Colorado Landlord-Tenant Law for DIY Landlords (2026)

Security deposits, late fee caps, notice periods, for-cause eviction and the eviction timeline in Colorado, in plain English for landlords who manage their own rentals.

Last updated September 23, 2026

Colorado has rewritten its rental rules in almost every recent session. A deposit cap landed in 2023. For-cause eviction arrived in April 2024. A much stricter security deposit statute took effect on January 1, 2026. A lease template older than that is probably out of date.

Here is what a small landlord in Colorado has to get right, with the code section behind each rule.

Security deposits

The cap is two months' rent. On and after August 7, 2023, you cannot require a deposit worth more than two monthly rent payments under the rental agreement (C.R.S. § 38-12-102.5).

You have one month to return it. The clock runs from termination of the lease or from surrender and acceptance of the premises, whichever happens last. Your lease can set a longer window, capped at 60 days (§ 38-12-103(1)).

Send a written statement with any deduction. The statement lists the exact reasons for keeping any part of the deposit, and it goes out with the balance you owe back.

Miss the deadline and you lose everything. Failing to deliver that written statement in time works a forfeiture of all your rights to withhold any portion of the deposit (§ 38-12-103(2)).

Willful withholding costs triple. A landlord who wrongfully keeps a deposit owes treble the withheld amount plus reasonable attorney fees and court costs. The tenant has to give you seven days' written notice of intent to sue first, which is your last chance to fix it (§ 38-12-103(3)).

The 2026 rules are tighter. House Bill 25-1249 took effect January 1, 2026 and amended § 38-12-103. You cannot deduct for normal wear and tear or for damage that predates the tenancy. A tenant can request a walk-through inspection before the tenancy ends. A tenant can request your documentation (photos, inspection forms, receipts, invoices, estimates) and you have 14 days to hand it over. Carpet replacement and interior repainting have their own limits, including a rule that carpet is not treated as damaged when it has not been replaced in the previous ten years. Keeping 125 percent or more of the actual damages is presumed unreasonable, and the burden of proving actual damages sits with you in court.

Gas appliance hazards have their own clock. Once a tenant tells you in writing about a hazardous condition in a gas appliance, piping or connection, you have 72 hours (weekends and holidays excluded) to get a qualified person on it. Miss that and the tenant can move out, the lease is void, and the full deposit is due back within 72 hours. Non-return is treated as willful, at double the deposit plus attorney fees (§ 38-12-104).

No escrow account is required of you. Colorado's deposit statute does not order a private landlord to hold deposits in a separate trust or escrow account. Licensed brokers face that rule, not owners. Keeping deposits in their own account is still the sane way to prove what you held.

Late fees

Seven days, then $50 or 5 percent. You cannot charge a late fee until a rent payment is at least seven calendar days late. The fee is capped at the greater of $50 or five percent of the past-due rent (§ 38-12-105).

Tell them within 180 days. You cannot charge a late fee without having given the tenant written notice of it within 180 days after the date the rent payment was due.

The penalties bite. A violation runs $50. Fail to cure within seven days of notice and the range climbs to between $150 and $1,000 per violation, plus the tenant's costs and reasonable attorney fees.

Rent increases and rent control

Counties and cities cannot cap your rent. State law bars any local ordinance or resolution controlling rent on private residential property, with narrow carve-outs for voluntary affordable-housing agreements and deed restrictions (§ 38-12-301).

Sixty days' notice with no written lease. For a residential tenancy with no written agreement, you may increase rent only on at least 60 days' written notice. You cannot end the tenancy mainly to dodge that notice requirement (§ 38-12-701).

Entering the unit

Colorado's statutes do not set a notice period for landlord entry into a residential rental. Write one into your lease. Twenty-four hours' written notice for anything short of an emergency keeps the relationship calm and the record clean.

Ending a month-to-month tenancy

Notice length depends on how long the tenancy has run (§ 13-40-107).

One year or longer, 91 days
Six months or longer but under a year, 28 days
One month or longer but under six months, 21 days
One week or longer but under one month, or a tenancy at will, 3 days

For-cause rules can override all of this, so read the next two sections before you send anything.

When rent isn't paid

Ten days' written demand. Serve a written notice demanding payment or possession and give the tenant ten days (§ 13-40-104(1)(d)).

Five days for some small landlords. A landlord who owns five or fewer single-family rental homes can use a five-day notice, but only where the lease itself states that the ten-day period does not apply. That language has to be in the agreement before the default (§ 13-40-104(5)(b)).

For-cause eviction

Since April 19, 2024, you cannot end a covered residential tenancy without cause (§§ 38-12-1301 to 38-12-1307). Cause covers nonpayment, substantial lease violations, repeat violations after notice, property damage and nuisance conduct.

There is a second list of no-fault grounds, each needing at least 90 days' written notice. Demolition or conversion, substantial repairs, occupancy by you or a family member, sale of certain property types, the tenant's refusal of a new agreement on reasonable terms, and a history of more than two late rent payments during the term.

Several tenancies sit outside the part. Short-term rentals, owner-occupied single-family homes, duplexes and triplexes where you live on site, mobile home spaces, employer-provided housing, and any tenant who has been in the premises under twelve months (§ 38-12-1302). The part was amended again on May 22, 2025 by House Bill 25-1168.

The eviction timeline

Serve the notice. The ten-day demand for nonpayment, or the correct for-cause notice.
File. File your complaint in county court. The summons commands the tenant to appear not less than seven and not more than fourteen days from the day it was issued (§ 13-40-111).
Judgment and writ. A court cannot issue the writ of restitution until 48 hours after judgment. An officer cannot execute it against a residential tenancy until at least ten days after judgment, stretching to 30 days for tenants on SSI, SSDI or Colorado Works, with an exception for landlords owning five or fewer rental units (§ 13-40-122).

Retaliation against a tenant who raised a habitability complaint is barred (§ 38-12-509). Locking a tenant out or cutting utilities to force them out is barred too (§ 38-12-510). Use the court.

Repairs and habitability

Every Colorado residential lease carries a warranty of habitability (§§ 38-12-501 to 38-12-511). Once you have notice of an uninhabitable condition, you have 24 hours to begin remedial action where the condition materially interferes with the tenant's life, health or safety, and 72 hours for other uninhabitable conditions (§ 38-12-503(2)(b)(I)).

Notice is easy for a tenant to give. Any writing that lets you substantially know the condition exists or may exist counts, including a notice from a building inspector or a report from your own maintenance person (§ 38-12-503(3)(e)). A lease clause saying verbal notice is acceptable waives your right to written notice altogether.

Section 38-12-505 lists the conditions that make a home uninhabitable. Section 38-12-507 sets out what a tenant can do when you breach.

The short version

Deposit capped at two months' rent, returned within one month (60 days max by lease)
No deduction for normal wear and tear or pre-existing damage since January 1, 2026
Miss the written statement deadline and you forfeit the whole deposit
No late fee until rent is 7 days late, capped at the greater of $50 or 5 percent
21, 28 or 91 days' notice to end a periodic tenancy, by tenancy length
10-day written demand before filing for nonpayment, 5 days for some small landlords
For-cause eviction applies once a tenant passes 12 months
24 or 72 hours to start repairs on an uninhabitable condition

Let Taz handle the paperwork

Taz is an AI property manager for landlords who would rather not live in the code books. It tracks deposit deadlines, sends rent reminders, takes maintenance requests day and night, and keeps the records a Colorado judge would ask for. See how Taz works.

Where this guide says a state has no rule on something, that means we found no statute setting one, which is not the same as none existing. Local ordinances and court practice can add requirements. Confirm anything you plan to rely on.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Laws change, and your city or county may add rules. Talk to a Colorado attorney before acting on a specific situation. Last checked September 2026.