How to Get Divorced in Colorado: Filing, Disclosures, and Decree

To get divorced in Colorado, you file a Petition for Dissolution of Marriage in the district court where you or your spouse lives, formally notify your spouse, exchange financial disclosures, resolve property division, parenting arrangements, and any support obligations, and wait at least 91 days before a judge can sign the final decree. Colorado is a no-fault state, so the only ground is that the marriage is “irretrievably broken,” and one spouse must have lived in Colorado for at least 91 days before filing.¹

Legal separation is available in Colorado and handles the same issues without ending the marriage, but the steps below assume you want an actual divorce.²

Confirm You Meet the Residency and Waiting Rules

Either you or your spouse must have been a Colorado resident for at least 91 consecutive days before you file. If you have minor children and want the court to decide parenting responsibilities, the children must have lived in Colorado for at least 182 days, or since birth if they are younger than six months.²

A separate 91-day clock starts once the court has jurisdiction over your spouse, either through formal service or through your spouse joining the case voluntarily. The court cannot enter a decree before that period ends, even if the two of you agree on everything from day one.¹ Ninety-one days is the floor. Contested cases routinely take much longer.

File the Petition for Dissolution

The case begins when you file a Petition for Dissolution of Marriage (form JDF 1101) in the district court in the county where you or your spouse lives.² If you have children under 19, you also file a Case Information Sheet (form JDF 1000). Both forms are on the Colorado Judicial Branch website or at your local court clerk’s office.

The filing fee is $260.³ If you cannot afford it, submit financial documentation with a fee waiver request. Before you file, pull together bank and retirement statements, recent tax returns, pay stubs, and a list of debts. You will need all of it within weeks.

You can also file jointly as co-petitioners with your spouse. When you do, no service is required, and the 91-day waiting period starts when the court accepts the filing.¹

Serve Your Spouse

If you file on your own, you have to formally notify your spouse that the case exists. Colorado recognizes three methods, and the right one depends on how cooperative your spouse is.⁴

Waiver of service. Your spouse signs a waiver acknowledging receipt of the petition and summons. Simplest option when you are on speaking terms.
Personal service. A sheriff’s deputy, professional process server, or any uninvolved adult over 18 hands the papers to your spouse. You cannot serve them yourself.
Service by publication. Available only when you cannot locate your spouse after real effort. You file a motion asking for permission, and notice is published in a legal newspaper.

Once served, your spouse has the right to file a response.

Exchange Financial Disclosures and Attend the Initial Status Conference

Within 42 days of the petition being filed or served, both spouses must file a Sworn Financial Statement (form JDF 1111) and a Certificate of Compliance (form JDF 1104) confirming that financial documents were exchanged.⁵ Required disclosures include your most recent three years of tax returns, bank and investment statements, and retirement plan information.⁶

Around the same time, the court schedules an Initial Status Conference. Depending on the county, this is with a family court facilitator, magistrate, or judge. It is a check-in, not a trial: the court reviews your paperwork, clarifies deadlines, and may order mediation or set a temporary orders hearing.⁵ If you have children, bring a proposed parenting plan and child support calculations.

Missing the disclosure deadline is one of the most common ways to stall a case. Courts take these deadlines seriously.

Resolve Property, Parenting, and Support

Between the Initial Status Conference and the final decree, you and your spouse work through the substantive issues, either by agreement or with the court’s help.

Property and Debt

Colorado uses equitable distribution. The court divides marital property fairly, which does not automatically mean 50/50. Marital property includes almost everything acquired during the marriage regardless of whose name is on the title. Separate property, such as assets you owned before the marriage or gifts and inheritances received individually, generally stays with the original owner.

Two traps catch people. Any increase in the value of separate property during the marriage is treated as marital and subject to division. And if you commingle separate property with marital funds (depositing an inheritance into a joint account, or using it to pay the mortgage), that separate property can lose its protected status. Keeping separate assets in separate accounts with clear records is the only reliable way to preserve them.

Retirement accounts earned during the marriage are marital property, but you cannot just withdraw half without triggering taxes and penalties. Splitting a 401(k), pension, or similar plan requires a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO), a separate court order that directs the plan administrator to transfer a share to the other spouse. Done properly, the receiving spouse can roll the funds into their own retirement account tax-free.⁷ Mistakes here are expensive, and many couples hire a QDRO specialist for this step even when handling the rest themselves.

Parenting Responsibilities and Child Support

Colorado does not use “custody” and “visitation.” The court allocates parental responsibilities: decision-making authority (education, medical care, religious upbringing) and parenting time (the schedule). Both turn on the best interests of the child, weighing each parent’s relationship with the child, the child’s adjustment to home and school, and each parent’s willingness to support a relationship with the other parent.

You submit a parenting plan describing your proposed arrangement. If you and your spouse agree, the court will generally approve it. If not, the court creates one after hearing evidence.

Child support follows an income-shares model. The court estimates what parents would have spent on the child in an intact household and divides that obligation proportionally by income. The calculation uses both parents’ adjusted gross income, the number of overnights with each parent, work-related childcare costs, and children’s health insurance premiums.⁸

If you have minor children, the court can order both parents to complete a parenting education course on helping children through divorce. Many judicial districts make the class mandatory through their case management orders, and it often has to be finished before the court will finalize the divorce. Check your district’s case management order early.

Spousal Maintenance

Spousal maintenance (Colorado’s term for alimony) is not automatic. The court weighs each spouse’s financial resources, the length of the marriage, the standard of living during the marriage, and each spouse’s age and health.⁹

For marriages lasting at least three years where the couple’s combined adjusted gross income is $240,000 or less, Colorado’s advisory guidelines provide a formula for the amount and duration of maintenance.⁹ The guideline amount starts at 40% of the couple’s combined monthly gross income, minus the lower earner’s income. For agreements finalized after 2018, where maintenance is not tax-deductible, that figure is reduced further to 75–80% depending on income level.¹⁰ Duration comes from a statutory table matching months of marriage to months of maintenance.

These guidelines are advisory. Courts can deviate from them, and have broader discretion for marriages over 20 years or incomes above $240,000.

For any divorce finalized after 2018, maintenance is not deductible by the payer and not taxable to the recipient. Older agreements keep the earlier treatment unless a later modification expressly adopts the new rules.¹¹ Child support is neither deductible nor taxable, regardless of when the agreement was signed.

Mediate if You Cannot Agree

Many Colorado courts require or strongly encourage mediation before a contested case goes to trial. A neutral third party helps you and your spouse negotiate on disputed issues. If mediation produces an agreement, it becomes part of the decree. If it doesn’t, the case proceeds to a hearing where a judge decides.

Court-connected mediation programs may be available at lower cost in some districts than private mediators. For families that will keep co-parenting, mediation often produces workable results because both parents help write the arrangement rather than having one imposed on them.

Enter the Final Decree

Once every issue is resolved and the 91-day waiting period has passed, the court enters a Decree of Dissolution of Marriage (form JDF 1116). The decree ends the marriage and is final on entry, even if one party later appeals other parts of the case like property division.¹

If you took your spouse’s name and want to restore your former name, ask for that in the decree. The court will include the restoration in the final order as long as it finds the change is not detrimental to any other person.¹² Once the decree is entered, request certified copies from the clerk. You will need them to update your name and records with government agencies, banks, and employers.

Handle the Immediate Aftermath

Two things move quickly after the decree.

Your tax filing status depends on whether your divorce was final by December 31. If the court signs your decree any time up through the last day of the year, you file as single (or head of household if you qualify) for that entire year. If it isn’t final until the following year, you are considered married for the whole prior year and must file jointly or married filing separately.¹³

If you were on your spouse’s employer health plan, you lose eligibility when the divorce is final. Federal COBRA rules let you continue that coverage for up to 36 months, but the plan must be notified within 60 days of the divorce. Miss that window and you lose COBRA eligibility entirely.¹⁴ COBRA premiums are steep because you pay the full cost plus a small administrative fee, so start pricing marketplace or employer coverage before the decree is entered.

Modifying Orders Later

Colorado allows modifications to child support, parenting time, and maintenance when circumstances change substantially. For child support, the standard is a “substantial and continuing” change that would produce at least a 10% difference from the current amount. Income changes, changes in a child’s needs, or shifts in parenting time can each justify a request.

Maintenance can also be modified if circumstances change, though some maintenance awards are contractual and non-modifiable by their terms, so the wording of your agreement controls.

When a former spouse ignores a court order, whether by refusing to pay support, withholding parenting time, or failing to transfer property as ordered, the enforcement tool is a contempt of court motion. You file paperwork showing the other party had the ability to comply and willfully refused, and the court can impose remedial contempt (compelling compliance) or punitive contempt (penalties for the violation).¹⁵

1
Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 14 Section 14-10-106 – Dissolution of Marriage, Legal Separation
2
Colorado Judicial Branch. Divorce or Legal Separation
3
Colorado Judicial Branch. List of Fees
4
Colorado Judicial Branch. How to Serve Court Papers in Divorce and Custody Cases
5
Colorado Judicial Branch. Step 1 – Initial Status Conference
6
Colorado Judicial Branch. JDF 1104 – Certificate of Compliance with Mandatory Financial Disclosures
7
Internal Revenue Service. Retirement Topics – QDRO Qualified Domestic Relations Order
8
Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 14 Section 14-10-115 – Child Support Guidelines
9
Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 14 Section 14-10-114 – Spousal Maintenance, Advisory Guidelines
10
Colorado Judicial Branch. Spousal/Partner Advisory Maintenance Guidelines
11
Internal Revenue Service. Alimony and Separate Maintenance
12
Colorado Judicial Branch. Decree of Dissolution of Marriage or Legal Separation – JDF 1116
13
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 504 (2025), Divorced or Separated Individuals
14
U.S. Department of Labor. FAQs on COBRA Continuation Health Coverage for Workers
15
Colorado Judicial Branch. Contempt of Court/Enforcing Court Orders