Colorado Paid Family and Medical Leave: Benefits, Claims, and Job Protection

Colorado’s Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance program, known as FAMLI, gives most workers in the state up to 12 weeks of partially paid, job-protected leave each year for serious health and family reasons, with up to four additional weeks available for pregnancy or childbirth complications. The maximum weekly benefit for the 2025–2026 period is $1,381.45. The program is funded by a payroll premium split between employers and employees, and Colorado paid family and medical leave covers nearly every private-sector worker in the state automatically.

Who Qualifies

Almost every private-sector employer in Colorado is covered. A business falls under the law if it employed at least one person during 20 or more calendar workweeks in the current or prior year, or if it paid at least $1,500 in wages during any quarter of the prior year.¹

To draw benefits, you need to have earned at least $2,500 in wages subject to FAMLI premiums during your base period, generally the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters.² Wages from more than one Colorado job count toward that total, so you don’t need a single long-term employer to qualify.

Self-employed workers and independent contractors aren’t automatically enrolled, but they can opt in through the FAMLI Division.³ Once you opt in, you’re committed to paying premiums for three years.⁴

Local governments are the only employers that can opt out of FAMLI entirely, and only by a formal vote of the governing body.⁵ If your local-government employer has opted out, you can still opt in individually, though your employer won’t pay its share.

Reasons You Can Take Leave

Colorado law recognizes five categories of qualifying leave:⁶

Your own serious health condition, including surgery recovery, chronic illness flare-ups, and mental health crises that keep you from working.
Caring for a family member with a serious health condition, such as a parent recovering from surgery or a child with a serious illness.
Bonding with a new child during the first year after a birth, adoption, or foster placement.
Safe leave for survivors of domestic violence, stalking, or sexual assault to seek medical care, counseling, legal help, or relocation.
Military exigency leave to handle needs that arise when a family member is called to active-duty deployment.

The definition of “family member” is broad. It includes children (biological, adopted, or foster), parents, spouses, domestic partners, grandparents, and siblings. It also covers anyone with whom you share a bond equivalent to a family relationship, even without a legal or blood connection.

How Much You’ll Be Paid

Your weekly benefit is based on how your average weekly wage compares with the statewide average, which is $1,534.94 for the 2025–2026 period. The first $767.47 of your weekly wage (50% of the state average) is replaced at 90%. Anything above that is replaced at 50%.⁷ The weekly benefit is capped at $1,381.45.⁸

A worker earning $800 per week would get roughly $707 per week in benefits: 90% of the first $767.47, plus 50% of the remaining $32.53. A worker earning $2,000 per week would get about $1,307. The FAMLI Division runs an online calculator that estimates your specific amount.⁹

If you work more than one job and take leave from only one of them, your benefit is calculated using wages from that job alone. You can choose whether to take leave from one job or several.

What You Pay In

FAMLI is funded by a payroll premium set each year by the Division director. For 2026, the total premium is 0.88% of wages, split evenly: 0.44% from the employer and 0.44% from the employee. The statute caps the premium at 1.2% of wages no matter what future adjustments bring.⁷

Premiums apply only to wages up to the federal Social Security wage cap, $184,500 for 2026.⁹ Earnings above that aren’t subject to FAMLI deductions.

Employers with fewer than 10 employees don’t have to pay the employer share. They still withhold and remit the employee’s half, but the other half is waived.⁷ Some small employers choose to pay both halves voluntarily.

How to File a Claim

All claims go through the My FAMLI+ online portal.¹⁰ You create an account, verify your identity, and then move through five steps: personal details, employment information, leave details, payment setup, and a final review.

Every claim type requires your Social Security Number or ITIN, your employer’s contact information, and the dates of your requested leave.¹¹ What else you need depends on why you’re taking leave.

Medical Leave

For leave related to a serious health condition — your own or a family member’s — a U.S.-licensed health care provider must complete and sign a Serious Health Condition Form. Providers registered in My FAMLI+ can certify online; otherwise you’ll download the form from your claim and have the provider fill it out.¹²

Bonding Leave

You’ll upload documentation of the qualifying event: a birth certificate, adoption papers, or foster placement records.

Safe Leave

Safe leave does not require police reports, court records, or other outside proof. The program asks only for your good-faith legal attestation that you are a survivor of domestic violence, stalking, or sexual assault.¹³ The legislature designed it that way so that documentation requirements wouldn’t become a barrier.

Military Exigency

Have copies of the family member’s active-duty orders or other official military communications ready.

Notice to Your Employer

When leave is foreseeable, such as a scheduled surgery or an expected due date, give your employer at least 30 days’ notice. When it isn’t foreseeable, notify your employer as soon as you reasonably can.

Ways to Take Leave

You can take FAMLI leave in three patterns: continuously as one unbroken stretch, on a reduced work schedule for a set period, or intermittently as unpredictable absences come up.¹⁴

Intermittent leave fits conditions that flare without warning, like debilitating migraines or recurring treatment side effects. If a doctor instructs you to drop from 40 hours to 20 on a predictable basis, that should be filed as a reduced work schedule instead. The categories matter because intermittent leave requires you to log your missed hours with the Division each week, and no payment is issued until you’ve logged at least eight hours of missed work.¹⁴

When Payments Arrive

There’s no waiting period before FAMLI leave takes effect.¹⁵ Your first payment, though, isn’t instant. For continuous leave, the first payment is issued after you’ve missed one full week of work. It’s then authorized the next day and usually arrives within 48 hours by direct deposit or state-issued debit card.¹⁶

After that, continuous-leave payments go out automatically each week on the same day. For intermittent or reduced-schedule leave, you’ll get a weekly certification task every Sunday asking you to report your hours. Submit it by Sunday evening and payment may land by Tuesday; otherwise plan on about 48 hours from submission.¹⁶

If you filed in advance of your leave actually starting, log back into My FAMLI+ to confirm your leave has begun. The Division can’t authorize payments until you complete that step.

Job Protection

FAMLI provides its own job protection, separate from federal FMLA. Your employer must restore you to the same position or an equivalent one when you return. Retaliation for requesting or taking leave is prohibited, and your health benefits must continue during leave on the same terms as if you were still working.¹⁷

Job protection kicks in once you’ve been employed for 180 days (about six months) before leave begins. Workers with shorter tenure can still collect FAMLI benefits, but they don’t have a statutory right to their specific job back. Worth knowing before you file if you’re newer to a position.

FAMLI and Federal FMLA

If your leave qualifies under both FAMLI and the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, the two run concurrently. They do not stack into 24 weeks. FMLA provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave at employers with 50 or more employees. FAMLI reaches more workers because benefits don’t depend on employer size, though its job protection carries that 180-day employment requirement.

When you request FMLA leave, your employer must tell you that paid FAMLI benefits may also apply and explain how to apply for them.

If Your Claim Is Denied

You have 30 days from a denial to file an appeal, which can be extended to 60 days for good cause. The Division assigns a hearing officer, and both you and your employer have the right to participate. Further review in the courts is available if the appeal doesn’t go your way.

Denials often come from incomplete medical certification, insufficient wage history, or a reason that doesn’t fit one of the five qualifying categories. Before appealing, check whether a missing document is the real problem; resubmitting a corrected Serious Health Condition Form can resolve things faster than a formal appeal.

If Your Employer Uses a Private Plan

Employers can apply to use an approved private plan instead of the state program, but the private plan must meet or exceed what the state offers in every respect: the same duration, at least the same wage replacement, no extra conditions, and no higher employee deductions.¹⁸

If your employer runs a private plan, your benefits and rights should be the same as the state program or better. Job protection applies either way.

1
FindLaw. Colorado Code 8-13.3-503 – Definitions
2
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Employer FAQs
3
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Opting in to FAMLI
4
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Opting in to FAMLI – What Self-Employed Individuals and Employees of Colorado’s Local Governments Need to Know
5
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Local Governments
6
FindLaw. Colorado Code 8-13.3-504 – Eligibility
7
Colorado Division of Insurance. Colorado Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance Act
8
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Rules and Guidance
9
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Premium and Benefits Calculator
10
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). My FAMLI+
11
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). My FAMLI+ User Guide – Filing a Claim
12
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Medical Leave to Care for Yourself
13
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Safe Leave (Domestic Violence)
14
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). 5 Tips for Using Intermittent Leave
15
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Individuals and Families FAQs
16
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). What to Expect From Your First FAMLI Payment
17
FindLaw. Colorado Code 8-13.3-509 – Leave and Employment Protection
18
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Private Plans