Colorado Paycheck Calculator

How Colorado paychecks work

Colorado has a flat 4.40% income tax, and on the surface that puts it alongside Pennsylvania and Michigan. It is not the same thing at all, because of what the 4.40% is charged on.

Almost every state starts from your federal adjusted gross income and then applies its own deductions and exemptions. Colorado starts from your federal taxable income — the number left after the federal standard deduction has already come off (C.R.S. 39-22-104(1.7)(c)). The practical effect: Colorado gives you the full $16,100 federal standard deduction, tax-free, without ever writing a Colorado deduction into its own law.

That is why a "4.40% state" can cost you less than a "3.07% state": Pennsylvania taxes every dollar from the first one, while Colorado's first $16,100 is untaxed. At $65,000 the flat rates say Pennsylvania should be cheaper by $1.33 percentage points; the actual state tax bills are $1,995.50 in Pennsylvania and $2,151.60 in Colorado — only $156 apart, because Colorado's larger deduction eats almost the whole rate gap.

Worked example

FAMLI: the premium that is a ceiling, not a split

Colorado's Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance program is funded by a payroll premium, and this is the line most calculators either skip or get subtly wrong.

• The 2026 premium is 0.88% of wages. Senate Bill 25-144, signed in May 2025, cut it from 0.90% and set the 2026 figure in statute. From 2027 on, the FAMLI director sets the rate by September 1 of the preceding year, and it can never exceed 1.2%.
• Your share is at most half. C.R.S. 8-13.3-507(5) says an employer may deduct up to 50% of the premium from the employee — so 0.44% is a legal ceiling on what can be taken from you, not a fixed split. Plenty of Colorado employers pay more than half, and some pay all of it, in which case your FAMLI line is smaller than this calculator shows or missing entirely. Check the actual line on your paystub before assuming 0.44%.
• It stops at the Social Security wage base. Wages above $184,500 in 2026 are exempt (C.R.S. 8-13.3-507(6)), so the employee premium tops out at $811.80 for the year. Anyone earning more than $184,500 pays that flat maximum.
• Employers with fewer than 10 employees owe no employer share, but still withhold the employee half.
• FAMLI is withheld post-tax — it does not reduce your federal or Colorado taxable income, and a 401(k) deferral does not shrink it, because it is charged on gross wages.

Two Colorado quirks worth knowing

• The 4.40% rate can drop for a single year. Under TABOR (C.R.S. 39-22-627), when the state collects more revenue than its constitutional cap, one of the refund mechanisms is a temporary income-tax rate cut — the 2024 tax year actually ran at 4.25% for exactly this reason. The decision is made on or before October 1 of the tax year, so a 2026 reduction would not be known until autumn 2026. This page uses the standing 4.40% and is rechecked each October.
• Denver charges a flat head tax, not a percentage. The Occupational Privilege Tax takes $5.75 per month from any employee who earns at least $500 in a month for work performed in Denver — $69 a year, regardless of whether you make $30,000 or $300,000 (your employer adds $4.00/month of its own). Aurora, Glendale, Greenwood Village and Sheridan run similar flat OPTs. It is not included in the estimate above, because it is a fixed monthly charge rather than a rate on wages; subtract $69/year if you work in Denver.

What Colorado does not take

• No local percentage income tax. Unlike Michigan or Pennsylvania, no Colorado city takes a slice of your wages — the OPTs above are flat dollar amounts, so the percentage math is identical in Denver, Boulder and Grand Junction.
• No state disability or unemployment withholding from employees. Colorado's unemployment insurance is entirely employer-funded, so FAMLI is the only social-insurance line on a Colorado paystub.
• 401(k) deferrals cut your Colorado tax too, because they reduce federal taxable income and Colorado starts from that number — a $10,000 deferral saves $440 in Colorado tax on top of the federal saving.

Comparing states? Michigan is the other flat-tax state on the site and shows how differently a "flat" tax can behave, or check Texas for the zero-state-tax baseline.

How this estimate is calculated

• Federal income tax: 2026 IRS brackets with the 2026 standard deduction ($16,100 single / $32,200 married filing jointly), no credits or itemizing.
• FICA: Social Security 6.2% up to the $184,500 wage base + Medicare 1.45% (plus 0.9% additional above $200k single / $250k married).
• Pre-tax deductions (401(k), traditional retirement) reduce federal and state taxable income but not FICA wages.
• Results estimate your annual tax liability spread across paychecks — real per-check withholding depends on your W-4 and settles at tax time.