How to Legally Separate in Colorado: Forms, Filing, and 91-Day Wait

To legally separate in Colorado, one spouse must have lived in the state for at least 91 days, then file a Petition for Legal Separation in the district court where either spouse lives, pay the $260 filing fee, and formally serve the other spouse.¹² Both spouses then complete financial disclosures and negotiate a Separation Agreement (and Parenting Plan if children are involved) covering property, debts, maintenance, and custody. The court cannot enter a final Decree of Legal Separation until at least 91 days have passed since it gained jurisdiction over the responding spouse. You stay legally married at the end of it, which is the whole point for couples who want a court order dividing their affairs without ending the marriage.

Before You File

Colorado has one residency rule and one legal ground. At least one spouse must have lived in Colorado for 91 consecutive days immediately before filing. The only ground is that the marriage is irretrievably broken. Colorado is no-fault, so neither side proves wrongdoing; if either spouse says the relationship cannot be repaired, the court accepts it.¹ There is no minimum length-of-marriage requirement.

One thing to sort out before you file: your spouse has to be on board with the legal-separation path. If you petition for legal separation and your spouse objects and asks for a divorce instead, the court must treat the case as a divorce.¹ If you’re choosing separation to preserve health insurance, religious status, or another benefit tied to being married, confirm your spouse agrees before you start.

Forms and Documents to Gather

All the required forms are on the Colorado Judicial Branch website.³ Before you fill anything out, pull together recent pay stubs, bank and investment statements, tax returns, mortgage documents, and loan balances. You’ll need those numbers to complete the financial disclosures accurately.

The core filings are:

Petition for Legal Separation, plus a Case Information Sheet and Summons. This is what officially starts the case.⁴
Sworn Financial Statement from each spouse, showing income, monthly expenses, assets, and debts.
Separation Agreement setting out property division, debt allocation, and any spousal maintenance.
Parenting Plan, if you have children together, covering the schedule, decision-making, and child support.

Filing, Serving, and What It Costs

File your completed documents with the district court in the county where you or your spouse lives. The filing fee is $260.² If you can’t afford it, you can ask the court to waive the fee.

After filing, you have to formally notify your spouse through service of process. A third party (a sheriff’s deputy or a private process server) delivers a copy of the filed Petition and Summons. Private process servers typically charge $40 to $200 depending on how hard the person is to find. Your spouse then has 21 days to file a Response, or 35 days if served outside Colorado.

Mediation is likely if you disagree on anything substantial. Mediators in domestic cases generally charge $100 to $500 per hour, and a session can run from two hours to a full day. Mediation almost always costs less than a contested hearing and lets you keep control of the outcome.

The Automatic Injunction That Kicks In Immediately

The moment the Petition is filed and served, a temporary injunction takes effect against both spouses. No hearing is required, and it stays in place until the court issues a final decree or dismisses the case.⁵ Under it, neither spouse may:

Transfer, sell, or hide marital property outside the normal course of daily expenses.
Cancel or change health, homeowner’s, auto, or life insurance without 14 days’ written notice to the other spouse and their consent, or a court order.
Remove the children from Colorado without the other parent’s agreement or court approval.

Violations can bring contempt-of-court sanctions. The injunction applies equally to whoever filed.

What Happens Between Filing and the Final Decree

Once your spouse is served, the court schedules an Initial Status Conference. This is a short meeting with a judge or magistrate that sets deadlines for financial disclosures, flags urgent issues, and outlines the timeline.

If you need immediate arrangements while the case is pending (who stays in the house, temporary child support, interim maintenance), either spouse can request a temporary orders hearing. Those orders hold until the final decree.

The 91-Day Waiting Period

Colorado law requires at least 91 days to pass after the court gains jurisdiction over the responding spouse before entering a final decree.¹ The clock starts when your spouse is served, signs a waiver of service, or joins as a co-petitioner.⁶ Even if you agree on everything on day one, the court can’t finalize until those 91 days pass.

Getting the Decree

If you reach a full agreement, you submit your signed Separation Agreement (and Parenting Plan if applicable) to the court. The judge reviews the terms for fairness, particularly around children, then incorporates them into a Decree of Legal Separation that is legally enforceable. If you can’t agree, the judge decides the disputed issues after a hearing.

How Property, Debts, and Maintenance Get Handled

Colorado uses equitable distribution. The court divides marital property in the proportions it considers fair, which is not necessarily 50/50. It weighs each spouse’s contributions (including homemaking), the value of separate property each keeps, and each spouse’s economic circumstances at the time of division.⁷

Anything either spouse acquired during the marriage is presumed marital, regardless of whose name is on the title. Gifts, inheritances, and property excluded by a valid prenup or postnup are exceptions. Anything acquired after the decree is separate.⁷

Retirement accounts need special handling. Dividing an employer-sponsored pension or 401(k) usually requires a Qualified Domestic Relations Order, a separate court order that tells the plan administrator to pay part of the benefits to the other spouse.⁸ Without a QDRO, most employer plans won’t split the money, even if your Separation Agreement says they should.

For spousal maintenance, Colorado has advisory guidelines that apply to marriages of at least three years where combined adjusted gross income is $240,000 or less. The formula produces a guideline amount based on the couple’s incomes, and the duration scales with the length of the marriage; for marriages over 20 years, the court may award maintenance indefinitely. The guidelines are advisory, not mandatory: the court also weighs each spouse’s resources, earning capacity, age, health, and the marital standard of living. Above the $240,000 threshold, the formula doesn’t apply and the court relies entirely on those factors.

Joint debts deserve extra attention. Your Separation Agreement can assign a credit card or loan to one spouse, and the court will enforce that between you. Creditors are not bound by your agreement. If your name is on a joint account and your spouse doesn’t pay, the creditor can still come after you. Close or freeze joint accounts early, refinance shared loans into one name where you can, and monitor anything that stays open.

Health Insurance and Taxes After the Decree

Keeping a spouse on the other’s employer health plan is one of the most common reasons couples pick separation over divorce. Whether it works depends on the plan. Some plans define “spouse” as anyone legally married to the employee, which covers a legally separated spouse; others treat a legal-separation decree as a disqualifying event. Read the plan documents or call the administrator before you assume anything.

If the decree does cause a spouse to lose coverage, federal law treats that as a qualifying event for COBRA continuation coverage, and the affected spouse and any dependent children can elect to continue the group plan for up to 36 months.⁹¹⁰ COBRA premiums are considerably higher than what an employee pays, because you now cover the full cost plus a 2% administrative fee.

The decree also changes your tax filing status. The IRS treats you as unmarried as of the last day of the tax year in which the decree is entered, so you can’t file jointly.¹¹ Your status becomes single or head of household. Head of household requires that you paid more than half the cost of maintaining your home during the year and that a qualifying dependent child lived with you more than half the year.¹² Maintenance payments under an agreement executed after December 31, 2018 are neither deductible for the payer nor taxable to the recipient, and that rule is still in effect.

Converting a Legal Separation to a Divorce

If either spouse later wants the marriage to end, Colorado allows conversion of the Decree of Legal Separation into a Decree of Dissolution of Marriage. You have to wait at least 182 days after the separation decree is entered before filing the motion.¹³ Only one spouse needs to ask. The other must be notified by mail at their last known address but cannot block the conversion. The existing terms for property, maintenance, and parenting typically carry over unless someone moves to modify them, which usually avoids relitigating what the court already resolved.

1
Justia Law. Colorado Code 14-10-106 – Dissolution of Marriage or Legal Separation
2
Colorado Judicial Branch. List of Fees
3
Colorado Judicial Branch. Divorce and Separation
4
Colorado Judicial Branch. Petition for Divorce or Legal Separation
5
FindLaw. Colorado Code 14-10-107
6
Colorado Judicial Branch. How to File for Divorce
7
Justia Law. Colorado Code 14-10-113 – Disposition of Property – Definitions
8
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Qualified Domestic Relations Orders
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 4980B – Failure to Satisfy Continuation Coverage Requirements of Group Health Plans
10
U.S. Department of Labor. Separation and Divorce
11
Internal Revenue Service. Publication 504 – Divorced or Separated Individuals
12
Internal Revenue Service. Filing Taxes After Divorce or Separation
13
Justia Law. Colorado Code 14-10-120 – Decree