What a Colorado well permit actually allows
By Belinda Seville, The Seville Team · Guide Real EstateLast reviewed September 22, 2026
Can I water horses from the well on this property?
Often not. On a parcel under 35 acres that was not created through a cluster development, Colorado’s exempt well permit is limited to ordinary household use inside one single-family dwelling, with no outdoor use at all: no stock tank, no trough, no garden. Pull the permit itself and read its allowed uses before you make an offer.
This is the question that most often gets asked too late on an Elbert County horse property. A buyer finds ten acres with a barn, a well and a good fence line, and reasonably assumes that a property set up for horses comes with water they are allowed to give the horses.
Often it does not. The land, the barn and the well can all be exactly what you want while the permit on that well prohibits the use you bought the place for. That is a legal restriction rather than a plumbing one, so no amount of pump work fixes it, and it is not something a general home inspection looks at.
The 35 acre line is the whole thing
Colorado law treats a parcel under 35 acres differently from one at 35 acres or more. The exemption statute for wells outside Designated Groundwater Basins sets out allowed uses for three kinds of parcel: under 35 acres, 35 acres or more, and lots inside a cluster development.
For the most common permit type on a small parcel, the state guidance is blunt. Exempt well permits on parcels of less than 35 acres that were not created through a cluster development are, in the state engineer’s words, "limited to ordinary household purposes inside one single-family dwelling, with no allowed outdoor uses."
No allowed outdoor uses means no stock tank, no trough, no arena dust control, no garden, no lawn. Not restricted amounts of those things. None of them.
What the exemption actually covers
Where a well does qualify for the broader uses, the statute lists them specifically: ordinary household purposes, fire protection and fire-fighting, the watering of poultry, domestic animals and livestock on farms and ranches, irrigation of not over one acre of home gardens and lawns, monitoring and observation, and drinking and sanitary facilities in individual commercial businesses.
Two things in that list are worth reading twice. Irrigation is capped at one acre, which is a home garden and lawn rather than a pasture. And the livestock language is tied to farms and ranches, not to keeping a couple of horses on a residential lot.
Colorado courts have directed that exceptions to the general water law are to be narrowly construed. That is the interpretive posture to expect if the question is ever tested, and it is why optimistic readings of a permit tend not to survive.
One well per parcel
Only one exempt well permit for production purposes may be issued per legal parcel, cluster development lot, or tract of 35 acres or more. Monitoring, observation and fire-fighting permits are separate and do not count against that.
This matters if you are planning to split a parcel, add a second dwelling, or serve an accessory building. The answer is frequently not simply "drill another one".
Inside a Designated Basin the rules are different again
Everything above concerns exempt wells outside Colorado’s Designated Groundwater Basins. Inside those basins, wells are permitted under a different statute as small capacity wells, with their own list of allowed uses.
Which regime applies, and which aquifer the well draws from, is specific to the parcel. Denver Basin aquifers have their own treatment again. This is not something to infer from a neighboring property or from what is common in the area.
The county can be stricter, never looser
State well permitting and county land use are separate approvals. The state guidance says plainly that where it conflicts with county or local land use regulations, it does not authorize any use that fails to comply with them.
So a permit that allows livestock watering does not mean the zoning allows the animals, and covenants can restrict what both of them permit. Three separate hurdles, and clearing one tells you nothing about the others.
The permit types side by side
Most of the confusion comes from the fact that "exempt well" covers several different permits, and a designated basin permit is different again. This is what each one allows under the statute and the state guideline. Every exempt well is also limited to 15 gallons per minute.
| Permit | Where it applies | Homes it can serve | Animals and outdoor use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exempt, parcel under 35 acres | Outside designated basins, on a parcel not created through a cluster development | One single-family dwelling, for household use inside it | None |
| Exempt, 35 acres or more | Outside designated basins | Up to three single-family dwellings | Poultry, domestic animals and livestock on farms and ranches, and up to one acre of home garden and lawn |
| Exempt, cluster development lot | Outside designated basins, in a cluster development | One single-family residence | The same uses as 35 acres or more, with withdrawals across the cluster limited to one acre-foot a year for each 35 acres |
| Exempt, commercial | Outside designated basins | None: drinking and sanitary facilities inside one commercial business | None listed |
| Small capacity | Inside a designated basin | Most permits: up to three dwellings, whatever the parcel size | Most permits: domestic animal watering and up to one acre of lawn and garden. Ground water management district rules can limit this further. |
A summary of the permit classes, not of any one permit. The allowed uses printed on the permit for the well you are buying are what count.
How to check, before you are under contract
Get the permit itself, not a description of it. Every well has a permit number, and the permit states its own allowed uses on its face. A listing that says "well" or even "domestic well" is not the permit and is frequently wrong, usually honestly.
Read the allowed use language and compare it against what you actually intend to do. If you want horses and the permit says household use only, you have found the problem while you can still act on it.
Then ask the separate questions: does the zoning permit the animals you want, in the number you want, and do the covenants agree. On acreage those are three conversations, not one.
If a well was in beneficial use before 8 May 1972 the position can be different again, because such wells may be registered under a separate provision. Older properties are worth asking about specifically rather than assuming the modern rules apply.
Sources
Everything above is checked against these. Where something is parcel-specific this page says so rather than guessing.
- Colorado DWR Guideline 2023-1: Uses of Water From Exempt and Small Capacity Wells
The "no allowed outdoor uses" limit on sub-35-acre exempt permits, the one-permit-per-parcel rule, the designated basin distinction, and that the guidance does not override county land use rules. The guideline also states that exceptions to the general water laws are narrowly construed, citing City of Aurora ex rel. Util. Enter. v. Colorado State Eng’r, 105 P.3d 595 (Colo. 2005).
- C.R.S. 37-92-602, exempt wells outside Designated Groundwater Basins (statutory text)
The statutory list of allowed uses, the 15 gallon per minute limit, the 35 acre parcel distinction, the cluster development lot rule and its one acre-foot per 35 acres limit, and registration of wells in beneficial use before 8 May 1972.
From the blog
This is general information about how Colorado permitting works, not legal advice and not a substitute for reading the permit on a specific property. Belinda Seville is a licensed Colorado real estate broker, not an attorney or a water engineer.
Related
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Elbert County requires a septic inspection and a Use Permit before a sale closes. The inspection must be under twelve months old; issuing takes up to two weeks.
- How many horses can you keep in Elbert County?
Elbert County allows one horse per half acre in most residential zoning districts. But zoning is one of three permissions, and the well permit usually bites.
Looking at a specific property?
Send Belinda the address and she will run these checks before you write an offer. On acreage they take an afternoon and they are the difference between buying what you think you are buying and finding out afterwards.