Colorado Landlord-Tenant Laws
Local rent regulation in Colorado
Colorado law bars cities and counties from controlling rent on existing private residential housing, but allows voluntary rent-limiting agreements and, since 2021, inclusionary land-use rules that restrict rents on newly built or redeveloped units when the developer is given alternatives.
Cited to C.R.S. § 38-12-301 (official Colorado Legal Resources portal) , HB21-1117 (official bill record — local land-use authority over rents on newly constructed units, § 29-20-104(1)(e.5)) · Verified August 12, 2026 · Full Colorado rent-increase rules →
Colorado landlord-tenant laws by topic
Colorado security deposits
Colorado caps security deposits at two months' rent — a rule in force since August 2023 — and layers on one of the country's most tenant-protective return regimes after a major 2025 rewrite took effect on January 1, 2026: deposits are due back within 30 days (a lease can stretch that to 60 at most), any retention needs a written statement of the exact reasons limited to four permitted causes, and tenants can demand the landlord's photos, receipts, invoices, and estimates within 14 days.
Colorado rent increase notice
Colorado limits how often rent can rise — no more than once in any 12-month period of consecutive occupancy, no matter what kind of lease the tenant has or whether anything is in writing — but sets no limit on how much.
Colorado late fees
Colorado has one of the strictest late-fee statutes in the country: no fee at all unless rent is at least seven calendar days late, and the fee is capped at the greater of $50 or 5% of the past-due amount — note it keys to the amount actually unpaid, not the full month's rent.
Colorado entry notice
Colorado has no general statute requiring advance notice before a landlord enters a rental home — notice periods, purposes, and timing are governed by the lease, so a well-drafted entry clause matters more here than in most states.
Colorado eviction process
In Colorado, a landlord who wants to evict a residential tenant for unpaid rent must first serve a written 10-day demand, and since April 2024 must also have a legal reason ("cause") to evict or to refuse to renew most leases.
Colorado application & screening fees
Colorado regulates rental application fees by cost rather than by a dollar cap: the whole fee must go to the landlord's actual or average cost of processing the application, and no application fee may be charged at all when the applicant supplies a portable tenant screening report.
Colorado deposit interest
Colorado requires no interest on a residential security deposit, and the legislature's recent work on the subject makes that a current answer rather than a stale one.
Colorado habitability & repairs
Colorado deems every residential landlord to warrant that the premises are fit for human habitation when the tenancy starts and will stay fit throughout it, and backs that promise with the most elaborate remedy scheme in the country.
Colorado lease termination
Since April 2024 a Colorado landlord of a covered home cannot end a tenancy or decline to renew it without cause, so there is no no-cause notice period for most residential landlords to give.
Colorado mobile home park laws
Colorado's Mobile Home Park Act, C.R.S. sections 38-12-200.1 to 38-12-224, covers communities of five or more mobile homes where the resident owns the home and rents the lot: lot rent may be raised only once in any twelve months and only on sixty days' written notice, a tenancy may be ended only for the grounds the act lists, closing a park or changing its use takes twelve months' notice plus relocation costs or a buyout paid by the park owner, and home owners get a one-hundred-twenty-day opportunity to buy the park when the owner moves to sell.
Colorado Fair Market Rents (FY 2027) — HUD's benchmark rents for every Colorado metro area and county.
Changes since last full verification
The Verified date above (July 9, 2026) marks the last time every figure on this page was verified end-to-end against official state sources. The changes below were published since then, each verified against the official source it names (what these dates mean).
- Correction, August 24, 2026 — A spent pending-legislation flag was removed from Colorado's mobile home park record: House Bill 26-1145 (mobile home park water quality), signed May 4, 2026, took effect August 12, 2026, so it is not a coming change — it is the law in force, and the record already states the rent-increase consequence of a missed water-quality deadline under C.R.S. § 38-12-204. The page's pending-measures banner no longer lists it.
- Updated, August 23, 2026 — Colorado's late-fee record now states the fee prohibitions of C.R.S. § 6-1-737(4), in force since January 1, 2026 (HB25-1090, ch. 94, read on the official 2026 Colorado Revised Statutes): no late or overdue fee on any charge that is not rent; no payment-processing fee unless a cost-free way to pay is reasonably accessible; no fee or charge that rises more than two percent over a lease of one year or less (utilities excepted); no fees for property taxes, common-area maintenance, goods or services not provided, or the landlord's own obligations; utility charges limited to the provider's bill except under § 38-12-801(3)(a)(VI) or the ratio-utility-billing rules of § 6-1-737(4.5) (HB26-1013, effective March 26, 2026). The § 38-12-105 caps (greater of $50 or 5%, seven days late, once per payment) are unchanged.
- Correction, August 18, 2026 — Submetering rule for California and Colorado restated: neither state requires a park to meter lots individually, but both regulate how a separately metered or submetered utility may be billed (California Civil Code §§ 798.40–798.41; Colorado § 38-12-212.4), so the cell now reads as a state rule rather than an absence, matching how the same question is answered for the other states.
- Correction, August 12, 2026 — The seller-rent-back exception to the two-month security-deposit cap (SB26-054) operates on and after January 1, 2027; the act itself took effect August 12, 2026. The record previously reported the exception as effective November 1, 2026. Corrected against the chaptered session law and the official bill page.
How this record was verified: Colorado's official CRS text is published via LexisNexis without stable deep links (GA-class sourcing situation), so verification pairs official session-law sources with current code mirrors: the HB25-1249 enrolled act read verbatim from the official leg.colorado.gov PDF (full text extracted) and re-confirmed against the official bill-page summary (independent reads matched on the 30-day return deadline, wrongful-retention standard, 125% presumption, walk-through, and carpet/paint rules, and confirmed NO deposit-cap change); official bill pages read for SB23-184 (deposit cap), SB21-173 (late fees), HB21-1121 (rent-increase notice/frequency), HB23-1068 (pet deposits), HB23-1115 (rent-control repeal — died), HB25-1092 and HB26-1047 (died), and SB26-054 (PCOA exemption; dates corrected 2026-08-12 against the chaptered session law: act effective 2026-08-12, exemption operative on and after 2027-01-01). Statute text quoted from the colorado.public.law and FindLaw mirrors (official: false), with §§ 38-12-105 and 38-12-701 each read twice on the mirror, with both reads matching. Checked 2026-07-09. Supplement 2026-08-23: C.R.S. § 6-1-737 read in full on the official 2026 C.R.S. Title 6 HTML edition published by the Office of Legislative Legal Services (olls.info), cross-checked against the HB25-1090 signed act (leg.colorado.gov PDF, § 2 and § 4 read) — the § 6-1-737(4) fee prohibitions added to late_fees; the eviction citation now references the 2026 C.R.S. download page, the 2025 page having been withdrawn.