Your Car Was Towed in Boulder: How to Find It and Your Rights

Published 17 September 2026

Boulder Towing Company takes calls that start with a car that is not where it was left: a space on The Hill, a lot off Pearl Street, a county road shoulder. Sometimes it was stolen. More often it was towed, and the first job is finding out by whom, because that decides which rules apply.

Here is the order: who to call, how to tell a private-property impound from a police-ordered tow, what the Towing Bill of Rights requires of the carrier, the county's 72-hour rule, and how to ask the city for a hearing. No prices appear in this guide.

Inside the city, start with the Boulder Police Department's non-emergency line, 303-441-3333: dispatch can tell you whether a vehicle was towed at an officer's order or from private property, who took it and where it went. Have the plate, the make and model and where it was parked.

For a parking violation on a city street, the city's Parking & Access Services office takes calls at 303-413-7300, option 2 for illegally parked vehicles, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday; after hours and on weekends, parking questions go to the same police dispatch line.

Outside the city line - a pullout on Magnolia Road, a street in unincorporated Gunbarrel - it is the Boulder County Sheriff's Office, non-emergency 303-441-4444, which also polices Lyons, Superior and Nederland under contract. The phone call beats driving from yard to yard.

Colorado's towing rules, 4 CCR 723-6, sort nonconsensual tows into two kinds, and rule 6501 defines both. A private property impound, or PPI, is a tow from private property authorized by the property owner, split into residential and commercial with different protections. A law enforcement-ordered tow is one an officer directs, most often to clear a crash on US 36 or the Diagonal, and is billed by the hour.

A tow an officer orders is nonconsensual even if you agreed to it, unless you kept the right to call it off and pick your own carrier. That is the line between police-ordered tows and the emergency tow you call for yourself: name your own company at the scene, if you can and the car is not blocking a lane, and the tow is yours, priced by your quote.

Either way, ask the yard who authorized it: under HB24-1051 a private-property tow needs the owner's written permission, documented within 24 hours, the carrier cannot be the owner's agent, and automated or preapproved permission is prohibited.

House Bill 22-1314 took effect August 10, 2022, House Bill 24-1051 tightened it from August 7, 2024, and the statute is C.R.S. 40-10.1-405; the PUC enforces it and can suspend or revoke a carrier's permit.

The carrier must notify you within 10 days, and until then only the first 24 hours of storage may be billed. For a car towed from private property without your consent, the yard must also honor each of these:

• Release on request. Reach the car before it leaves the property and the carrier must stop and release it, with no drop fee on residential property; commercial property allows a drop charge.
• The partial-payment release. You may take the car home by paying fifteen percent of the fees, up to a cap set by statute, and signing the PUC's release form for the balance.
• Your belongings. Personal property must be released on request within 30 days of notice without paying the towing fees.
• The 24-hour notice. A residential tow needs a written notice on the windshield 24 hours ahead, with listed exceptions such as a blocked driveway, a fire zone or an officer's order; commercial property needs none.
• Photos, lighting, payment. Four photographs before the tow plus one showing the reason, or the law presumes the carrier caused any damage; lighting adequate to inspect the car before release; cash and major credit cards accepted.

A car left overnight after sliding off Magnolia Road can be removed as abandoned rather than for a violation, but not quickly: Boulder County Ordinance 2024-1 defines an abandoned vehicle on public property in unincorporated Boulder County as one left in one location for more than 72 continuous hours, and where abandonment is the only basis for removal the Sheriff's Office must make reasonable efforts to notify the owner, who gets 72 more hours to move it before a licensed towing carrier removes it at the owner's expense.

State law sets the outer definitions: C.R.S. 42-4-1802 counts a vehicle left on public property outside city limits for 48 hours or longer as abandoned, and a car not collected from an impound lot within 72 hours of notice. Inside Boulder, the city's parking page says an abandoned vehicle in the right of way is removed on report within up to 10 business days, and gives no day count for a car left on a street, so treat one that has sat for days as at risk.

If the car is off the road rather than on it, down the shoulder of Boulder Canyon or into a snowbank on Flagstaff Road, it is a recovery first; what a winch-out on Boulder Canyon or Flagstaff Road involves is the next guide.

Ask for an itemized bill before you leave. If the city ordered the tow and you believe it should not have, the City of Boulder publishes an Impound Hearing Request page for vehicles with an online form; read it for any deadline. If a private-property yard broke a rule above, the PUC's Consumer Assistance line is 303-894-2070, and HB24-1051 violations are actionable under the Colorado Consumer Protection Act.

All of that governs the tow you did not order. A tow you call for yourself is consensual: the PUC sets no rate for it, the car goes where you send it, not to a yard, and Colorado requires only that every rate and charge be disclosed first - the quote.

So the one way to be sure where your car will be tomorrow is to choose the truck yourself: when a tow from Boulder Towing Company is the one you asked for, you hear one total and an arrival window on the call, and the driver leaves the car and key where you said - no yard, no notice, no release form.