Colorado Crash Reporting Requirements
Colorado sets no dollar threshold for reporting a crash. Deadline to file: Immediately. Submit to: Nearest police authority.
- Damage threshold
- No dollar threshold
The driver's duty is triggered by injury, death, or any property damage at all — Colorado names no dollar figure (§ 42-4-1606(1)). The $1,000 figure that circulates is something else: it is the point below which an investigating officer may skip writing a report, and even then the officer must write one if a participant asks or if anyone cannot show proof of insurance.
- Deadline to file
- Immediately
Immediately. After stopping and exchanging information you give immediate notice to the nearest office of the police authority, and must return to and stay at the scene if they tell you to. The investigating officer then files the report with the state within five days; Colorado has no separate driver-filed crash report form.
- Submit to
- Nearest police authority
The nearest office of the duly authorized police authority (§ 42-4-1606(1)). Failing to report is a class 2 misdemeanor traffic offense.
How Colorado compares with every other state
What this means after a crash
Colorado does not use a dollar figure at all, which trips up drivers who have moved from a state that does. There is no repair estimate to compare against. What matters is the kind of crash — injury, death, a vehicle towed away — and the table above is the whole test.
The deadline is not a number of days. Colorado wants the report immediately, which in practice means from the scene or as soon as you are able. A clock that starts and ends the same day leaves no room to "get to it later", and that is the most common way an ordinary crash turns into a charge of its own.
Who receives it matters as much as when. In Colorado the report goes to Nearest police authority. An officer writing a report at the scene is not automatically the report the state is waiting for — where the two are separate, the table above says who receives yours.
Every statute cited for Colorado
Why the rule looks like this
- What Changed in 2026Liability minimums doubled in Hawaii, two states dropped pure comparative fault, New Hampshire stopped inspecting cars, and three crash reporting thresholds moved — a dated account of the 2026 changes, and the ones already signed for 2027 and beyond.
- The Crash You Are Required to Report Is Smaller Than You ThinkCrash-report triggers start at $500 in Georgia and New Jersey and reach $3,000 for a Virginia police report; Florida's is $500 before 1 October 2026 and $2,000 from that date, and Pennsylvania and Maryland use no dollar figure at all.
More on Colorado
Checked against the primary sources above on September 27, 2026. If a figure here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it — what we have corrected so far is public.