Colorado Landlord-Tenant Laws

Verified July 9, 2026

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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, eff. 2026-11-01). Statute text quoted from the colorado.public.law and FindLaw mirrors (official: false), with §§ 38-12-105 and 38-12-701 each read on the mirror twice via independent fetches that matched. Checked 2026-07-09.