Free Colorado Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Colorado residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to current Colorado law — the two-month deposit maximum, the thirty-day return that replaced “one month” on January 1, and the two bold-faced habitability statements every Colorado lease must carry.

Colorado C.R.S. 38-12 30-Day Return Free PDF 2026 Edition

A Colorado residential lease agreement is the written contract between a landlord and a residential tenant, governed not by a uniform act but by C.R.S. Title 38, Article 12 together with the forcible entry and detainer statutes at C.R.S. Title 13, Article 40. That distinction matters more than it sounds. Colorado never adopted the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, so nothing carries over from a neighbouring uniform-act state, and the rules instead sit in separate parts of the code that the legislature has rewritten repeatedly since 2019. Two of those rewrites took effect on January 1, 2026: House Bill 25-1249 replaced the old one-month deposit deadline in C.R.S. 38-12-103 with a hard thirty days and barred deductions for damage that preexisted the tenancy, and House Bill 25-1090 created C.R.S. 6-1-737, which forbids a landlord to charge a tenant for common area maintenance, property taxes, or anything the landlord needed to do anyway. A lease copied from a template last updated in 2025 is already wrong on both.

Complete the fields below to generate a Colorado residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, including the utility allocations, the deposit return period, the demand track and each disclosure you check, and the generated lease cites the controlling Colorado section at each point. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening — and note that Colorado regulates the screening stage too, from application fees to the portable tenant screening report. Pair the signed lease with a Colorado move-in / move-out checklist, because the preexisting-damage bar is only as strong as the record of what the unit looked like on day one.

Colorado recognizes the usual range of residential arrangements. A fixed-term lease runs for a stated period; a periodic tenancy renews each period until one side gives notice; a room or roommate agreement covers one room in an occupied dwelling; a sublease passes the tenant’s interest onward while leaving the original tenant liable; and a lease-to-own agreement adds a purchase option that sits outside the residential rules.

Two categories fall outside this form. A commercial lease is not governed by the residential provisions of Article 12 at all. And a mobile home space in a mobile home park runs under its own statutory scheme in Part 2 of the same article, which is why C.R.S. 38-12-1302(1)(c) expressly carves it out of the cause-for-eviction rules and C.R.S. 38-12-103(12) carves it out of the walk-through and carpet provisions.

One drafting note that surprises people: Colorado does not require a residential lease to be in writing at all, except that C.R.S. 38-10-108 makes a lease for a term longer than one year void unless it is in writing and signed by the party granting it. But an oral Colorado tenancy is a bad idea for a different reason — several of the duties in Article 12 attach to a written rental agreement. The mandatory habitability statements, the landlord identification and the source-of-income statement all live in provisions that speak to what a written agreement must contain, and C.R.S. 38-12-701(2)(a) gives a tenancy with no written agreement a sixty-day rent-increase notice period that a written lease does not carry. Writing it down is how both sides know which rules they are under.

No more than two monthly rent payments. C.R.S. 38-12-102.5 provides that on and after August 7, 2023 a landlord shall not require a tenant to submit a security deposit in an amount that exceeds the amount of two monthly rent payments under the rental agreement.

The definition does the heavy lifting. C.R.S. 38-12-102 defines a security deposit as any advance or deposit of money, regardless of its denomination, the primary function of which is to secure the performance of a rental agreement. Relabelling therefore does not help: a refundable pet deposit, a move-in deposit, a key deposit or a “damage bond” is a security deposit if its job is to secure performance, and all of it counts toward the same two-month ceiling.

One live piece of misinformation deserves naming. A widely repeated claim in 2026 is that the maximum dropped to one month’s rent. It did not. That reduction appeared in early drafts of House Bill 25-1249 and was dropped before enactment; the enrolled act amends only C.R.S. 38-12-102 and C.R.S. 38-12-103, and leaves C.R.S. 38-12-102.5 untouched. The two-month maximum stands. Our Colorado security deposit laws guide tracks the section as it changes.

Thirty days — not one month. C.R.S. 38-12-103(1), as rewritten by House Bill 25-1249 with effect from January 1, 2026, requires the landlord to return the full security deposit within thirty days after the termination of the lease or the surrender of the premises, whichever occurs last, unless the lease specifies a longer period, which may not exceed sixty days.

The wording change is not cosmetic. “One month” floated with the calendar; thirty days does not, and a February move-out now carries a shorter absolute deadline than it used to. Where actual cause exists to retain part of the deposit, the landlord must deliver a written statement listing the exact reasons, together with the balance owed and any relevant documentation, and may satisfy that by sending it to the tenant’s last-known address or to an e-mail address the landlord has actual notice of.

What may be deducted narrowed at the same time. A deposit may not be retained for normal wear and tear or for any damage or defective condition that preexisted the tenancy, and the permitted grounds are now an exhaustive list: unpaid rent, unpaid utility charges, repair work or cleaning the tenant contracted for, other lawful charges listed in the lease, and necessary repair work for damage beyond normal wear and tear that did not preexist the tenancy. Build the itemization with our Colorado security deposit itemization form.

Treble damages, attorney fees and court costs — and the standard is easier for the tenant to meet than it used to be. C.R.S. 38-12-103(3) previously attached that liability to wilful retention. It now attaches to wrongful retention, which removes the state-of-mind argument that used to decide these cases.

C.R.S. 38-12-103(2.5) then spells out four ways retention is deemed wrongful: the landlord fails to deliver the written statement and required documentation on time; the statement does not list the exact reasons; the balance is not returned within the period; or the retention is in bad faith. And C.R.S. 38-12-103(3.5) defines bad faith to include retaining an amount that unreasonably exceeds actual damages, retaining without actual cause, retaining an amount the landlord knew or should have known exceeded actual damages, or retaining for an unlawful, retaliatory or discriminatory purpose — with a presumption that the amount unreasonably exceeds actual damages once it reaches one hundred twenty-five percent of them.

Two procedural points balance it. The tenant must give the landlord a demand and notice of intention to file legal proceedings at least seven days before filing, and may sue for treble damages only if the landlord still fails to return the deposit within those seven days. And a landlord who acted in good faith, complied with every requirement, and is simply found to have retained slightly too much is liable only for the excess and court costs.

Two more sub-rules are worth knowing before a move-out inspection. Either party may request a walk-through inspection under C.R.S. 38-12-103(1.5), in person or by an interactive telecommunication-assisted walk-through, to identify in writing any damage beyond normal wear and tear that did not preexist the tenancy — and at a tenant’s request the landlord must provide one, at a mutually convenient time, after the tenant has had the chance to remove furniture. And under C.R.S. 38-12-103(11) a landlord has no actual cause to charge for replacing carpet throughout the unit unless the damage is substantial and irreparable, and may not call carpet substantially and irreparably damaged at all if it has not been replaced with new carpet within the preceding ten years.

The greater of fifty dollars or five percent of the past-due rent payment, under C.R.S. 38-12-105 — and nothing at all until rent is at least seven calendar days late.

The section goes further than a cap. The fee must be disclosed in the rental agreement and charged by written notice within one hundred eighty days after the due date. A landlord may not impose more than one late fee for a single late payment, may not charge interest on a late fee, and may not deduct a late fee from a rent payment — that last one matters, because deducting the fee first turns a paid month into a partly unpaid one and manufactures a nonpayment case. Most importantly, a landlord may not remove a tenant or terminate a tenancy because a late fee is unpaid, and a tenant may raise a violation of the section as a defence in an eviction. See Colorado late fee laws.

The deepest page currently ranking for this query states in one section that “in Colorado, there is no limit on late fees” and then states the cap correctly two screens further down. Both sentences are on the same page. The cap is real.

This is the newest layer and no ranking page carries it. C.R.S. 6-1-737(4), created by House Bill 25-1090 and in force from January 1, 2026, provides that a landlord or the landlord’s agent shall not require a tenant to pay a fee, charge or amount:

• for the maintenance of common areas — the provision that ends the common-area-maintenance pass-through in residential leases;
• related to the payment of property taxes;
• for a good, service or property necessary to comply with the landlord’s own obligations, expressly including the duty to provide a habitable living environment under C.R.S. 38-12-503;
• for a good, service or property not actually provided;
• related to the processing of rent where no means of payment that is cost-free to the tenant is reasonably accessible;
• related to the overdue payment of something that is not rent;
• that increases by more than two percent over a rental agreement of one year or less, other than the cost of utilities supplied to the unit;
• above the amount the utility provider charged for service to the unit, except within the narrow markup allowance discussed below;
• above the total price of the good, service or property for which it is charged.

The markup allowance is in C.R.S. 38-12-801(3)(a)(VI): where the landlord is billed by a third party for a service and passes it through, any markup or fee may not exceed two percent of the amount the landlord was billed, or a total of ten dollars per month — but not both. The same act amended that subparagraph so that any fee violating C.R.S. 6-1-737 is itself a prohibited lease clause, which means a rent-processing fee or a common-area charge written into a Colorado lease is now void twice over.

The section also carries a pricing rule. The advertised price must be the total price disclosed as a single number, more prominently than any other pricing information, with mandatory and unavoidable amounts folded in; the actual cost a utility provider charges for service to the unit is the one thing a landlord need not fold in. A violation is a deceptive, unfair and unconscionable act, and an aggrieved tenant may send a written demand for reimbursement and actual damages, with interest running if the landlord does not make full tender within fourteen days.

C.R.S. 38-12-503 deems the landlord to warrant that the residential premises is fit for human habitation at the inception of the tenant’s occupancy and will be maintained that way throughout. The warranty is breached where the premises is uninhabitable or a condition materially interferes with the tenant’s life, health or safety, the landlord has notice, and the landlord fails to act in time.

The clocks are specific. After receiving notice the landlord must contact the tenant within twenty-four hours — seventy-two hours where an environmental public health event makes the premises inaccessible — must commence remedial action within twenty-four hours where the condition materially interferes with life, health or safety and within seventy-two hours for any other uninhabitable condition, and must give at least twenty-four hours’ written notice before entering to do the work. Serious conditions can also trigger a duty to provide comparable housing or a hotel room at no cost.

C.R.S. 38-12-505(1) supplies the content. A premises is uninhabitable where there is mold associated with dampness that materially interferes with health or safety, or where it substantially lacks any of a long list of characteristics: functioning appliances; waterproofing and weather protection with unbroken windows and doors; working plumbing or gas facilities; running water and adequate hot water connected to approved sewage disposal; working heat; electrical lighting with proper wiring; common areas kept reasonably clean and free from debris and pests; appropriate extermination; adequate exterior garbage receptacles; sound floors, stairways, elevators and railings; locks on exterior doors and security devices on openable windows; compliance with applicable building, housing and health codes; compliance with the applicable environmental cleanup standards; remediation of any methamphetamine laboratory; compliance with the radon requirements; and compliance with the portable cooling device subsection. Anything otherwise unfit for human habitation qualifies too. Our Colorado habitability laws guide works through the list, and the Colorado warranty of habitability disclosure puts the required statements on their own page.

One provision inside that list is easy to miss and increasingly litigated. C.R.S. 38-12-505(7) provides that a landlord shall not prohibit or restrict a tenant from installing or using a portable cooling device, and gives only four grounds for restricting one: it would violate building codes or state or federal law, violate the manufacturer’s written safety guidelines, damage the premises or render it uninhabitable, or exceed the electrical capacity of the premises, the unit or the circuit. A landlord who restricts on capacity grounds must prioritise a tenant who needs the device as a disability accommodation, must disclose the restriction in writing, and must either say that cooled common space will be operated during an extreme heat event or point to community cooling spaces within ten miles.

The default is that habitability is the landlord’s job and cannot be handed to the tenant. Colorado allows exactly one exception, and it is narrow. Under C.R.S. 38-12-506, for a single-family residence for which the landlord receives no governmental subsidy, the landlord and tenant may agree that the tenant performs specified repairs, maintenance, alterations or remodeling necessary to comply with C.R.S. 38-12-503 — but only where the agreement is made in good faith, is set out in a writing separate from the lease, is signed by both parties, is supported by adequate consideration, and the tenant has the requisite skills. No such agreement may cover work that would endanger the tenant’s health or safety.

That is why this form asks for the property type before it asks about maintenance: for anything other than an unsubsidised single-family home, the exception simply is not available, and a maintenance-shifting clause is ineffective however carefully it is drafted.

When the landlord does not act, C.R.S. 38-12-507 gives the tenant six routes rather than one. The tenant may terminate the lease without further liability on written notice; terminate where the condition recurs within six months of being remedied; repair and deduct after giving notice — ten days, or forty-eight hours where health or safety is at stake; sue or counterclaim for actual damages, court costs, attorney fees and in an appropriate case punitive damages; obtain injunctive relief including an order of specific performance; and raise the breach as an affirmative defence to an action for possession or for rent, without posting a bond. A dated Colorado maintenance request form is what turns a complaint into notice for these purposes.

Colorado has no general notice-to-enter statute. This is one of the places where a state without a uniform act simply lacks a rule the neighbouring states have, and the rankers are half-right when they say no notice is required. What they miss is the exception, and the consequence.

The exception is that C.R.S. 38-12-503 requires the landlord to provide the tenant with written notice at least twenty-four hours in advance of entry where the landlord is entering to inspect or remedy a condition the tenant has reported as uninhabitable, subject to an imminent-threat carve-out. That covers a large share of real-world entries, because most entries follow a repair request.

The consequence is that for every other entry, the lease is the only rule there is. That makes the entry clause load-bearing in a way it is not in Arizona or Florida, and it is why the form above makes the notice period a selectable term rather than a restatement of a statute. There is a backstop: repeated entry without notice or for trivial reasons can breach the covenant of quiet enjoyment, and C.R.S. 38-12-801(3)(a)(III) forbids a Colorado lease to waive that covenant, so a landlord cannot draft the problem away. See Colorado landlord entry laws and give notice with a Colorado notice to enter.

Yes, for a covered residential tenancy. House Bill 24-1098 took effect on April 19, 2024 and added Part 13 to Article 12. Under C.R.S. 38-12-1303 a landlord may not evict or refuse to renew without cause, which means the expiry of a fixed term is no longer, by itself, a reason a tenant has to leave.

Fault grounds are the unlawful detention grounds already in C.R.S. 13-40-104(1) — nonpayment, a substantial violation, a repeated violation after notice, nuisance or damage, and the rest. The six no-fault grounds are: demolition or conversion of the premises; substantial repairs or renovations; occupancy by the landlord or the landlord’s family; withdrawal of a single-family property for sale; the tenant’s refusal of a reasonable new rental agreement; and a history of paying rent late more than twice during the term. Each requires written notice given at least ninety days before the tenant must vacate — reduced to forty-five days for an active-duty service member in the landlord-occupancy ground — and the notice must state the legal and factual basis for it. Serve one with a Colorado notice of non-renewal.

The part everyone omits is who is not covered. C.R.S. 38-12-1302 disapplies Part 13 to a short-term rental property; to a dwelling in a single-family home with or without an accessory dwelling unit, a duplex or a triplex where the owner or master tenant lives in it or in an adjacent property as a primary residence and it is not a multifamily property of four or more units; to a mobile home space; to an employer-provided housing agreement; to a tenant who has not been a tenant of the premises for at least twelve months; and to a person not known to the landlord to be a tenant. A small owner-occupied Colorado landlord is often outside the cause requirement entirely, and a tenant in the first year of a tenancy usually is too.

If a landlord evicts in violation of Part 13 and the tenant loses possession without a court order, C.R.S. 38-12-1304 routes the tenant to the remedies in C.R.S. 38-12-510 — which are severe, as the next section explains. Our Colorado eviction notice laws guide covers the sequence.

Colorado tiers its demand periods by the kind of agreement, which no other state in this family does in quite the same way. Under C.R.S. 13-40-104(1)(d), for a residential agreement the demand for rent or possession runs ten days. For an exempt residential agreement — defined as a single-family home let by a landlord who owns five or fewer single-family rental homes and who states in the agreement that the ten-day period does not apply — it runs five days. For a nonresidential agreement or an employer-provided housing agreement it runs three days. The exemption is not automatic: a landlord who qualifies but never wrote the sentence into the lease is on the ten-day track. Use the Colorado ten-day notice to pay rent or quit or the five-day version accordingly.

The same tiering applies to a violation of a material condition or covenant of the lease other than nonpayment, so a lease-violation notice is a Colorado ten-day notice to comply in the standard residential case. A substantial violation runs under C.R.S. 13-40-107.5 instead.

The notice ladder in C.R.S. 13-40-107 runs by the length of the tenancy: at least 91 days for a tenancy of one year or longer; at least 28 days for six months or longer but less than a year; at least 21 days for one month or longer but less than six months, which is the ordinary month-to-month case; at least 3 days for one week or longer but less than one month, or a tenancy at will; and at least one day for a tenancy of less than a week.

The most common single error in Colorado coverage lives here. The deepest ranking page says a month-to-month tenancy takes twenty-eight days‘ notice, then correctly lists twenty-one days for a one-to-six-month tenancy in its own table a few paragraphs later. Twenty-one days is the month-to-month number. Serve it with a Colorado 21-day notice to termin