Colorado Minimum Wage: Tipped Pay, Overtime, and Exemptions

The Colorado minimum wage is $15.16 per hour in 2026, and four local jurisdictions require higher rates than that. The figure adjusts every January under Article XVIII, Section 15 of the state constitution, which ties the wage to the Consumer Price Index used for Colorado and locks in a floor so the rate never drops even if the cost of living does.¹² The legislature doesn’t have to vote on the increase; it happens automatically.³

Cities and Counties With Higher Rates

A 2019 state law let cities and counties set their own minimum wages above the state rate. Four have done so for 2026:⁴

Denver: $19.29 per hour, with a $16.27 cash wage for tipped workers⁵
Edgewater: $18.17 per hour, with a $13.50 tipped cash wage
City of Boulder: $16.82 per hour, with a $13.80 tipped cash wage
Unincorporated Boulder County: $16.82 per hour, with a $13.80 tipped cash wage

When state and local rates overlap, the higher one applies. A Denver employer can’t pay $15.16 and call it compliant.

What Tipped Workers Are Owed

Statewide, employers can take a tip credit of up to $3.02 per hour, setting the minimum cash wage for tipped workers at $12.14. Local rates work the same way but with different cash floors, like Denver’s $16.27.⁴

The employer carries the risk here. If a worker’s cash wage plus actual tips doesn’t reach the full minimum wage for the workweek, the employer has to pay the difference.⁶ A slow shift with almost no tips still has to net at least $15.16 per hour (or the applicable local rate) once you average across the week.

Tips belong to the worker. An employer who diverts tips toward business costs, or shares them with managers who don’t customarily receive tips, is violating the Colorado Wage Act.⁶ Keep your own daily tip records if you have any doubt your employer is doing the gap math correctly.

Overtime

Colorado’s overtime rules go beyond federal law. Under the COMPS Order, a non-exempt employee earns time-and-a-half whenever they work more than 40 hours in a workweek, more than 12 hours in a single workday, or more than 12 consecutive hours regardless of when the day started. Whichever calculation produces the highest pay is the one that applies.⁷

The daily trigger matters. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act only pays overtime after 40 hours in a week.⁸ Under Colorado law, a worker who puts in three 13-hour days and then takes the rest of the week off still earns overtime for three hours, even though total weekly hours never reached 40. Employers can’t average hours across multiple weeks to avoid paying it.⁷

Workers Under 18

Colorado lets employers pay non-emancipated workers under 18 as little as 85% of the full minimum wage.⁹ At the 2026 state rate, that comes to about $12.89 per hour. Emancipated minors, meaning those who are self-supporting, married and living away from parents, or dependent on their earnings for their well-being, get the full adult minimum wage.

The reduced rate is optional. Anything below 85% is a violation and triggers the full rate. The $3.02 tip credit can still apply to minors when the employer meets all the other tip credit requirements. In Denver, the youth rate is narrower: only employers in a city-certified youth employment program can pay it.

Who Isn’t Covered

The COMPS Order exempts certain workers from minimum wage and overtime protections. The main groups are salaried executives who genuinely supervise others, salaried administrative employees who exercise independent judgment on significant business matters, salaried professionals in fields requiring advanced knowledge or creative talent, outside salespeople who spend at least 80% of their time selling away from the employer’s location, and owners with at least 20% equity who actively manage the business.⁷ Each salaried exemption also requires a minimum salary set in the state’s PAY CALC Order, which updates annually.

Licensed taxi drivers are also exempt. Casual work like occasional babysitting generally falls outside the order because the worker doesn’t meet the definition of an employee.

If You’ve Been Underpaid

Start with a written demand to your employer for the wages owed. Under the Colorado Wage Act, if the employer doesn’t pay within 14 days of receiving that demand, you can recover the greater of double the unpaid wages or $1,000 on top of the wages themselves.¹⁰ If the failure was willful, the penalty rises to the greater of triple the unpaid wages or $3,000. And willfulness is easier to prove than you might expect: if the employer has had a wage judgment entered against it in the last five years for the same type of violation, the new failure counts as willful automatically.

You don’t have to wait out the 14 days before filing a complaint. You can send the demand and file at the same time.¹¹ But the demand is what starts the clock on the penalty provisions, so skipping it leaves money on the table.

File the complaint with the Colorado Division of Labor Standards and Statistics through its online portal or by mail, fax, or email.¹²¹¹ Attach copies (not originals) of pay stubs, timesheets, work schedules, or written pay communications, and put your name and the employer’s name on every page. If your only issue is unpaid wages, you don’t have to complete the entire form, just the pages that fit your situation. The Division notifies the employer, investigates, and can order back wages plus penalties. Cases can take several months.

Deadline to File

You have two years from when the wages were due to file a claim under the Colorado Wage Act, and three years if the violation was willful.¹³ The federal FLSA uses the same two-and-three-year framework for federal claims.¹⁴ Every pay period that slips past the two-year mark is money you can no longer recover, so gather your records and file early.

Retaliation Is Illegal

Workers who complain about wage violations are protected under the Colorado Wage Act. That protection covers formal complaints to the Division, verbal complaints to a supervisor, and giving evidence in someone else’s wage dispute.¹⁵ You don’t have to be right about the violation. As long as you reasonably believed a wage or hour law was being broken, the complaint is protected.

Retaliation covers more than firing. Demotions, pay cuts, unfavorable schedule changes, write-ups, and hostile treatment can all be unlawful if they respond to a protected complaint. The law also reaches employers who merely suspect an employee might file, and it protects co-workers associated with the complaining employee. Threats to report someone to immigration authorities in response to a wage complaint are specifically recognized as retaliatory conduct.¹⁵

1
Colorado General Assembly. Colorado Constitution Article XVIII Section 15
2
Colorado General Assembly. Overview of Minimum Wage Laws
3
Colorado Department of Labor & Employment. Labor Standards and Statistics
4
Colorado Department of Labor & Employment. INFO 19 – Local Minimum Wages
5
City and County of Denver. Citywide Minimum Wage
6
Legal Information Institute. 7 CCR 1103-1-6 – Deductions, Credits, and Charges
7
Colorado Department of Labor & Employment. COMPS Order 39, 7 CCR 1103-1
8
U.S. Department of Labor. Overtime Pay
9
Colorado Department of Labor & Employment. INFO 22 – Employment of Minors in Colorado
10
Justia Law. Colorado Code Title 8 – Section 8-4-109
11
Colorado Department of Labor & Employment. Worker Complaints and Employer Responses
12
Colorado Division of Labor Standards and Statistics. Online Claims Portal
13
Colorado Department of Labor & Employment. Colorado Wage Act
14
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 U.S. Code 255 – Statute of Limitations
15
Colorado Department of Labor & Employment. INFO 5A – Retaliation Protections