Colorado Drone Laws (2026): Privacy, Hunting & Shoot-Down Rules

Colorado has no comprehensive civilian drone-privacy statute, so a claim that a drone invaded your privacy typically runs through general trespass, nuisance, and a 1937 airspace-ownership law, alongside a specific ban on using a drone to scout game.

This guide is part of our Drone Laws by State series, which also covers how state law intersects with surveillance camera laws more broadly.

Jurisdiction scope: This article addresses Colorado state law on private drone use, wildlife regulations, interference with emergency responders, and the federal baseline that applies in every state. It does not address a civilian's right to record police, which is covered separately in our guide to recording laws.

Does the FAA or Colorado control where a drone can fly?

The Federal Aviation Administration is the exclusive regulator of the airspace itself. Under 14 CFR Part 107, a commercial or non-recreational drone operator must hold a Remote Pilot Certificate, register the aircraft, fly at or below 400 feet, and stay within visual line of sight; recreational flyers register and follow a similar, separate framework under 49 U.S.C. Section 44809. Colorado cities and counties cannot add their own altitude ceilings, flight-path rules, or pilot-licensing requirements on top of that federal scheme. What Colorado law does reach is conduct: what a person does with a drone once it is airborne over Colorado, including whether they use it to watch a neighbor, interfere with emergency responders, or scout game before a hunt.

Colorado has no dedicated civilian drone-privacy statute

Unlike states such as California, Texas, or Florida, Colorado has not enacted a statute written specifically around drone surveillance of private citizens by other private citizens. That leaves two general-purpose tools. The first is Colo. Rev. Stat. Section 41-1-107, part of the 1937 Aeronautics Act, which declares that "the ownership of the space above the lands and waters of this state is declared to be vested in the several owners of the surface beneath, subject to the right of flight of aircraft," according to the Colorado Revised Statutes, Title 41, published by the Colorado General Assembly's Office of Legislative Legal Services. Colorado attorneys have pointed to this provision as a statutory hook a landowner can use in a civil trespass or nuisance claim when a drone is flown low and repeatedly over private property in an intrusive way, though the statute predates drones by decades and does not set a specific altitude floor.

The second tool is Colorado's criminal invasion of privacy statute, Colo. Rev. Stat. Section 18-7-801, which makes it a class 2 misdemeanor to knowingly observe or take a photograph of another person's intimate parts, without consent, under circumstances where that person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. The statute is written around the conduct rather than the device used to record it, so a drone-mounted camera can trigger the same liability as a phone or a hidden camera. It does not reach ordinary outdoor filming, such as recording a front yard visible from a public sidewalk, because the core requirement is a genuine reasonable expectation of privacy in what was captured.

Drones and Colorado emergency responders

Colorado added drones explicitly to its obstruction statute in 2018. House Bill 18-1314, signed into law and effective August 8, 2018, amended Colo. Rev. Stat. Section 18-8-104 so that the term "obstacle," in the existing crime of obstructing a peace officer, firefighter, emergency medical service provider, rescue specialist, or volunteer, expressly includes an unmanned aircraft system, according to the Colorado General Assembly's official bill page. A drone operator who threatens or uses a drone to obstruct, impair, or hinder an officer or responder acting in their official capacity commits a class 2 misdemeanor. The law includes a safe harbor: a drone operator who gets permission from the responding law enforcement agency or coordinating entity, stays in communication with it during the flight, and immediately follows its instructions is not subject to the offense.

Using a drone to scout or hunt wildlife in Colorado

Colorado Parks and Wildlife's hunting regulations directly address drones. Under 2 CCR 406-0, Chapter W-0, Article IV, Regulation 004(C), "it shall be unlawful to use a drone to look for, scout, or detect wildlife as an aid in the hunting or taking of wildlife," according to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife regulations, approved by the Parks and Wildlife Commission on January 10, 2024. The regulation defines a drone broadly as any unmanned or remotely guided contrivance designed for flight, and it applies to pre-hunt scouting, not just live use during the hunt itself; flying a drone one day to locate an elk herd and hunting on foot the next day on that information can still violate the rule. Penalties scale by species, ranging from smaller fines for common game up to a maximum of $125,000 for trophy species such as elk, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, and moose.

The federal shoot-down rule: destroying a drone is a felony

A persistent misconception is that a landowner may legally shoot down a drone hovering over their own property. Federal law says otherwise. The FAA classifies drones as aircraft within the National Airspace System, which means 18 U.S.C. Section 32, the federal Aircraft Sabotage Act, applies to them: willfully damaging, destroying, or disabling a drone is a federal felony carrying up to 20 years in prison, regardless of whose property the drone is over, because the federal government, not the landowner, controls the airspace. The widely publicized 2015 "Kentucky Drone Slayer" case, in which a Hillview, Kentucky, man shot down a neighbor's drone and had state criminal-mischief charges dismissed by a local judge, is often cited as evidence that shooting down a drone is low-risk. It is not. The drone owner's related federal civil suit, Boggs v. Meredith, was dismissed in 2017 for lack of federal jurisdiction without any court ever ruling on whether the shoot-down itself was lawful, and Colorado has not passed a law authorizing a landowner to disable a drone over their own property.

Colorado also had a real-world reminder of how unsettled drone law can feel in practice. Beginning in December 2019, residents across rural northeastern Colorado and neighboring Nebraska reported large drones flying in grid formations at night for weeks, prompting a multi-agency federal and state investigation. The Colorado Department of Public Safety ultimately concluded most sightings had mundane explanations, including planets, commercial aircraft, and hobbyist drones misidentified in the dark, and no new Colorado drone statute followed the episode.