Can you still non-renew a lease in Colorado?

Only with a cause named in the statute. C.R.S. 38-12-1303(1) provides that a landlord shall not serve a notice to terminate tenancy or a demand for possession or otherwise proceed with an action for unlawful detainer unless there is cause for the eviction. For a covered residential tenancy the expiration of the term is not itself a cause, because C.R.S. 13-40-104(1)(c), the holdover ground, now reaches only nonresidential property and the residential premises exempted by C.R.S. 38-12-1302(1)(a), (1)(b), (1)(d), (1)(e) and (1)(f). A landlord who wants the unit back without tenant fault must use one of the six no-fault grounds in C.R.S. 38-12-1303(3) and give at least 90 days written notice.

Is 21 days still the notice period for non-renewal in Colorado?

Not for a covered residential tenancy. HB24-1098 rewrote C.R.S. 13-40-107(1) so that the section now authorises a landlord of nonresidential real property, or of a residential premises described in C.R.S. 38-12-1302(1)(a), (1)(b), (1)(d), (1)(e) or (1)(f), to elect not to renew a fixed term tenancy. A landlord of a covered residential premises is no longer within that authorisation. Where 13-40-107 does still apply, C.R.S. 13-40-107(2) sets five tiers and 21 days is only the tier for a tenancy of one month or longer but less than six months; a tenancy of one year or longer takes at least 91 days.

Is a non-renewal an eviction in Colorado?

Under HB24-1098 it is. C.R.S. 38-12-1301(6) defines a no-fault eviction as an action brought by a landlord under article 40 of title 13 for the eviction of a tenant under the conditions described in C.R.S. 38-12-1303(3), and those conditions are the grounds a landlord uses to end a tenancy at the end of the term without tenant fault. Declining to renew a covered tenancy is therefore a no-fault eviction, governed by the eviction statute, not a routine administrative notice. Pages that still present a Colorado non-renewal as an ordinary end-of-lease letter are describing law that was superseded in 2024.

What are the exceptions to HB24-1098?

There are six, all in C.R.S. 38-12-1302(1). Part 13 does not apply to (a) a short-term rental property; (b) a dwelling unit where the owner or master tenant lives in and maintains the premises as a primary residence, or the owner lives in an adjacent property as a primary residence, where the property is a single-family home with or without an accessory dwelling unit, a duplex or a triplex and is not a multifamily property of four or more dwelling units; (c) a mobile home space leased to a home owner or under a lease-to-own or purchase-option agreement; (d) a residential premises leased under an employer-provided housing agreement as defined in C.R.S. 13-40-104(5)(a); (e) a residential tenant who has not been a tenant of the premises for at least twelve months; and (f) a residential tenant who is not known to the landlord to be a tenant of the premises. Sources that report five exceptions have merged or dropped one.

When did HB24-1098 take effect in Colorado?

HB24-1098 was approved by Governor Jared Polis in April 2024 and, because SECTION 17 of the act is a safety clause, it took effect on approval rather than after the usual post-session waiting period. The act carries no separate applicability clause tying it to leases signed after a particular date, so it reaches tenancies already running when it took effect. Confirm the exact approval date on the Colorado General Assembly bill page for HB24-1098 before relying on a specific day.

Does the 90-day Colorado notice have to state a reason?

Yes, and in two layers. C.R.S. 38-12-1303(5)(b) requires a written notice given under subsection (3) to include a statement of the legal and factual basis for the no-fault eviction, and the legal basis must be one set out in subsection (3). C.R.S. 13-40-106(1), as amended by HB24-1098, separately requires the notice to specify the grounds of the demandant's right to possession including a specific description of the alleged violation or no-fault eviction grounds, describe the premises, indicate the date and time possession is to be delivered up, and be signed. A notice that names a subsection without describing the facts satisfies neither.

What happens if a Colorado landlord serves a defective non-renewal notice?

C.R.S. 38-12-1306 makes non-compliance an affirmative defence, and it is unusually strong: if the tenant asserts it and the landlord cannot demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that the landlord complied with part 13, the court shall dismiss the eviction proceeding. Dismissal is mandatory, not discretionary. C.R.S. 38-12-1304 adds that where a landlord proceeds in violation of part 13 and the tenant loses possession without a court order, the tenant may seek the unlawful-removal relief in C.R.S. 38-12-510. C.R.S. 38-12-1305 voids any lease provision purporting to waive or modify part 13.

Can a Colorado lease waive the 90-day notice requirement?

No. C.R.S. 38-12-1305 provides that a provision of a rental agreement or other agreement that purports to authorize or effectuate a waiver or modification of any provision of part 13 is void and unenforceable. A lease clause setting a 30-day or 60-day non-renewal notice for a covered tenancy is unenforceable as to that clause. A lease may still oblige the landlord to give more than the statutory minimum, and where it does the longer period is what the landlord owes.

Does a Colorado landlord need 90 days notice to raise the rent instead?

Rent increases run on their own statute, C.R.S. 38-12-701, but part 13 closes the obvious workaround. C.R.S. 38-12-1307 provides that a landlord shall not increase a tenant's rent in a discriminatory, retaliatory or unconscionable manner to circumvent the requirements and prohibitions of part 13. A rent increase pitched to force a covered tenant out in place of a no-fault ground is squarely within that prohibition, and HB24-1098 also amended C.R.S. 38-12-701(2)(b) to bar terminating a no-written-agreement tenancy with the primary purpose of increasing rent inconsistently with that section.

What is the 45-day military exception in Colorado?

It is narrower than most summaries suggest. C.R.S. 38-12-1303(3)(c)(II) shortens the period to at least forty-five days only where the landlord is an individual on active military duty for the United States military forces, or a spouse of such an individual, and only for the ground at (3)(c), the landlord or a family member of the landlord assuming occupancy. It does not shorten the 90-day period for demolition or conversion, substantial repairs, withdrawal for sale, refusal to sign a new lease, or a history of nonpayment.

How is a Colorado non-renewal notice served?

C.R.S. 38-12-1301(8) defines proper service as service complying with C.R.S. 13-40-108, and that section was amended in both 2024 and 2025. A written notice to vacate may be served by delivering a copy to a known tenant occupying the premises, or by leaving a copy with a person or a member of the family of the tenant who is older than fifteen years of age residing on or in charge of the premises, or, where no one is on the premises after attempts at personal service at least once on two separate days, by posting a copy in a conspicuous place on the premises. The two-attempt precondition to posting was added by HB24-1098. Where the tenant has given written or actual notice of being a victim-survivor, 13-40-108(2), added by HB25-1168, requires reasonable efforts at personal service and, after three failed attempts, posting plus certified mail or a commercial courier with proof of delivery. Email and text alone are not authorised.

Does a Colorado non-renewal notice have to be in the tenant's language?

Sometimes. C.R.S. 13-40-106(3), added by HB24-1098, requires a demand or notice under C.R.S. 13-40-104 or 38-12-1303 to be written in English, Spanish, or any other language that the landlord knows, or has reason to know, is the primary language of the tenant. C.R.S. 13-40-106(2) separately requires the notice to state that a residential tenant receiving supplemental security income, social security disability insurance or Colorado Works cash assistance has a right to mediation before the landlord files an eviction complaint under C.R.S. 13-40-110.

Can a Colorado landlord non-renew a tenant who has lived there less than a year?

Yes. C.R.S. 38-12-1302(1)(e) provides that part 13 does not apply to a residential tenant who has not been a tenant of the residential premises for at least twelve months, and C.R.S. 13-40-107(1) expressly preserves the landlord's power to elect not to renew a fixed term tenancy for premises described in that paragraph. The applicable period is then the tier in C.R.S. 13-40-107(2) matching the length of the tenancy. Read the exemption carefully: it turns on how long the person has been a tenant of the premises, not on the length of the current lease document.

How many late payments trigger the history-of-nonpayment ground in Colorado?

More than two, and each one has to qualify. C.R.S. 38-12-1303(3)(f)(I) allows the ground where a tenant submits a rent payment late more than two times during the period of the rental agreement, so a third qualifying late payment is the trigger. Under (3)(f)(II) a payment counts as late only if it is submitted more than ten calendar days after the day it is due under the rental agreement and the landlord provided proper service of a written notice under C.R.S. 13-40-104(1)(d). Under (3)(f)(III) the ground does not apply where the rent was paid within the cure period in C.R.S. 13-40-104(1)(d).

Does Denver or Boulder add its own non-renewal notice period?

Neither does. Denver’s own legally-required tenant-rights notice attributes just cause and every notice period to state law; there is no Denver anti-eviction ordinance imposing local grounds, despite the claim appearing on several automatically generated legal sites. Denver’s DRMC § 27-31 requires thirty days’ written notice to all tenants, posted at each entrance and filed with the city clerk, before a building of four or more units is vacated for remodeling, demolition or a change of use, which runs alongside a § 38-12-1303 notice rather than extending it. Boulder requires the City’s right-to-counsel notification to accompany a notice under B.R.C. § 12-2-9(a)(2), which adds a document rather than time.

Does a Colorado tenant have to give notice before moving out?

It depends on the tenancy. Section 13-40-107(1) allows a tenant of any property or premises to terminate a periodic tenancy at the end of the tenancy period by serving written notice that expires at the end of that period, on the same tier table the landlord uses. Section 13-40-107(4) then provides that no written notice under subsection (1) is necessary from a tenant with a fixed-term tenancy that is, by agreement, to end at a time certain. Note the asymmetry HB24-1098 created: the old text excused notice both from and to such a tenant, and the words “or to” were removed.

Has HB24-1098 been struck down or narrowed by the courts?

We located no published Colorado appellate decision construing part 13, no injunction and no filed constitutional challenge as at the date on this page. That is a negative search finding on publicly available sources rather than a guarantee: county and district court rulings are not published in a way that a public search reaches, and the position can change. Part 13 has also survived the 2025 and 2026 legislative sessions substantially intact, with the only amendment to the part being a cross-reference correction to § 38-12-1302(1)(d) in 2025.

Can a landlord end a Colorado tenancy mid-term using a no-fault ground?

No. Five of the six no-fault grounds are expressed to allow the landlord to initiate the eviction at the end of the term of the rental agreement, and § 38-12-1303(3)(d)(II) says in terms that nothing in the withdrawal-to-sell ground may be construed to allow a landlord to initiate a no-fault eviction or otherwise terminate a rental agreement without cause before the end of the term. A no-fault ground sets a date at or after the term ends; it does not cut a fixed term short. An at-fault cause under § 38-12-1303(2) is what operates mid-term.

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Colorado forms: Notice of Non-Renewal 21-Day Month-to-Month Pay or Quit All Colorado forms

Free Colorado Notice of Non-Renewal

Colorado abolished the no-cause non-renewal. HB24-1098 created C.R.S. § 38-12-1301 to § 38-12-1307, and § 38-12-1303(1) bars a landlord from serving a notice to terminate tenancy unless there is cause. For a covered tenancy the no-fault route now runs on 90 days, not the 21 days still circulating on this search result. This generator will not produce a document until you select a cause.

Colorado Notice of Non-Renewal HB24-1098 § 38-12-1303 Free PDF

By Tenant Screening Background Check Editorial Team Authority C.R.S. § 38-12-1303 Updated 2026

Direct answer: in Colorado a landlord can no longer decline to renew a covered residential lease simply because the term is ending. C.R.S. § 38-12-1303(1) provides that a landlord shall not serve a notice to terminate tenancy or a demand for possession, or otherwise proceed with an action for unlawful detainer, unless there is cause for the eviction. Expiry of the term is not on the list of causes: HB24-1098 rewrote the holdover ground at C.R.S. § 13-40-104(1)(c) so that it now reaches only nonresidential property and the residential premises exempted by § 38-12-1302. A landlord of a covered tenancy who wants the unit back without alleging tenant fault must use one of the six no-fault grounds in § 38-12-1303(3), state its legal and factual basis in the notice, and allow the tenant at least 90 days to vacate — 45 days in the single case of an active-duty military landlord moving in under § 38-12-1303(3)(c)(II). The 21-day answer that forms sites and automated summaries still give for this query is the pre-2024 rule; it survives only for tenancies part 13 does not cover, and even there 21 days is just one of five tiers. The form below is built to the current statute: it refuses to generate without a cause, prints the cause and its citation on the face of the notice, computes the period the cause carries, and states expressly that the tenancy does not simply end at expiry.

Key takeaways

Cause is now a precondition to the notice itself, not just to the lawsuit. Section 38-12-1303(1) forbids serving a notice to terminate tenancy without cause. The defect is not cured by waiting; a causeless notice is defective from the day it is written.
In Colorado, a non-renewal is an eviction. C.R.S. § 38-12-1301(6) defines a “no-fault eviction” as an action under article 40 of title 13 brought on the conditions in § 38-12-1303(3) — and those conditions are the end-of-term grounds. Pages that treat a Colorado non-renewal as routine paperwork are describing repealed practice.
90 days is the floor for every no-fault ground. Demolition or conversion, substantial repairs, landlord or family occupancy, withdrawal for sale, refusal to sign a reasonable new lease, and a history of nonpayment each require the tenant to be allowed at least ninety days after receiving the notice. 45 days applies to one ground only — § 38-12-1303(3)(c)(II), an active-duty military landlord or spouse taking occupancy.
There are six exemptions, not five. Section 38-12-1302(1) lists short-term rentals, owner-occupied or owner-adjacent one-to-three-unit property, mobile home spaces, employer-provided housing, tenants of under twelve months, and tenants unknown to the landlord. Rankers that count five have merged the owner-occupied and owner-adjacent limbs or dropped the unknown-tenant limb.
The old 21-day rule did not vanish — it was re-aimed. HB24-1098 rewrote § 13-40-107(1) so it authorises only a landlord of nonresidential property, a landlord of an exempt residential premises, or a tenant. Its table in § 13-40-107(2) has five tiers: 91, 28, 21, 3 and 1 day. Twenty-one days is the tier for a tenancy of one month or longer but less than six months.
Non-compliance is a mandatory dismissal. Under § 38-12-1306, if the tenant raises the landlord’s failure to comply with part 13 and the landlord cannot show compliance by a preponderance of the evidence, the court shall dismiss the eviction proceeding. Section 38-12-1305 voids any lease clause purporting to waive part 13.

Generate Your Colorado Notice of Non-Renewal

Start with coverage, then cause — everything else follows from those two answers. If the tenancy is covered by part 13, the generator offers the causes C.R.S. § 38-12-1303 recognises and applies the period that cause carries. If the tenancy is one of the six exemptions in § 38-12-1302(1), it switches to the § 13-40-107(2) tier table and prints the exemption it is relying on, so the notice shows its own reasoning. It will not produce a file with no cause selected, because § 38-12-1303(1) forbids serving a notice to terminate tenancy without one. Describe the facts in your own words: § 38-12-1303(5)(b) requires a statement of the legal and factual basis, and § 13-40-106(1) requires a specific description of the no-fault eviction grounds.

1. Coverage under C.R.S. § 38-12-1302 — answer first

Is this tenancy covered by the for-cause eviction part, or exempt?

If exempt, length of the tenancy — sets the § 13-40-107(2) tier

2. Cause — required by § 38-12-1303(1)

Cause relied on for ending this tenancy

Factual basis — required by § 38-12-1303(5)(b) and § 13-40-106(1)

The landlord is an individual on active military duty for the United States military forces, or the spouse of such an individual — shortens ground (3)(c) only to 45 days

3. Dates and the statutory clock

Date this notice will be served on the tenant

Last day of the current lease term, if there is one

Date the tenant must vacate

—

Choose a cause above and enter the service date. Colorado has no single non-renewal notice period any more — the cause supplies it.

4. Tenant and premises

All tenant names, as they appear on the rental agreement

Residential premises, including unit number

City, state and ZIP

5. Landlord or authorised agent

Landlord or agent name

Landlord address for tenant correspondence

Telephone

Email (optional)

6. Service — C.R.S. § 13-40-108

How this notice is being served

Dates of the personal-service attempts, if serving by posting

7. Required statements and ground certifications

Include the mediation-rights statement required of every notice by C.R.S. § 13-40-106(2) This notice includes a demand for unpaid rent, so it carries the victim-survivor repayment-plan statement required by C.R.S. § 13-40-106(4) The landlord knows, or has reason to know, that the tenant’s primary language is not English, and a notice in that language is being provided (C.R.S. § 13-40-106(3)) Ground (3)(a): a description and timeline of the demolition or conversion, with a building permit, permit application or short-term rental licence application, accompanies this notice Ground (3)(b): the expected completion date and a general description of the works are stated, and the works are neither habitability remediation under § 38-12-503 nor retaliatory under § 38-12-509(1) Ground (3)(c): the landlord or family member will move in within three months, no substantially equivalent unit in the building is vacant and available, and the unit will not be listed for rent for ninety days after the vacate date Ground (3)(d): the premises is a single-family home, townhome, duplex, triplex or individual condominium unit, and it will not be listed for rent for ninety days after the vacate date Ground (3)(f): more than two rent payments were submitted more than ten calendar days late, each following proper service of a § 13-40-104(1)(d) notice, and none was cured within that section’s cure period Ground (3)(b) works expected to last under 180 days: the tenant is offered the first right of refusal to sign a new rental agreement with reasonable terms

Expected completion date of the works, or the date the landlord will move in — if applicable

Your notice has been generated and downloaded.