At the midpoint of the 2026 Colorado Legislative session, there have been over 530 bills introduced. The major themes so far this session have included: closing a structural budget gap, affordability (especially in housing, energy, and healthcare), regulatory reform, and targeted updates to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and tech-related laws.
Similar to the 2025 session, the state’s budget deficit has been a key focus for legislators. With a projected shortfall in the range of $800-$850 million for the 2026-2027 fiscal year when the session began – and with recent forecasts now indicating an even larger gap – lawmakers are avoiding new spending proposals and will remain cautious of legislation with significant fiscal notes. Affordability as a whole is a priority in housing, utilities, transportation, and healthcare across both parties, even as they differ on the best approach to mitigate the state affordability crisis. Disagreement on whether to raise revenues versus cut spending and regulations is dividing partisan efforts and complicating negotiations over how to close the gap.
This mid-session briefing seeks to provide updates on key legislation introduced so far and to highlight bills most likely to affect Colorado employers as the session continues.
Wins So Far this Session
Despite budget concerns and a crowded policy agenda, businesses have secured several important wins at the Capitol. These bills would have increased risk of litigation for employers or imposed employer-only fees, but have failed this session.
HB26-1012: Consumer Protections to Promote Fair Market Pricing
This bill would have imposed new obligations on delivery platforms and on-site sellers to disclose delivery markups compared with in-store prices and to avoid “unreasonably excessive” prices for captive consumers (such as customers at airports, hospitals, or large venues), with violations treated as unfair or deceptive trade practices under the Colorado Consumer Protection Act. This bill was postponed indefinitely in the House Judiciary committee.
HB26-1271: Alcohol Impact & Recovery Enterprises
This bill would have imposed new alcohol impact and recovery fees on alcohol manufacturers and wholesalers to fund behavioral health services in Colorado. This bill was postponed indefinitely in the House Health & Human Services committee.
This bill would have increased state taxes on alcohol and retail marijuana to finance construction and operation of the new Colorado Mental Health Institute at Aurora and long-term civil commitment facilities. This bill was postponed indefinitely in the House Health & Human Services Committee.
SB26-041: Consumer Protections Medical Care Entities
This bill would have strengthened oversight of health-care transactions by requiring parties to notify the Attorney General at least 60 days before closing on mergers, acquisitions, or management-control changes involving hospitals or other key medical-care entities. This would have given the Attorney General authority to review and block deals that may harm competition or consumer welfare and tighten disclosure and reporting obligations for these transactions. This bill was postponed indefinitely in the Senate Health & Human Services committee.
Bills to Watch
Numerous bills have been introduced at the midpoint of this legislative session. Below are the bills most impactful to regional employers and their business.
Business Regulation
HB26-1014: Extend Colorado Job Growth Incentive Tax Credit
This bill extends the Colorado Job Growth Incentive Tax Credit so the Economic Development Commission can continue awarding credits for qualifying job-creating projects through the state income tax year 2034.
HB26-1210: Prohibit Surveillance Price & Wage Setting
This bill would prohibit businesses from using automated decision systems to set individualized prices or wages based on surveillance data about consumers or workers, making such practices a deceptive trade practice under the Colorado Consumer Protection Act.
This bill reforms arbitration by voiding class-action-type waivers in employer-employee and merchant-consumer agreements, limiting excessive arbitration fees, disqualifying biased arbitrators or organizations, and requiring employers or merchants to promptly comply with award records or face additional damages.
SB26-134: Payment Card Networks’ Fees
This is a reprise of this effort that failed in the 2025 legislative session. This bill would prohibit large payment card networks from calculating swipe fees (or interchange fees) on the sales-tax portion of a purchase and from increasing fees on the non-tax portion to circumvent that prohibition, while allowing merchants, consumers, or other injured parties to sue non-compliant networks and establishing specific conditions for deemed compliance.
SB26-137: Measures to Reduce Administrative Burdens
This bill would require state agencies to review all of their rules at least once every five years, using more detailed criteria that assess whether rules are outdated, duplicative, overly burdensome, or lack sufficient public benefit. It also strengthens legislative oversight by tying the findings to SMART-Act hearings, sunset reviews, and possible performance or financial audits.
Labor and Employment
HB26-1005: Worker Protection Collective Bargaining
This bill amends the Labor Peace Act to strengthen employees’ right to bargain collectively on all mandatory subjects, eliminate the second-election requirement for union security agreements, and clarify that good-faith bargaining does not require agreement on specific proposals from either side.
HB26-1054: Protections for Worker Safety
This bill would establish a new state-level worker safety enforcement mechanism and civil-action rights, impose a general duty on employers to keep workplaces free from recognized hazards aligned with OSHA’s general duty clause standard, and create a dedicated Workplace Health and Safety Fund funded by penalties for violations.
HB26-1207: Disclosure of Demographic Workforce Data
This bill requires private employers with 100 or more employees in Colorado to disclose demographic workforce data from their federal EEO-1 reports when filing with the Secretary of State.
HB26-1272: Extreme Temperatures Worker Protections
This is an evolution of an employer regulation effort that failed last legislative session. This bill would require employers with workers exposed to extreme hot or cold temperatures to adopt and submit temperature-related injury and illness prevention plans (TRIIPPs) to the state by September 2028, and to provide training aligned with the new Department of Labor developed standards, increasing compliance and safety-plan responsibility for outdoor and high-temperature exposure businesses.
SB26-093: Workers’ Compensation Insurance Coverage Verification
This bill would require all city governmental entities to verify that applicants, general contractors, and every subcontractor on a project either maintain valid workers’ compensation insurance or have rejected coverage before issuing or renewing any building or construction permit or contractor license, and to revoke or suspend those permits or licenses if a violation is discovered.
Workforce and Education
HB26-1078: Off Campus Courses & Concurrent Enrollment Programs
This bill expands concurrent enrollment by allowing high school students to take college-level off-campus courses offered by institutions of higher education, including technical and career-education courses, as long as those courses meet existing concurrent-enrollment and federal-accreditation requirements.
HB26-1317: Unified Postsecondary Talent Development System
This bill seeks to create a unified postsecondary talent-development system by establishing a transition advisory committee to recommend integrating workforce-development programs into the Colorado Department of Higher Education, potentially streamlining oversight and service delivery for employers and training providers.
Housing
SB26-001: Workforce Housing & Housing Tax Credit
This bill allows counties to redirect certain property-tax revenue and local-government powers toward workforce and affordable housing, while expanding the Middle-Income Housing Tax Credit to let governmental entities transfer the credit to any qualifying taxpayer, including those without an ownership stake in the project.
SB26-040: Affordable Home Ownership Program
This bill modernizes the state’s Affordable Home Ownership Program by clarifying that households earning 120% or less of the statewide area median income can purchase units funded by the program. It allows the Division of Housing to approve waivers or alternative processes for exceeding the standard 30%-of-income housing cost limit in certain circumstances, and gives the division flexibility to accept local affordability mechanisms or rental use of units in affordable housing projects.
SB26-049: Homeowner Natural Disaster Mitigation
This bill promotes homeowner natural disaster mitigation by making individuals and homeowners’ associations eligible recipients of assistance from the state’s natural disaster mitigation enterprise fund, expanding the definition of eligible mitigation actions, and creating an income-tax deduction for homeowner contributions to catastrophe savings accounts used to cover insurance deductibles and eligible mitigation costs.
AI and Tech-Related Laws
HB26-1030: Data Center & Utility Modernization
This bill establishes a Data Center Development and Incentive Program administered by a new Colorado Data Center Development Authority, offering a 100% state sales and use tax exemption on qualified data-center infrastructure purchases for certified projects that meet specific investment, job-creation, energy-efficiency, water-stewardship, and workforce protection standards.
SB26-102: Large-Load Data Centers
This bill creates comprehensive accountability requirements for large-load data centers by setting rules on utility contracts, mandates renewable-energy matching and emissions standards, requires annual energy and water-use reporting, imposes additional review and community benefit obligations, and directs utilities to avoid specific economic-development rates for these facilities. Several of the requirements involve data center developers to implement technology or mechanisms that currently do not exist.
Miscellaneous
HB26-1004: Continuation of Child Care Contribution Tax Credit
This bill extends the existing Child Care Contribution Tax Credit for an additional 10 years beyond its current 2028 sunset, maintaining a key incentive for employers and individuals to invest in child care and early-learning facilities.
HB26-1119: Authority for Different Mill Levy Rates
This bill authorizes local governments and certain special districts to impose different mill levy rates on land versus improvements (such as buildings), subject to limits and exceptions, while tightening transparency and certification requirements for those split-rate property taxes.
HB26-1130: Public Restroom Baby Diaper Changing Station
This bill requires buildings with indoor public restrooms to provide at least one baby diaper changing station per floor in specified restrooms and to post non-gender specific signage indicating the location of those restrooms and changing stations, beginning July 1, 2027. There are limited exceptions for small-businesses, historic structures, and accessibility-standards conflicts.
SB26-019: Early Childhood Local System Consolidation
This bill seeks to consolidate early-childhood local coordinating organizations into expanded early childhood councils and streamlines oversight and funding for early-childhood and family-support programs.
SB26-020: Child Care Provider Licensing & Quality
This bill would streamline child care licensing by requiring the Department of Early Childhood to expand a centralized digital file system for provider records, phase out third-party inspectors in favor of state-trained staff, allow provisional state licenses while local zoning disputes are resolved, limit certain local government child care related fees, and create a licensure and quality task force to recommend a simpler and more consistent licensing system by early 2027.
On Our Radar
While we are still only at the mid-point of the session, there are numerous topics and bills (some not yet introduced) important to be aware of for business leaders.
Colorado State Budget
Similar to the 2025 legislative session, and as mentioned previously, the Colorado Joint Budget Committee (JBC) is currently addressing a projected $1.5 billion budget shortfall for the 2026-2027 fiscal year. The state budget is set to be introduced soon and will pause activity in session while legislators focus on this important bill. Many spending proposals and bills with fiscal notes will likely pause until the state budget is finalized.
Public Utilities Commission Sunset
The 2025 Department of Regulatory Agencies Sunset Report on the Public Utilities Commission recommended a continuation of this program, which was set to sunset at the end of 2026. HB26-1326: Sunset Public Utilities Commission seeks to continue the Public Utilities Commission for 11 years through 2037 and overhauls its authority and processes by tightening rules on utility rates, renewable-energy plans, and transportation-network companies, while adding new reporting, enforcement, and study requirements aimed at improving transparency, consumer protections, and grid-modernization efforts.
Corporate Tax Package
Recently introduced is a four-bill corporate tax package (HB26-1221, HB26-1222, HB26-1223, HB26-1289) that aims to “decouple” the state from recent federal corporate tax breaks, narrow or eliminate several business-tax incentives, and shift the tax code’s benefits toward households and working families. The package, introduced as a response to the $800 million in state-revenue loss from automatic transmission of federal corporate tax changes, targets corporate tax expenditures carve outs. These include broad executive compensation deduction, net operating-loss carryforwards, and certain federal-code-linked credits, while dedicating this revenue to restoring or expanding affordable-housing and workforce-housing investments, small-business credits, and the expiring state-level Family Affordability Tax Credit.
AI Regulations
The 2026 legislative session marks the fourth consecutive session in which Colorado lawmakers are considering proposed legislation to modify the requirements and regulations established in 2024 by the Colorado Artificial Intelligence Act (CAIA). The CAIA is set to go into effect in June 2026. It was ordered following the 2025 Special Session for a new task force to convene with recommendations developed with consensus to update this law to successfully go into effect. The proposed recommendations from this task force have been finalized and agreed upon, but no legislation has yet been introduced this session.
What Comes Next
As the 2026 Colorado legislative session moves forward, the policy landscape for businesses continues to take shape. While early wins have blunted some burdensome proposals and preserved space for growth, critical decisions on the budget, regulation, and affordability remain ahead.
- By joining the Advocacy Network, you can stay informed on initiative progress, receive updates on key legislation this session, and learn about opportunities to engage or even provide testimony.
- The Chamber’s 2026 Policy Pillars serve as a framework for evaluating and determining positions on legislation, which are shared publicly through the Chamber’s Bill Tracker.
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