Yes, it is legal to be topless in Colorado. A 2019 federal appeals court ruling struck down laws that banned female toplessness while allowing male toplessness, finding them unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. Colorado’s public indecency statute does not criminalize bare breasts, and the state’s largest cities either repealed their topless bans or never enforced them. On public land in Colorado, no one can be cited or arrested simply for being topless.
The Ruling That Settled It
The case is Free the Nipple–Fort Collins v. City of Fort Collins, decided in February 2019 by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Fort Collins had an ordinance prohibiting women and girls over age ten from exposing their breasts below the areola in public, with no equivalent rule for men. Two individuals and an advocacy group sued on equal protection grounds.1Justia. Free the Nipple v. City of Fort Collins
The Tenth Circuit applied intermediate scrutiny, the standard for gender-based legal classifications. Fort Collins offered three justifications for the ban: protecting children, maintaining public order, and promoting traffic safety. The court rejected all three. On protecting children, the judges wrote that the city’s interest appeared to derive “not from any morphological differences between men’s and women’s breasts but from negative stereotypes depicting women’s breasts, but not men’s breasts, as sex objects.” The court found the public order and traffic safety justifications hypothetical rather than genuine, and concluded that a female-only ban was “an unnecessary and overbroad means” of addressing the city’s concerns.1Justia. Free the Nipple v. City of Fort Collins
Fort Collins repealed the ordinance in September 2019 and is now under a permanent court order barring enforcement of any gender-specific topless ban. Because the decision came from the Tenth Circuit, it is binding precedent throughout Colorado. Any Colorado city trying to enforce a gender-specific topless ordinance today would face the same constitutional challenge Fort Collins lost. The court also noted that Boulder and Denver had already allowed female toplessness before the case and experienced no “harmful fallout,” which cut against Fort Collins’ public-order arguments.1Justia. Free the Nipple v. City of Fort Collins
What Colorado Law Still Prohibits
There is a real difference between being topless and conduct that is genuinely criminal. Two Colorado statutes matter here, and neither one bans simple toplessness.
Public Indecency
Under C.R.S. § 18-7-301, public indecency covers specific acts in a public place or where the public could reasonably see them: sexual intercourse, lewd exposure of intimate parts with intent to sexually arouse someone, lewd fondling of another person, and knowingly exposing one’s genitals in a way likely to cause alarm.2Justia. Colorado Code 18-7-301 – Public Indecency The statute never mentions female breasts. And even exposure of non-genital body parts only counts when it is “lewd” and done with sexual intent. Walking through a park without a shirt does not fit that definition.
Public indecency is a petty offense. Since Colorado’s 2022 misdemeanor reform took effect, a petty offense carries a maximum fine of $300 and up to ten days in jail.3Justia. Colorado Code 18-1.3-503 – Petty Offense and Civil Infraction Classified – Penalties A second or subsequent conviction for lewd exposure with sexual intent escalates to a class 1 misdemeanor.2Justia. Colorado Code 18-7-301 – Public Indecency
Indecent Exposure
The more serious charge is indecent exposure under C.R.S. § 18-7-302. It requires two things at once: knowingly exposing one’s genitals in a way likely to cause alarm, and doing so with intent to sexually arouse or satisfy someone. Without that sexual intent, the charge fails.4Justia. Colorado Code 18-7-302 – Indecent Exposure Toplessness involves no exposure of genitals and no sexual intent, so this statute does not reach it.
A first-offense conviction is a class 1 misdemeanor. It becomes a class 6 felony after two prior convictions, or if the person knowingly commits the act within view of a child under fifteen and is both over eighteen and more than four years older than the child.4Justia. Colorado Code 18-7-302 – Indecent Exposure These enhancements exist for predatory behavior and have nothing to do with casual toplessness.
Private Businesses, Homes, and HOAs
The constitutional protection applies to public spaces. Private businesses can still require shirts, shoes, or any other dress code as a condition of entry. The Tenth Circuit ruling restricted government power to enforce gender-discriminatory laws. It did not limit what a restaurant, store, or gym can require on its own premises.
Someone who refuses to follow a business’s dress code after being asked to leave could face third-degree criminal trespass. Under Colorado law, a person who remains on private premises after being told to leave has entered or remained “unlawfully.”5Justia. Colorado Code 18-4-504 – Third Degree Criminal Trespass Third-degree trespass is generally a petty offense.
Homeowners associations also keep their authority to enforce covenants about appearance and behavior within their communities. Colorado’s HOA laws require associations to give homeowners a notice period to fix any violation before imposing fines, and daily compounding fines are prohibited, but the underlying power to set community standards through private agreements remains intact. If an HOA covenant addresses attire in shared spaces, that covenant is enforceable regardless of what public law allows on a city sidewalk.
Breastfeeding Is Separately Protected
Colorado law explicitly protects the right to breastfeed. Under C.R.S. § 25-6-302, a mother may breastfeed in any place she has a right to be. Even in locations where a business could otherwise enforce a dress code, breastfeeding is legally protected. A business that asked a breastfeeding mother to leave or cover up would be violating Colorado state law regardless of any toplessness debate. This protection has its own statutory footing, independent of the Tenth Circuit ruling.
If an Officer Stops You
Knowing the law is one thing; interacting with an officer who may not know it is another. If you are topless in a public space in Colorado and an officer approaches you, stay calm and state clearly that toplessness is protected under the Tenth Circuit’s decision in Free the Nipple v. Fort Collins. You are not required to cover up to avoid a charge that does not exist in the statute. If cited anyway, the citation would almost certainly be dismissed.
The more realistic scenario involves bystander complaints rather than police action. Officers responding to a complaint may ask you to leave to defuse the situation even when no law has been broken. You are not legally obligated to comply if you are on public land and not violating any law. Documenting the interaction and filing a complaint afterward tends to produce better outcomes than an extended confrontation on the scene.