Colorado court records are open to the public by default, and you can search most cases for free on the state Judicial Branch’s online docket, then request copies of specific filings through a Record/Document Request Form or by visiting the Clerk of Court. Copies run $0.25 per page, certified copies are $20.00 per document, and clerks generally fill requests within three business days.
What’s Public and What Isn’t
Chief Justice Directive 05-01, most recently amended in November 2025, treats information in the court record as accessible to the public unless a specific law, rule, or court order says otherwise.1Colorado Judicial Department. Chief Justice Directive 05-01 – Concerning Access to Court Records That covers civil complaints and judgments, criminal charging documents and sentencing orders, traffic citations, divorce and parenting filings, wills admitted to probate, and post-judgment items like garnishments and liens. You do not have to explain why you want a record.
Some case types are closed by default. Section 4.60 of the directive excludes adoption, dependency and neglect, juvenile delinquency, mental health proceedings, paternity, guardianship and conservatorship cases, and truancy.1Colorado Judicial Department. Chief Justice Directive 05-01 – Concerning Access to Court Records Juvenile delinquency records under C.R.S. 19-1-304 are open only to a specific list: the juvenile and their parents, attorneys in the case, law enforcement, the probation department, and certain state agencies. Anyone else needs a court order showing a legitimate interest. One narrow exception applies when a juvenile is adjudicated delinquent for a serious felony or handgun possession, in which case basic arrest and charge information becomes public.2Justia Law. Colorado Code 19-1-304 – Confidentiality of Records
Adoption records are confidential under C.R.S. 19-5-305, with limited court-ordered exceptions. Information gathered while providing mental health services is confidential under C.R.S. 27-65-121.3Justia Law. Colorado Code 27-65-121 – Records Beyond those categorical exclusions, a judge can suppress records in any case type by written order that identifies the interest being protected and includes an expiration date or triggering event. Sealed records do not appear in public search results.
Searching the Online Docket
The Colorado Judicial Branch runs a free docket search at coloradojudicial.gov.4Colorado Judicial Branch. Docket Search You can search by party name, case number, attorney name, or attorney bar number, and filter by county, court type, and date range. At least one filter beyond the date range is required.
Case numbers follow a set format: a four-digit year, a two-letter class code, and a sequence number. The class code identifies the type of case. Common codes include CR for criminal, CV for civil, DR for domestic relations, PR for probate, and MH for mental health. If you already have a case number, entering it is the fastest way to pull the file.
What you get from the docket is the register of actions, a chronological list of every filing and event in the case. It shows you what exists and when it was filed. To read the actual documents behind those entries, you need to submit a records request.
Requesting Copies
The Judicial Branch provides an online Record/Document Request Form for obtaining copies of specific filings.5Colorado Judicial Branch. Record/Document Request Form The form asks for your contact information, the case number (or enough details to locate the file), the case type, the county where the case was filed, and the specific documents you want. You can pick from pre-listed categories covering family, criminal, civil, and probate matters, or describe what you need in your own words.
You can also walk into a Clerk of Court’s office in the county where the case was filed. Some records, particularly suppressed or confidential filings you are entitled to see, may require a government-issued photo ID before the clerk will release them.5Colorado Judicial Branch. Record/Document Request Form
Fees and Turnaround
Fees are set by Chief Justice Directive 06-01 and are the same across courthouses:
- Copies: $0.25 per page. Parties to a case and their attorneys pay no more than $15.00 regardless of page count. Non-parties have no cap.
- Certified or exemplified copies: $20.00 per document.
- Name search: $5.00.
- Research and redaction: $30.00 per hour, billed in 15-minute increments after the first hour.
- Off-site file retrieval: actual cost of retrieval, which varies by location.
- Transcript of judgment: $25.00.
Fees can be waived when required under CJD 06-01 or C.R.S. 13-32-104(1)(a).5Colorado Judicial Branch. Record/Document Request Form
Standard turnaround is three business days. If the clerk cannot meet that deadline, CJD 05-01 allows an additional seven business days, but the clerk must notify you of the delay.1Colorado Judicial Department. Chief Justice Directive 05-01 – Concerning Access to Court Records Files stored off-site take longer, and you pay the actual retrieval cost on top of copy fees.
When a Case Doesn’t Show Up
If you know a case exists but the docket search returns nothing, the record may be sealed or suppressed. A judge’s sealing order removes the case from public search results, so from the outside it looks as if the case was never filed. Sealed records include convictions cleared under Colorado’s statutory sealing framework (C.R.S. 24-72-704 through 709), cases sealed by individual court order, and any case type that CJD 05-01 excludes from public access. If you were a party to a sealed case, you can still access your own records through the clerk with proper ID.
Federal Cases Are Separate
Cases filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court are not in the state judiciary’s system. Federal records are accessed through PACER, the nationwide electronic system run by the federal courts. PACER charges $0.10 per page with a $3.00 cap per document, and if you spend $30 or less in a quarter, the fees for that period are waived, which makes occasional lookups effectively free.6Public Access to Court Electronic Records. PACER Pricing – How Fees Work You register for an account at pacer.uscourts.gov before searching, and the Case Locator tool can search across all federal courts at once if you don’t know where the case was filed.
This matters most for bankruptcy searches. All bankruptcy cases are federal, so the state docket will never show one. PACER is the only public tool for those records.
CBI Background Checks vs. Court Records
People looking up Colorado court records sometimes actually need a criminal background check, which is a different product from a different agency. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation maintains a criminal history database built from fingerprint submissions by law enforcement. That is arrest-based data, not court-based data. A CBI check may show arrests that never led to charges, and it may miss court dispositions that resolved later.
A name-and-date-of-birth search for an individual public request through the CBI costs $13.00, and you need the exact spelling of the person’s name and the correct date of birth or the system will not find a match.7Colorado Bureau of Investigation. State of Colorado Criminal History Check A fingerprint-based search for most employment and licensing purposes runs $39.50, and certain categories such as volunteer organizations and court-ordered guardianship checks have reduced rates from $6.00 to $17.50.8Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Employment and Background Checks
For a complete picture of someone’s involvement with the Colorado legal system, you may need both: the Judicial Branch docket for case filings and outcomes, and the CBI database for arrest history. Neither captures the full story on its own.