Colorado PFAS Regulations: Product Bans, Water Limits, and Penalties

Colorado’s PFAS regulations ban intentionally added per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in a growing list of consumer products on a phased schedule running through 2028, restrict PFAS-containing firefighting foam, set enforceable drinking water limits that take effect April 1, 2027, and require manufacturers to disclose and label products that still contain these chemicals. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) enforces the rules, and there is no small-business exemption from the reporting duties.

Product Bans by Effective Date

The product bans target items with “intentionally added” PFAS. Trace contamination from manufacturing is treated differently from products designed to contain the chemicals. Selling, distributing, or manufacturing a covered product in Colorado after its effective date is a violation.

Already Banned

Since January 1, 2024: carpets and rugs, fabric treatments, food packaging, juvenile products, and oil and gas products.¹

Since January 1, 2025: cosmetics, indoor textile furnishings, and indoor upholstered furniture. Outdoor apparel designed for severe wet conditions is not banned yet but must carry a visible label reading “made with PFAS chemicals,” including in online listings.¹

Since January 1, 2026: cleaning products (except floor maintenance products used in hospitals or medical settings), cookware, dental floss, menstruation products, ski wax, and artificial turf installation on any property in the state. The cookware ban replaced an earlier bilingual disclosure-and-QR-code requirement that ran from 2024 through 2025.²

Coming Next

January 1, 2027: outdoor textile furnishings and outdoor upholstered furniture.

January 1, 2028: floor maintenance products used in hospital or medical settings, textile articles as a broad catch-all, outdoor apparel for severe wet conditions (moving from disclosure to full ban), and food equipment intended primarily for commercial use.¹

Firefighting Foam Rules

The sale, manufacture, and distribution of aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) containing PFAS has been restricted statewide since August 2, 2021. Using PFAS foam for fire training or system testing is banned outright.³

Carve-outs exist for fuel storage and distribution facilities, refineries, chemical plants, and the Eisenhower tunnels, where federal law or specific fire suppression needs override the state ban. Federally designated public-use airports had a temporary testing exemption that closed on January 1, 2023.³

Fire departments still holding AFFF stockpiles face disposal costs, since PFAS foam cannot be poured into drains or sent to standard landfills without contamination risk. Fire departments are eligible for CDPHE’s PFAS Grant Program, which can offset collection and disposal expenses.

Drinking Water Limits

Colorado adopted its PFAS drinking water rule under Regulation 11 in August 2025. The compliance date is April 1, 2027. The rule covers six PFAS chemicals and mirrors the federal maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) that EPA finalized in April 2024 for PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, PFNA, and HFPO-DA, along with a hazard index for mixtures of PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA, and PFBS. The individual MCLs for PFHxS, PFNA, and HFPO-DA sit at 10 parts per trillion.⁴⁵

Public water systems must conduct initial monitoring, report results to CDPHE, and either install treatment infrastructure or find alternative sources if they exceed the MCLs. Smaller systems without existing treatment capacity have the steepest climb to the 2027 deadline.

Manufacturer Disclosure and Reporting

Companies that manufacture, sell, or distribute products containing intentionally added PFAS must submit reports to CDPHE stating whether the chemicals were intentionally added, why, and at what concentration.⁶ Consumer-facing labels are also required for products still legally sold with PFAS during phase-in periods.

Outdoor apparel for severe wet conditions is the current example. Until the full ban lands in 2028, these products need a visible, legible “made with PFAS chemicals” label on the item and in any online listing.¹

Marketing language is regulated too. During the cookware disclosure period, manufacturers could not claim a product was “free of any PFAS chemicals” unless no individual PFAS chemical had been intentionally added.¹ There is no small-business or low-volume exemption from these reporting and disclosure obligations, and the parallel federal EPA reporting rule under the Toxic Substances Control Act also contains no small-business carve-out.

Exemptions

The bans are narrower than they look, but the exemptions are narrower still. Where federal regulations require PFAS use, Colorado’s rules step aside. That covers certain FAA-mandated aviation materials and FDA-regulated medical devices such as some catheters and implants. The firefighting foam carve-outs listed above apply for the same reason: federal preemption or the absence of an adequate fluorine-free alternative.

The phased timeline functions as a built-in transition period, not an exemption. Hospital floor maintenance products get until 2028, two years past the general cleaning product ban, but the deadline is hard. Companies planning to keep selling in Colorado should be reformulating now.

Enforcement and Penalties

CDPHE has primary enforcement authority, with the state attorney general available for civil action. The department can audit records, inspect facilities, and demand compliance documentation from any business selling covered products in Colorado.

Administrative responses include cease-and-desist orders that require immediate corrective steps. Civil enforcement can bring financial penalties, mandatory product recalls, and court orders barring further sales. Knowing misreporting or withholding of PFAS information draws the steepest fines and closer ongoing scrutiny.

Private litigation adds to the exposure. Colorado residents and communities have sued manufacturers and military facilities over AFFF contamination under product liability and toxic tort theories, and those cases proceed independently of state enforcement.

Grants for Compliance

CDPHE runs a PFAS Grant Program that helps eligible entities pay for testing, treatment, and cleanup. Eligible applicants include governmental agencies, tribes, public water systems, fire departments, nonprofit organizations, wastewater treatment works, and nonprofit educational institutions.⁷

Funding categories cover emergency mitigation (point-of-use treatment, filtration media replacement, temporary treatment where levels exceed EPA MCLs), infrastructure (reverse osmosis, ion exchange, granular activated carbon systems, plus upstream source reduction), independent environmental studies, and standard groundwater sampling where biosolids have been applied. Grants operate on cost-reimbursement, so recipients pay upfront and submit for reimbursement.⁷

For water systems staring down the April 2027 compliance date, applying early matters. Treatment infrastructure takes time to design and build, and the grant money is a cost-reimbursement pipeline, not a check that arrives before the work starts.

1
Justia Law. Colorado Revised Statutes Title 25 – 25-15-604 Prohibition on the Sale or Distribution of Certain Consumer Products That Contain Intentionally Added PFAS Chemicals
2
Colorado General Assembly. SB24-081 Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Chemicals
3
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Colorado Laws Related to Chemicals From Firefighting Foam and Other Sources
4
Federal Register. PFAS National Primary Drinking Water Regulation
5
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Rule
6
Colorado General Assembly. HB22-1345 Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Chemicals
7
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. PFAS Grant Program