What happens if a med spa in Colorado operates without the right license?
Enforcement · part of The Practice Perimeter
Short answer
Penalties apply — practicing, or even offering to practice, medicine without an active license carries statutory penalties, and fees for unlawful care are uncollectible; an unlicensed owner keeping an office to treat patients is deemed to be practicing.
⚠️ and the adjacent ground is a felony. Dispensing or injecting an anabolic steroid is unprofessional conduct “unless the anabolic steroid is dispensed from a pharmacy prescription drug outlet pursuant to a prescription order or is dispensed by any practitioner in the course of the practitioner’s professional practice” — and any person who violates that provision commits a class 5 FELONY, with a second or subsequent violation A CLASS 3 FELONY. Sourcing outside a pharmacy is the exposure.
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 12-240-121(1)(p); § 12-240-135(3) · verified Sep 2, 2026 · regulatory monitoring, not legal advice
Related Colorado rules
Practicing, or offering or attempting to practice, medicine without an active license carries penalties under § 12-20-407(1)(a). Separately, presenting another’s credentials as one’s own, giving false or forged evidence to the board, practicing medicine “under a false or assumed name”, or falsely impersonating another licensee is A CLASS 6 FELONY. Note that offering counts — the advertisement can be the act.
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 12-240-135(1)–(2) · verified Sep 2, 2026
⚠️ and the unlawful practitioner cannot sue for the fee. “no action may be maintained against an individual who has been the recipient of services constituting the unlawful practice of medicine … for the breach of a contract involving the unlawful practice of medicine… or the recovery of compensation for services rendered under such a contract.” A patient treated unlawfully owes nothing, and the debt is unenforceable.
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 12-240-135(4) · verified Sep 2, 2026
How other states answer this
- Alabama
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- California
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- District of Columbia
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
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- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Missouri
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- New Hampshire
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- New Mexico
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- North Carolina
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- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
Related Colorado questions
- Can Colorado shut down a med spa that is operating unlawfully?
- What can a practitioner in Colorado be disciplined for?
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← All Colorado rules and changes · MedSpaRadar is regulatory monitoring and reference: it summarizes public laws, regulations and agency actions and links each to its source. It is not legal, medical, or compliance advice, and using it creates no attorney-client relationship. A summary can lag its source or leave out detail, and monitoring itself can be interrupted — so an absence of alerts means nothing reached you, not that nothing happened. Read the cited source, check its effective date, and confirm any change to your operations or clinical practice with qualified health-law counsel and your medical director. Legislative data via LegiScan (CC BY 4.0).