On Census numbers, the median Colorado homeowner pays $2,602 a year on a house worth $539,400, an effective property tax rate of 0.48 percent, and county averages stretch from 0.17 percent in Jackson County to 0.61 percent in Adams County. The Colorado property tax calculator below covers all 64 counties: it multiplies your home’s value by the county’s typical effective rate (median tax paid divided by median home value) then sets your figure beside what the median owner there pays. Enter actual value, meaning market value, as printed on your Notice of Valuation or a realistic sale price, not the assessed value.
One House, Two Assessment Rates: Schools and Local Government
Since tax year 2025, Colorado assesses a home twice. The county assessor sets one actual value, then converts it into two assessed values: one that school district mill levies apply to, and a second that every other taxing authority (county, city, and special districts) uses. That split is the detail most online Colorado calculators skip, and several still quote the old single 6.7 percent residential rate for 2026.
Colorado Property Tax Calculator (2027)
Select one of all 64 Colorado counties, including Denver and Broomfield, key in what the house would sell for, and get a yearly and monthly figure at that county's typical effective rate, next to the local median bill and median home value. Built on US Census Bureau American Community Survey 2024 5-year estimates.
This is an estimate: your figure times the county's effective rate, which is the Census median of taxes paid over median home value (ACS 2024 5-year). A real Colorado bill applies 7.05 percent to actual value for school mills and 6.8 percent to actual value less 10 percent (up to $70,000) for local mills in tax year 2026, then multiplies by the combined mill levies of your tax area. Seniors 65 and older with 10 years of ownership and occupancy, veterans rated 100 percent disabled, and Gold Star spouses can exempt half of the first $200,000 of actual value. Check the figures with your county treasurer, and protest a value to your county assessor by June 8 in a reappraisal year.
Senate Bill 24-233 and the special session’s House Bill 24B-1001, signed September 4, 2024, set the current schedule. For tax year 2025, the rates were 7.05 percent for schools and 6.25 percent for local government. For tax year 2026, whose bills arrive in January 2027, the school rate stays at 7.05 percent and the local rate becomes 6.8 percent, applied after subtracting 10 percent of actual value, capped at $70,000.
Running the 2026 Formula on a Real Number
Take a home with an actual value of $600,000. The school assessed value is $600,000 times 7.05 percent, or $42,300. For the local side, 10 percent ($60,000) comes off first, and $540,000 times 6.8 percent gives $36,720. Last year’s formula would have produced $37,500 on the local side, so a house at this value gets a slightly smaller local base in 2026 even though its actual value did not change.
That is not true at every price. The $70,000 cap means the subtraction stops growing at $700,000, and above roughly $865,000 the higher 6.8 percent rate outruns it. A $1,000,000 home gets a local assessed value of $63,240 for 2026 against $62,500 for 2025, while its school base is $70,500. Owners in Pitkin, Summit, Routt, or Eagle counties, where median values top $839,000, should not assume the new formula helps them.
Mill levies turn those assessed values into dollars. A mill is one thousandth of a dollar, so on the $600,000 house every school mill costs $42.30 and every local mill costs $36.72.
Who Sets the Mills, and the Limit on Local Revenue Growth
Each year county commissioners, city councils, school boards, and special district boards set the revenue they need; dividing it by the assessed value inside their boundaries gives the levy, and the county treasurer collects for all of them. All of the money stays in the county, and none of it funds state services.
House Bill 24B-1001 also put a ceiling on growth. Non-school local governments are limited to their prior qualified property tax revenue increased by 5.25 percent a year, and school district revenue is tied to the state school finance formula. School districts cannot waive that limit with a local vote; waivers require statewide approval.
Effective Rates by County, From Adams to Jackson
With two assessed values and dozens of district combinations, the fairest comparison is the Census effective rate. On the ACS 2024 five year estimates, Adams County is highest at 0.61 percent, followed by Broomfield at 0.60 percent, Kiowa at 0.58 percent, Phillips at 0.56 percent, and Douglas at 0.55 percent. Jackson County, in North Park, is lowest at 0.17 percent, with Gilpin and Las Animas at 0.23 percent.
Mountain resort counties show why rate and bill diverge. Pitkin’s rate is only 0.36 percent, yet its median bill of $4,074 is the largest in the state, on a median home value of $1,139,100. Broomfield ($4,007), Boulder ($3,998), and Douglas ($3,947) follow. The statewide 0.48 percent runs above the 0.39 percent county midpoint because most of the populous Denver metro counties carry higher rates than the rural West Slope.
Worked examples from the calculator’s data:
- Denver, $600,000 home: 0.45 percent gives $2,700 a year, or $225 a month, which is $51 below Denver’s $2,751 median bill.
- Jefferson County, $650,000 home: 0.48 percent gives $3,120 a year, or $260 a month, $38 above the county’s $3,082 median.
- El Paso County, $450,000 home: 0.41 percent gives $1,845 a year, or $153.75 a month, $29 under the $1,874 median.
A $400,000 house would run about $2,440 a year at the Adams rate and $680 at the Jackson rate, more than a three to one gap.
Each rate is the ratio of two Census medians for owner occupied homes, pooled from 2020 through 2024 survey answers. It already reflects typical exemptions but predates the split rates and the $70,000 subtraction, so treat it as a county benchmark.
Odd Year Reappraisals and the June 8 Protest
Colorado revalues real property every odd numbered year. Values for tax years 2025 and 2026 rest on sales from January 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024, and the 2027 reappraisal will use a data period ending June 30, 2026.
The assessor mails a Notice of Valuation by May 1. If the actual value or the classification looks wrong, file a protest with the assessor, postmarked or delivered by June 8. The assessor mails a Notice of Determination by the last working day of June, or by August 15 in counties that choose the extended schedule. Next comes the county board of equalization, by July 15 on the standard calendar or September 15 on the extended one. After the county board rules, you have 30 days to take the case to the Board of Assessment Appeals, district court, or binding arbitration.
Exemptions: Seniors, Disabled Veterans, and Gold Star Spouses
Senior homestead exemption. Under Article X, Section 3.5 of the Colorado Constitution, an owner who was 65 or older before January 1 and has owned and lived in the home as a primary residence for at least 10 consecutive years can exempt 50 percent of the first $200,000 of actual value, a $100,000 reduction at most. Apply with the county assessor by July 15.
Veterans with a disability. A veteran with a 100 percent permanent service connected rating from the VA, honorably discharged, gets the same exemption on the home owned and occupied as of January 1. Referendum E created it in 2006. The filing deadline is July 1.
Gold Star spouses. Amendment E, approved by voters in November 2022, extended the same exemption to surviving spouses of service members who died in the line of duty or of a service connected cause, also with a July 1 deadline.
The recent change. Senate Bill 24-111 let seniors who had qualified for the exemption in 2020 or later carry a reduced valuation to a new primary residence starting in tax year 2025, through the qualified-senior primary residence classification. Senate Bill 26-116, signed June 2, 2026, ends that classification for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2027. Tax year 2026 (bills payable in 2027) is the last year it applies.
Paying in February and June, and the November Lien Sale
Colorado bills in arrears: tax for one year is mailed shortly after the following January 1. A bill over $25 can be paid in full by April 30 or in two equal halves, the first due the last day of February and the second by June 15. Bills of $25 or less are due in full April 30.
Unpaid taxes go to the county treasurer’s annual tax lien sale, usually held in the fall. An investor who buys the lien earns interest set each September 1 at nine points over the federal discount rate, which is 13 percent for liens sold in 2026. The owner can redeem by paying taxes, interest, and costs; an unredeemed lien can end in a treasurer’s deed, which recent law routes through a public auction.
What 2027 Bills Carry, and When This Data Refreshes
The January 2027 bill is the first to apply the 6.8 percent local rate and the $70,000 subtraction, on the same 2025 values as last year’s bill, and the final one that can carry the senior portability classification. In May 2027 the next reappraisal notices arrive, starting a new June 8 protest window. Our county figures track the Census five year series (2024 release today) and get replaced each December when a newer one lands.
Sources: tables B25103 and B25077 of the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates (US Census Bureau); Colorado Division of Property Taxation, Understanding Property Taxes in Colorado (2025); Colorado General Assembly, SB24-233, HB24B-1001, SB24-111, and SB26-116; Boulder, Summit, and Adams county assessor and treasurer pages. Questions about an actual value go to the county assessor; questions about the amount due go to the county treasurer.