Colorado Lodging Tax Rates, Exemptions, and Filing Rules

The Colorado lodging tax is not a single tax but a stack: the 2.9% state sales tax plus any county lodging tax, local marketing district tax, and home-rule city tax that applies where the property sits. In popular mountain towns and resort areas, the combined bill on a short-term stay routinely tops 10%. The rules cover hotels, motels, vacation rentals, bed and breakfasts, campgrounds, and essentially any other paid temporary accommodation, and they apply until a guest crosses the 30-day threshold with a written agreement.

What You Have to Charge Tax On

Colorado sales tax applies to the charge for any room or sleeping unit at a hotel, motel, inn, guest house, guest ranch, mobile home, or similar accommodation whenever a guest pays for its use.¹ Short-term vacation rentals booked through Airbnb, VRBO, and similar platforms fall under the same rules.² The type of property is not what matters; what matters is that a guest is paying for a temporary place to stay.

Tax applies to the whole amount charged for the room, including line items broken out separately on the bill. A cleaning fee is part of the price of the accommodation and is taxable. Charges for pools, spas, or fitness facilities bundled with the room are also taxable unless the amenity is genuinely optional and available to the general public without renting a room.¹ In practice, most add-on fees a guest cannot avoid paying end up being taxable.

The 30-Day Exemption

A stay becomes exempt from sales tax when the guest is a permanent resident of the accommodation and has a written agreement for occupancy of at least 30 consecutive days.³ The written agreement can be any enforceable contract; a formal lease is not required. The line exists to separate short-term travelers from people who are essentially renting a home, since ordinary residential leases are not subject to sales tax.¹

Other Exempt Guests

Certain government entities acting in their official capacity and charitable organizations conducting their regular charitable activities can also rent lodging tax-free.¹ Ask for a valid exemption certificate before dropping tax from the bill. Collecting tax and issuing a refund later is far easier than explaining a missing charge during an audit.

How the Rates Stack Up

A single night’s stay can trigger several separate levies. Figuring out which ones apply requires knowing exactly where the property sits on the map.

State Sales Tax

The baseline is Colorado’s 2.9% state sales tax, which applies to lodging statewide under C.R.S. § 39-26-104.⁴ Every taxable lodging transaction includes this rate before any local additions.

County Lodging Tax

Counties can layer their own lodging tax on top under C.R.S. § 30-11-107.5. The statutory cap has historically been 2%, subject to voter approval.⁵ HB 25-1247, passed in 2026, raises that ceiling to 6% effective August 12, 2026, though individual counties still need voter approval to go higher.⁶ Revenue is typically earmarked for tourism promotion, infrastructure, and mitigating visitor impact.

Local Marketing District Tax

Some areas have formed local marketing districts that can impose an additional lodging tax under C.R.S. § 29-25-112. The district’s board sets the rate, and the Department of Revenue collects and administers it.⁷ These funds go toward local tourism marketing and destination promotion.

Home-Rule City Taxes

Colorado has dozens of home-rule cities — Denver, Aspen, Vail, and Breckenridge among them — that impose and administer their own sales and lodging taxes independently of the state. A lodging provider in one of these cities may need to register directly with the city, file separate returns on the city’s schedule, and follow a different set of exemptions. The Department of Revenue’s DR 1002 publication lists every taxing jurisdiction and its current rate, updated on January 1 and July 1 each year.⁸ Combined, the total tax on a short-term stay easily exceeds 10% in many resort and metro areas.

Registering to Collect

Before collecting any tax, a lodging provider must open a sales tax account with the Department of Revenue by submitting Form CR 0100.⁹ The form asks for the business’s legal name, federal employer identification number (or the owner’s Social Security number for a sole proprietorship), the property’s physical address, and valid photo identification for each owner or principal officer.¹⁰

The license fee is modest: $16 to start between January and June of 2026, or $12 to start between July and December. A refundable $50 deposit is also required, which the state returns automatically once you have collected and remitted $50 in state sales tax.¹⁰

Many municipalities require a separate short-term rental permit on top of the state license, often with their own application fees and sometimes a property inspection. Fees vary widely; Colorado Springs charges roughly $125, and Fort Collins charges $500.¹¹¹² Check with your city or county clerk before listing a property.

When Airbnb or VRBO Handles the Tax

If you list exclusively through a platform like Airbnb or VRBO, that platform may already be collecting and remitting tax on your behalf. Under Colorado law, a marketplace facilitator carries the same tax obligations as a retailer for sales made through its platform and must collect and remit all applicable state and state-administered local sales taxes.¹³

A host is relieved of collection obligations if the facilitator has contractually agreed to collect the tax, or if the host received a good-faith certification that the facilitator is registered and will handle collection.¹⁴ Two catches. First, if you still hold an active sales tax license, you may need to file a zero-dollar return even when the platform collected everything; failing to file at all can trigger penalties regardless of whether you owe anything. Hosts who make every sale through a marketplace facilitator and have no independent bookings should ask the Department of Revenue whether they can cancel their registration. Second, marketplace facilitators collect state and state-administered local taxes but do not always cover self-collecting home-rule cities. In those jurisdictions, the host may still owe a separate local lodging tax the platform never touched. Verify with each home-rule city where your property is located.

Filing and Remittance

Lodging providers file returns and remit payment through the state’s Revenue Online portal, with a separate return for each business location.¹⁵ How often you file depends on how much sales tax you collect each month:¹⁶

$15 or less per month: file annually, due January 20.
Under $600 per month: file quarterly, due April 20, July 20, October 20, and January 20.
$600 or more per month: file monthly, due the 20th of the following month.

If the 20th falls on a weekend or holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day. Businesses paying more than $75,000 per year in state sales tax must remit by electronic funds transfer.¹⁶

One change worth flagging for 2026: the vendor fee is gone. In prior years, retailers who filed on time could keep a small percentage of collected tax as a “vendor fee” to offset the cost of collections. Starting January 1, 2026, under HB25B-1005, vendors must remit 100% of collected state sales tax. This applies to all retailers, lodging providers included.

Penalties, Interest, and Records

Missing a filing deadline or underpaying triggers a penalty equal to the greater of $15 or 10% of the unpaid tax, plus an additional 0.5% for each month the balance remains outstanding, up to a combined maximum of 18%.¹⁷ Interest accrues daily on top from the original due date until the tax is paid.

For 2026, the interest rate is either 8% or 11% depending on how quickly you resolve the balance. The discounted 8% rate applies if you pay before the state issues a notice of deficiency, or within 30 days after one is issued. Miss that window and the full 11% rate applies.¹⁷ Interest does not cap and continues to compound whether or not you set up a payment plan, so balances grow faster than most people expect once both penalty and interest are running.

Colorado requires lodging providers to keep books, records, invoices, and supporting documents for a minimum of three years.¹⁸ At a minimum, retain records of every booking (dates, nightly rate, total charge including fees), the tax collected on each transaction, copies of filed returns, and any exemption certificates. The Department of Revenue can audit any retailer collecting sales tax; self-collecting home-rule cities may run their own audits separately.¹⁹ If you later discover you collected more than you owed — most commonly on a stay that ultimately qualified for the 30-day exemption, or after a jurisdiction boundary change — you can file Form DR 0137 to request a refund, with supporting documentation attached to the claim.²⁰

1
Department of Revenue – Taxation. Sales and Use Tax Topics: Rooms and Accommodations
2
Office of the State Auditor. Long-Term Lodging Exemption Evaluation Summary
3
Justia. Colorado Code 39-26-704 – Miscellaneous Sales Tax Exemptions – Hotel Residents
4
Department of Revenue – Taxation. Sales Tax Rate Changes
5
Justia. Colorado Code 30-11-107.5 – Lodging Tax
6
Colorado General Assembly. HB25-1247 County Lodging Tax Expansion
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Justia. Colorado Code 29-25-112 – Power to Levy Tax – Repeal
8
Department of Revenue – Taxation. DR 1002 – Colorado Sales/Use Tax Rates Publication
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Department of Revenue – Taxation. CR 0100 – Colorado Sales Tax and Withholding Account Application
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Colorado Department of Revenue. CR 0100 Colorado Sales Tax and Withholding Account Application
11
City of Colorado Springs. Short Term Rentals
12
City of Fort Collins. Short-Term Rentals
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Department of Revenue – Taxation. Marketplace Facilitators
14
Justia. Colorado Code 39-26-105 – Definitions
15
Department of Revenue – Taxation. File Sales Tax on Revenue Online
16
Department of Revenue – Taxation. Sales Tax Filing Information
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Department of Revenue – Taxation. Tax Topics: Penalties and Interest
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Department of Revenue – Taxation. Sales Tax Guide
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Department of Revenue – Taxation. Sales and Use Tax Frequently Asked Questions
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Department of Revenue – Taxation. Sellers/Retailers Claim For Refund