Colorado is a one-party consent state: because you are the sender or intended receiver of your own call, you may record it without telling the other parent.
A recording you took part in is generally usable in a Colorado domestic-relations case, subject to the judge's discretion on relevance and how it was obtained. Recording a call you are not on is a felony and will not help your case.
You may record a call or conversation you are part of.
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Short answer: yes. Colorado is a one-party consent state. If you are on the call — a custody handoff conversation, a co-parenting dispute over the phone, a voicemail left for you — you can record it yourself without asking permission or announcing it. The law only targets someone who records a conversation they are not part of.
What one-party consent means in Colorado
Under Colorado Revised Statutes § 18-9-303, the wiretapping offense is defined narrowly: it applies to “any person not a sender or intended receiver” of a communication who intercepts it without the consent of a sender or a receiver. Read carefully, that definition excludes you from the crime the moment you are a participant in your own call — you are always either the sender or the intended receiver, so your own consent is all the statute requires. This is the same one-party logic used in Texas and roughly two-thirds of U.S. states, and it lines up with the federal wiretap act, 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d), which likewise permits a party to a call to record it.
The penalty if you get it wrong
Wiretapping someone else's conversation — one you are not part of — is a class 6 felony in Colorado, Colorado's lowest felony class but still a felony: the presumptive range is 12 to 18 months in state prison and a fine between $1,000 and $100,000. A narrower carve-out reduces the charge to a class 2 misdemeanor when the intercepted signal is specifically a cordless-telephone transmission between the handset and its base unit. None of this touches a recording you make of your own conversation — the exposure is for secretly tapping other people's lines or planting a device to capture conversations you have no part in.
Exceptions and nuances worth knowing
Colorado also has a separate eavesdropping statute, § 18-9-304, aimed at covertly listening to or recording a conversation in a private place using an electronic device, and a media exception at § 18-9-305 for accredited news organizations using their normal reporting equipment at a public, newsworthy event. Neither changes the core rule for a parent: as long as you are a participant on the call, recording it is lawful.
Recording calls in a Colorado custody or co-parenting dispute
A phone call, text exchange, or voicemail you were part of is generally admissible in a Colorado domestic-relations proceeding, but a judge always decides relevance, authenticity, and weight case by case — recording lawfully does not guarantee a recording gets used. Keep the original audio unedited: courts look unfavorably on clipped or “cleaned up” recordings, and an altered file can undercut your credibility on everything else you present. If you ever record a conversation you were not part of, do not bring it to court — it was obtained unlawfully and can expose you to a felony charge rather than help your case.
Crossing state lines: the interstate caveat
Many co-parenting calls involve someone in another state. If your co-parent is calling from an all-party consent state such as California, Illinois, or Washington, the safest practice is to follow the stricter of the two states' rules and announce that the call is being recorded, rather than relying on Colorado's one-party rule alone. Courts and prosecutors in the other party's state may apply their own law to that call, and an announced, dated record is lawful everywhere — while a purely one-party recording of an all-party-state resident can create legal exposure you do not need.
What makes a recording admissible, not just legal
Legality and admissibility are two different questions in Colorado, as everywhere else. A lawfully recorded call can still be excluded if it cannot be authenticated, and a judge weighing a custody dispute typically wants four things before relying on it: the recording was lawfully captured (you were a party to it); the audio file is complete and unedited, with its original metadata intact; you can explain exactly how it was captured, stored, and produced, with nothing altering it in between; and its timing can be verified independently rather than dated by hand after the fact. A recording that checks all four boxes carries real weight. One that is a short, trimmed clip with no context is easy for the other side's attorney to pick apart, even when the underlying recording was perfectly legal to make.
How to document it so it holds up
The strongest record is the one built consistently as events happen: preserve the entire call or thread rather than a short clip, attach a reliable timestamp, and store the file somewhere you control rather than only on a phone that can be lost, reset, or taken. This is exactly the gap a documented co-parenting record is meant to close — a continuous, time-stamped history is far harder for the other side to dispute than an isolated recording with no context. Copareo Secure Line runs your calls through a dedicated line, time-stamps each one with a tamper-evident method, and organizes everything into a court-ready record for $9.90 once — no subscription, nothing to cancel.
Frequently asked questions
Can I record a phone call with my co-parent in Colorado without telling them?
Yes. Colorado only requires the consent of one party to the call, and as a participant your own consent is enough. You do not need to announce the recording, though doing so is never unlawful and can make the recording easier to authenticate later.
Is it illegal to record a conversation I am not part of in Colorado?
Yes — that is exactly what Colorado's wiretapping statute (§ 18-9-303) punishes, generally as a class 6 felony. Only record calls and conversations you are actually taking part in.
Can a phone recording be used in a Colorado custody case?
It can be, if it was lawfully made (you were a party to it) and the judge finds it relevant and reliable. Admissibility is always the court's call, and an unedited, clearly dated recording is far more persuasive than a short, out-of-context clip.
What if my co-parent lives in an all-party consent state?
Treat the call as if the stricter rule applies: announce that you are recording. That keeps the recording lawful under either state's law and avoids any question about which state's rule should govern an interstate call.
Does Colorado's one-party rule cover text messages too?
Text messages are not “intercepted” the way a live call is — if you received or sent a message, you already have a lawful copy of it. The bigger risk with texts is preservation, not consent: a full, unedited export with intact timestamps holds up far better than a cropped screenshot that can be questioned or altered.
Bottom line
In Colorado, you may lawfully record a phone call or conversation you are part of, and a complete, unedited, well-dated recording can support a custody case. Never record a conversation you are not part of — that crosses into felony territory — and when a call crosses state lines, the safer move is to announce it.
Not legal advice. This page summarizes Colorado law for general information and is not a substitute for advice from a licensed Colorado attorney. Recording and evidence rules change and courts decide admissibility case by case. Verify against the official statute (Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-9-303) and consult an attorney about your situation. See the full 50-state recording law guide for every other state's rule.