket, police report, or court filing.
The numbering also tells you something about the subject before you read a word of text. Every section starting with 18-3 deals with offenses against the person. Every section starting with 18-4 deals with offenses against property. A quick look at the first two numbers gives you the general area of law.
Where to Read the Statutes
The Colorado General Assembly posts the full text of the CRS online for free, hosted by LexisNexis as the state’s official printer.1Colorado General Assembly. Colorado Revised Statutes The site mirrors the Title-Article-Part-Section hierarchy, so you can either browse the table of contents or run a keyword search. A term like “probate” or “trespass” pulls every relevant section across all 44 titles.
Printed copies live at public law libraries around the state and are useful for anyone who needs an older version of a statute or prefers a bound reference. Since 1997, the OLLS has published the official set each year in softbound and CD-ROM editions.1Colorado General Assembly. Colorado Revised Statutes Whichever version you use, confirm you’re looking at the current year’s text, because sections are amended or repealed every session.
Annotated vs. Unannotated
The LexisNexis version is the Colorado Revised Statutes Annotated. Along with the raw text, it carries source notes tracing each section’s legislative history, editor’s notes explaining changes, cross-references to related provisions, and summaries of court decisions that have interpreted the statute.5Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 2-5-102 – Inclusions Those annotations are editorial material rather than law, but they are useful for seeing how courts have applied a section in real cases.
The unannotated version carries only the statutory text, which is what most free third-party databases reproduce. For a quick read of what a law says, the unannotated text is enough. For anything higher-stakes, the annotations save real research time.
When a New Law Takes Effect
Under the Colorado Constitution, a new law takes effect on the date the bill specifies. If the bill doesn’t state a date, the law takes effect when the governor signs it. Most bills do state a date, and the dates tend to cluster each year.
The safety clause changes the picture. Most bills contain a safety clause declaring the law “necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety,” and those bills take effect on their stated date without delay. Bills without a safety clause remain subject to the state’s referendum power: citizens have 90 days after the General Assembly adjourns to collect petition signatures and put the law to a public vote.6Colorado General Assembly. Safety Clauses and Act-Subject-to-Petition Clauses A bill without a safety clause cannot take effect until that window closes, no matter what date the bill names.
Checking for Recent Changes
Every bill the General Assembly passes first appears in the Session Laws, the official record of each session’s legislation. Session Laws include budget bills, resolutions, and memorials that never make it into the CRS. Only laws of a “general and permanent nature” get folded into the code itself.7Colorado General Assembly. Session Laws and Statutes
Between full CRS reprints, the state publishes the Red Book, which lists every amendment, addition, and repeal from the most recent session and maps bill numbers to the CRS sections they changed. If you want to know whether a particular statute was touched this year before the next full update appears, the Red Book is the fastest way to check. The 2026 edition is available.8Colorado General Assembly. Red Book
How Courts Read the Text
When a dispute turns on what a statute means, Colorado courts start with the plain language. If the words are clear, courts apply them as written. Disagreements about what counts as “plain” are what fill the case law.
When a statute is genuinely ambiguous, courts look at the legislative history, the objective behind the law, and the way the provision fits into the broader scheme. Colorado law directs that general provisions, terms, and expressions be “liberally construed” so the legislature’s intent is carried out.9Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 2-4-212 – Construction of Statutes If giving a word its literal meaning would defeat the obvious purpose of the law, courts can treat the word as surplusage or read it in a way that carries out the intent.
The practical point for anyone reading a statute on their own: the text in the CRS may not tell the whole story. A court may already have narrowed or expanded a key phrase. For a quick question, reading the plain text is often enough. For a decision that matters, check the annotations or talk to an attorney before relying on what the words seem to say.