Colorado Income Tax Calculator

At a glance

Everything below is for tax year 2026 and a single filer unless stated otherwise. Rates, brackets and deductions come from the Tax Foundation tables in force on January 1, 2026, as amended by state laws enacted through June 2026; federal amounts come from IRSRevenue Procedure 2025-32.

Verified: October 6, 2026. How we calculate · A figure looks wrong? Report it

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Paycheck examples

Four salaries, all computed by this site's own engine: single filer, paid every two weeks, no 401(k) deferral, no health premiums and no local tax. “Take-home” is what lands in the account each payday after every withholding below.

Payroll taxes on a Colorado paycheck

A $75,000 salary paid every two weeks, single filer, no 401(k) deferral, no health premiums and no local tax. Each line below comes off the gross before the money lands; the last column is what that line costs out of every dollar earned.

Payroll taxes come in two halves. The table above is the employee half — what is withheld from you. The employer half is paid on top of your salary and never shows up on a pay stub: a matching share of Social Security and Medicare, federal unemployment insurance (FUTA) and Colorado's own unemployment insurance. It changes what you cost to employ, not what you take home, and this calculator does not model it. Working for yourself means carrying both halves — the 1099 calculator prices that in.

Withholding forms and payroll rules in Colorado

What decides each line above: the certificate you file, the deductions it produces, and any local tax stacked on top.

• Colorado withholding defaults to the federal Form W-4: employers calculate it on the DR 1098 withholding worksheet using the W-4 information whenever the employee files no state form.
• Form DR 0004, the Colorado Employee Withholding Certificate, is optional and only fine-tunes withholding, but if an employee submits one the employer must use the amounts entered on it.
• With neither a W-4 nor a DR 0004 on file, the employer treats the employee as single on the worksheet, and exempt status is claimed on the federal W-4 rather than DR 0004.

Source: Colorado Department of Revenue, last verified October 27, 2026. A figure looks wrong? Report it

Hourly pay in Colorado

Hourly wages are annualised the way the hourly-to-salary converter does it: 40 hours a week for 52 weeks, or 2,080 hours a year. The take-home column runs through the same engine as every other table on this page.

An extra dollar an hour is worth $2,080 of gross pay a year. At $35 an hour the total effective tax rate is 20.9%, which leaves $27.67 of every hour worked in the account.

Take-home by pay frequency

The same $100,000 salary, paid the four ways the calculator supports, under the assumptions above. Moving the payday changes the size of each deposit, never the yearly totals.

More scenarios at $100,000

Two setups readers ask about most, beside the single-filer baseline above: filing jointly, and deferring 6% of pay into a 401(k). Both stay biweekly, with no premiums and no local tax.

A 401(k) lowers the wages federal and Colorado income tax are figured on, but Social Security and Medicare stay charged on the full salary — and the deferral itself still leaves every paycheck, so take-home drops by the deferral minus the tax it saved.

Real-world worker profiles in Colorado

How different career stages and family setups fare under Colorado's tax rules:

Brackets and deductions

A single rate applies to every dollar of state-taxable income: The Colorado standard deduction of $16,100 (single) or $32,200 (married) comes off first.

What we do not model

For Colorado: Taxable income starts from federal taxable income (after the federal standard deduction). The figures above exclude local and municipal income taxes, tax credits, dependent exemptions and credits, itemized deductions, additions for age or blindness, income-specific exemptions such as tips and overtime, phase-outs, alternative minimum tax, state disability insurance, and the Form W-4 details that change real withholding. They are an estimate, not tax advice — see the full disclaimer for what the model does and does not cover. The method shows how each figure above is calculated.

Common questions

Want to run the numbers yourself? Open the calculator with Colorado selected, put any second state next to it, or browse income tax in all 50 states — including its rank on a $100,000 salary, cheapest first.