Colorado is Quietly Changing Its Bigamy Law—Here's What That Actually Means

The Bottom Line

For decades, moving in with a new partner before your divorce was finalized technically made you a criminal under Colorado's bigamy laws. This bill strikes "cohabitation" from the state's bigamy statute, updating an old legal quirk to match modern reality. It means you can't be hit with a misdemeanor just for sharing an address while legally married to someone else.

What This Bill Actually Does

Under existing statute (C.R.S. 18-6-201), bigamy isn't just about secretly having two wives or two husbands legally documented on paper. The way the law has been written for decades, any married person who "cohabits in this state with another person" was technically committing a Class 2 misdemeanor. To be precise, the state defined cohabitation in this context as living together "under the representation of being married." In practice, this meant that if you were separated from your spouse, navigating a drawn-out divorce, and moved in with a new partner while holding yourselves out as a committed couple, you were technically violating criminal law.

Senate Bill 26-013 is essentially a cleanup measure to align Colorado's criminal code with modern relationship dynamics and common sense. The legislation does exactly two things: First, it surgically removes the words "or cohabits" from the elements that define the crime of bigamy. Second, it outright repeals Section 18-6-203, which held the specific legal definition of cohabitation for this offense. By stripping these elements away, the legislature ensures that the state's definition of bigamy is strictly tethered to formal, legal actions.

While law enforcement hasn't exactly been deploying tactical teams to run sting operations on separated couples, archaic laws left on the books can still cause real-world complications. Historically, this cohabitation clause existed to prevent individuals from exploiting Colorado's common-law marriage rules to essentially take a second spouse without the official paperwork. But today, the primary effect of keeping it in the criminal code was just giving hostile spouses legal leverage during nasty divorce proceedings. Going forward, bigamy will only apply if someone actually attempts to sign a new marriage license or enter a formal civil union with a second person.

What It Means for You

Let's talk about what this means for your everyday life, especially if you or someone close to you is navigating a messy breakup or a complicated family transition. Divorces in Colorado can take months, and sometimes years, to fully finalize through the court system. In the meantime, life goes on. People start dating, sign new apartment leases, buy homes, and eventually move in with new partners. Until now, that completely normal life progression existed in a bizarre legal gray area where a vindictive ex could theoretically accuse you of a crime.

This law removes a piece of statutory leverage that could be weaponized during high-conflict family law disputes or custody battles. If you are legally separated but still technically waiting on the judge to sign your final divorce decree, you no longer have to worry that sharing an address with a new partner could trigger a Class 2 misdemeanor charge. It provides immense peace of mind that your living situation won't be used against you as a criminal matter in court. Furthermore, since Colorado is one of the few states that still recognizes common-law marriage, this clarifies the boundary between simply moving on with your life and committing a crime.

The new rules are slated to take effect in August 2026 (specifically, 12:01 a.m. on the day following the expiration of the 90-day period after the legislative session adjourns, provided nobody files a referendum petition to stop it). To be perfectly clear, this doesn't legalize formal polyamory or change the state's strict marriage documentation requirements. You still absolutely cannot sign a new marriage license, file joint taxes as a married couple with a new person, or enter a legally recognized civil union until your previous one is officially dissolved. But if you're simply sharing a roof, splitting the utility bills, and moving forward, the state will officially stay out of your living room.

What It Means for Your Business

For most standard commercial enterprises—say, a roofing company or a neighborhood restaurant—this change won't disrupt your daily operations or require an overhaul of your business practices. However, if you are a residential landlord, a property manager, or a real estate developer dealing in multifamily housing, this provides a subtle but important layer of clarity regarding the people signing your leases.

Under the old law, property managers dealing with tenants who were separated from a spouse but living with a new partner were technically housing individuals who were violating a state criminal statute. While nobody was actively prosecuting landlords or voiding leases over this, standard rental agreements almost universally include "lawful use" clauses that require tenants to abide by all state and local laws. Removing "cohabitation" from the bigamy statute eliminates a weird, archaic legal liability for your business. You can confidently lease to modern, mixed, or transitioning households without wondering if their living arrangement technically breaches the fine print of your rental contracts.

If you run a business handling professional services—particularly family law, divorce representation, estate planning, or human resources—this removes a fringe complication from your daily work. Attorneys will no longer have to carefully advise their separating clients to maintain entirely separate residences out of an abundance of caution against bigamy claims. For human resources directors, this also slightly simplifies the administration of domestic partnership benefits. Your employees can establish cohabitation and request workplace benefits for their domestic partners without any lingering concerns about violating state criminal codes while a prior, drawn-out divorce is still pending in the court system.

Follow the Money

When it comes to the state budget and the impact on your tax dollars, this bill is about as cheap as legislation can possibly be. According to the nonpartisan Legislative Council Staff, Senate Bill 26-013 will have absolutely zero impact on state expenditures, require no new state staffing, and transfer no public funds. Why? Because the criminal justice system simply wasn't locking people up for this. The state's fiscal note highlights that across a recent three-year period (from Fiscal Year 2022-23 to 2024-25), only a single person was sentenced and convicted for this specific offense statewide.

Because prosecutions were virtually nonexistent in the real world, removing the cohabitation element won't save local governments any meaningful money on county jail beds, nor will it drastically reduce the crushing workloads for local district attorneys or public defenders. The state might see a microscopic drop in revenue from the loss of criminal fines and court fees associated with that rare, one-off conviction, but nothing that will register on the state's multi-billion dollar balance sheet. In short, it is a policy cleanup that costs taxpayers absolutely nothing to implement.

Where This Bill Stands

SB26-013 is currently Signed Into Law. The latest official action came on 03/26/2026: Governor Signed.

That means the legislative process is complete and the bill is now law. The remaining questions are about implementation timing and how agencies, businesses, or local governments respond.