What Counts as Night Driving in Colorado?

Yes, you can drive at night on a Colorado learner’s permit. No curfew restricts when you drive, only what you log.

Colorado requires 10 night hours as part of a 50-hour total, and you’ve got a full 12 months on your permit to get there. That’s one of the longer hold periods in the country. It gives you more time, but it also means you’re required to hold the permit for a full year regardless of how fast you finish your hours.

What counts as night in Colorado

Night is sunset to sunrise. Colorado uses no fixed clock time.

Denver’s sunset swings nearly 4 hours across the year: from around 4:30 PM in late December to about 8:30 PM in late June. That’s a four-hour difference. A 7 PM drive in January is an hour-plus into night. That same drive in July is still daylight.

Colorado’s elevation affects how quickly darkness actually feels dark. The thinner air at altitude means the sky dims faster after sunset than at sea level. Practically speaking, sunset is still the legal standard, but the transition from twilight to full dark can happen in under 20 minutes in the mountains.

If you’re in Fort Collins, Colorado Springs, or Denver, sunset times are close enough to use Denver as a reference. Mountain towns like Vail or Telluride follow the same solar calendar but can feel darker sooner due to surrounding peaks blocking low-angle sun.

Permit curfews in Colorado

None. Colorado doesn’t restrict permit holder driving hours. You can drive at any time of day or night with a qualifying 21+ supervisor. No hour-of-day restriction applies until you upgrade to an intermediate license.

Once you have an intermediate license, restrictions kick in: no driving between midnight and 5 AM for the first 12 months. But that’s post-permit. During the permit phase, you’re unrestricted.

Getting your night hours done

12 months on a permit gives you the longest runway of any state in this group. Don’t waste it.

The families who finish the permit period with only 3–4 night hours are always the ones who treated daytime driving as a habit and night driving as a special occasion. Flip that. Two night drives per week, even if they’re 20–25 minutes each, lands you at 10 night hours in about 8–10 weeks.

Denver’s December-to-February window is your fastest path. Sunset at 4:30 PM in late December means a drive starting at 5 PM is already night. Get home by 6 PM. Nobody stays up late, and you’ve logged a valid night hour.

Summer is the other end of the spectrum. Sunset at 8:30 PM in June means your “after dinner” drive doesn’t start counting until nearly 9 PM. If you’re planning to get night hours done in July, plan accordingly.

Colorado permit requirements

Requirement	Details
Total supervised hours	50
Night hours required	10
Day hours	40
Night definition	Sunset to sunrise
Minimum permit age	15
Permit hold period	12 months
Supervisor minimum age	21
Driver’s ed required	Yes (within 6 months of applying)

Practical tips for Colorado

Driver’s ed timing matters. Colorado requires driver’s ed, and there’s a deadline attached: you must complete it within 6 months of applying for your permit. This isn’t just an at-some-point requirement. If you apply for a permit in September and haven’t finished driver’s ed by March, you’re out of compliance. Enroll early. Don’t let the class slip to the back half of your permit period.

12 months is long, but it’s not flexible. Colorado’s 12-month hold is one of the longest mandatory hold periods in the country. You can finish all 50 hours in 2 months and still wait 10 more months before you can test. That’s the rule. Plan your 16th birthday relative to when you get the permit. If you get it at 15 and need a year, you’re testing at 16. That’s the minimum anyway, but the math matters.

Mountain driving counts. If you’re in the Denver metro and take a permit drive up I-70 toward the mountains, those hours count. Highway driving at elevation in variable conditions is valuable practice. A supervised drive on I-70 in winter covers highway merging, lane changes, and weather driving in one session. Worth doing before you’re doing it alone.

Intermediate curfew is midnight–5 AM. You don’t hit the curfew during the permit phase, but it kicks in immediately after your road test. Knowing it’s coming means you can plan. Any driving you want to do between midnight and 5 AM without restriction has to happen before you upgrade.

The 12-month permit window means you’ve got time to be thoughtful about how you distribute night hours. Sunset shifts 4 hours across the year in Denver. Tagging hours correctly on paper requires knowing the exact time each day. Moda reads your GPS and logs it automatically.

For full Colorado permit requirements, see our Colorado permit hours guide.

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