Colorado Contractor License Fees
The 7 verified whole-dollar state licensing fees Colorado publishes — the plumbing application and renewal ladder read verbatim on the official DPO Plumbing Licensing Guide on 2026-10-04. Colorado's fee-setting power runs through the DPO director under C.R.S. §12-20-105 with no published schedule for most amounts, which is exactly why every other state figure below is named as withheld rather than guessed. Building permit fees and every local license fee are not state fees in Colorado — the local layer sets those.
01 State fees vs local fees vs permit fees
- State licensing fees — listed below: personal license applications and renewals (plumbing ladder) plus the apprentice registration, all charged by DORA DPO. S-CO-12-155-108
- Fee-setting explains the holes — C.R.S. §12-155-105(1)(d): the board acts through the division and fees are set by the director under §12-20-105 — no dollar schedule is published on any page read, so each unpublished amount is a named NOT_VERIFIED. S-CO-12-155-105
- Registration fees (contractor, water conditioning) — §12-155-108(3) registers the business on fee payment + workers' compensation + unemployment evidence, but the registration fee amount is not published outside the DPO Online Services flow — withheld. S-CO-12-155-108
- No general contractor license fee exists — Colorado licenses only plumbing and electrical at the state level, so there is no state GC application, exam or renewal charge to publish — the absence of the credential is the absence of the fee. (Rule CO-NO-STATEWIDE-GC.) S-CO-DPO-HOME
- Local license fees are local — Denver $250 (A/B/C/D/ Mechanical, 3-yr) / Plumbing A $160 (2-yr) / Electrical $0.00 / Supervisor Certificate $60; Aurora Form A105 ($392 commercial, $235 residential, $164 other + $131 SL fee); Fort Collins $300 new / $225 renewal; Larimer $150/$125/$100 biennial; JeffCo $50/yr; Colorado Springs $110 annually — labeled LOCAL examples on their hub rows, never state fees. S-CO-ELEC-APPS
- Permit fees follow the authority — state permits are priced in the online system (fixture count for residential plumbing, valuation for commercial); in listed counties the local building department owns the permit and its schedule. The double-fee RULE ("twice the prescribed permit fee" for work started first) is verified; the amounts are not.
02 Applications and registrations (official DPO Plumbing Licensing Guide)
| Fee | Amount | Kind | Charged by | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbing apprentice registration (initial) Official Plumbing Licensing Guide, amount prefixed 'currently': 'Plumbing apprentice registration — $30' (read 2026-10-04). Electrical apprentice registration fee NOT_VERIFIED — no figure published outside the DPO Online Services flow (withheld, never guessed). | $30 | application | DORA — Division of Professions and Occupations (DPO) | S-CO-PLUMB-GUIDE |
| Residential Plumber — application Official Plumbing Licensing Guide verbatim table ('currently … $100'), corroborated by the DPO Applications page framing (read 2026-10-04). Non-refundable? — the guide does not say, so no refund claim is made. | $100 | application | DORA — Division of Professions and Occupations (DPO) | S-CO-PLUMB-GUIDE |
| Journeyworker Plumber — application Official Plumbing Licensing Guide verbatim table ('currently … $120', read 2026-10-04). | $120 | application | DORA — Division of Professions and Occupations (DPO) | S-CO-PLUMB-GUIDE |
| Master Plumber — application Official Plumbing Licensing Guide verbatim table ('currently … $140', read 2026-10-04). | $140 | application | DORA — Division of Professions and Occupations (DPO) | S-CO-PLUMB-GUIDE |
03 Renewals — plumbing family ladder (official DPO Plumbing Licensing Guide)
| Fee | Amount | Kind | Charged by | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Journeyworker Plumber — renewal Official Plumbing Licensing Guide renewal ladder (read 2026-10-04). | $120 | renewal | DORA — Division of Professions and Occupations (DPO) | S-CO-PLUMB-GUIDE |
| Master Plumber — renewal Official Plumbing Licensing Guide renewal ladder (read 2026-10-04). | $140 | renewal | DORA — Division of Professions and Occupations (DPO) | S-CO-PLUMB-GUIDE |
| Residential Plumber — renewal Official Plumbing Licensing Guide renewal ladder ($100 / $120 / $140, read 2026-10-04). Renewal cycle: final day of February of odd-numbered years (current), 3-year cycles from the cycle beginning 2027-03-01 — CONFLICT-CO-001 beside it. | $100 | renewal | DORA — Division of Professions and Occupations (DPO) | S-CO-PLUMB-GUIDE |
Current cycle: the whole plumbing family expires "on the final day of February of odd-numbered years" (renewals open 4–5 weeks earlier; new licenses issued within 120 days of expiry get the NEXT expiration date). The statutory 3-year cycle begins with the cycle starting 2027-03-01 (§12-155-112(1)(a)). 60-day grace + delinquency fee (amount withheld), then ineligible until reinstated. S-CO-CCR-720-1
04 Withheld on purpose — never guessed
- All state ELECTRICAL fee amounts — license application, renewal, reinstatement and the photovoltaic installer registration fee surface only inside the DPO Online Services flow; no figure is published on any reachable page.
- Plumbing contractor and water conditioning REGISTRATION fees — same flow, same withholding.
- Reinstatement, delinquency and reactivation amounts — both boards' rules authorize the charges without publishing a number (60-day grace fee included).
- PSI exam and re-exam fees — the guide says only "the required fee"; a commercial $70 retest claim is discovery, never authority.
- State permit fee amounts — priced inside the online permit system (fixture count / valuation); the double-fee rule is verified, the amounts are not.
- PPRBD license fees — the site was unreachable all research day; Colorado Springs/PPRBD data stays NOT_VERIFIED.
- Local permit fees and unlisted local license fees — LOCAL_AUTHORITY_REQUIRED; the six researched local examples above are labeled LOCAL, never statewide.
C.R.S. §12-155-105(1)(d): the board acts through the division and fees are set by the director of the division under C.R.S. §12-20-105 — no dollar schedule for those fees is published on any page read. WITHHELD ON PURPOSE (each named, never guessed): all state ELECTRICAL license fee amounts (application/renewal/reinstatement — surfaced only inside the DPO Online Services flow); plumbing contractor / water conditioning REGISTRATION fees; plumbing reinstatement, delinquency and reactivation fee amounts; PSI exam and re-exam fees; state permit fee amounts (the double-fee RULE is verified, the amounts are not); PPRBD license fees (site unreachable); Aurora renewal term; Denver and Jefferson County insurance/bond amounts. S-CO-12-155-105
05 Documented conflicts
DPO official Plumbing Licensing Guide (read 2026-10-04): 'All Colorado plumbing licenses expire every three years. You can typically renew up to six weeks before the expiration date.'
DPO Plumbing Licensing Guide (PDF linked from the Applications page)DPO official Plumbing Applications page (read 2026-10-04): 'All Plumbing Licenses, Water Conditioning Installer/Principal Registrations, Plumbing Contractor Registrations and Water Conditioning Contractor Registrations expire on the final day of February of odd-numbered years and must be renewed to continue practicing. … renewals open approximately 4-5 weeks prior to the expiration date.' C.R.S. §12-155-112(1)(a) explains the transition: 'Beginning with the plumbing license cycle that begins on March 1, 2027, and each subsequent license cycle thereafter, the board shall issue and renew plumbing licenses for a period of three years unless otherwise determined by the director.' The two DPO publications therefore describe DIFFERENT periods of the same family — current cycle (odd-year February, 2-year spacing) vs the statutory 3-year cycle that starts 2027-03-01.
DPO Plumbing — ApplicationsOPEN — no DPO erratum found. HANDLING: deterministic logic encodes the CURRENT cycle (renewal rows and REQ-CO-RENEWAL-PLUMBING-001 use the final day of February of odd-numbered years, cycleMonths 24) because that is the operative expiry on the board's own applications page today; the statutory 2027-03-01 transition to 3-year cycles is published beside it as a dated change, and the guide's flat 'three years' sentence is preserved here as the conflicting statement. Never deleted, never merged, never used as a fact.
Analysis notes
Detected 2026-10-04 while seeding REQ-CO-RENEWAL-PLUMBING-001. Material to anyone quoting a Colorado renewal date — exactly why neither side is silently chosen (research §J/§Q).
DPO official Plumbing Licensing Guide (read 2026-10-04): plumbing business owners must 'register as a plumbing contractor and carry specific insurance, including: Property Damage Insurance (minimum $100,000) General Liability Coverage (minimum $300,000) Workers' Compensation Insurance (if you have employees)'.
DPO Plumbing Licensing Guide (PDF linked from the Applications page)C.R.S. §12-155-108(3) (primary): the board registers a plumbing contractor upon fee payment and 'presentation of evidence that the applicant has complied with the applicable workers' compensation and unemployment compensation laws of this state' — WC + UC only, no GL/PD condition. Corroborated by (1) the official Plumbing Contractor application preview, which requires a 'Worker's Compensation Certificate of Liability' upload and unemployment insurance company/ID before submission — and nothing else; and (2) 3 CCR 720-1, in which NO GL/PD provision appears anywhere (verified by full text search of the official SOS PDF).
C.R.S. §12-155-108 (FindLaw mirror of leg.colorado.gov)OPEN — possibly a stale guide reflecting repealed law, but NO repealing citation was found to prove it, so it stays OPEN. HANDLING: WC/UC is the encoded requirement (REQ-CO-NO-STATEWIDE-GL-001 confidence 'conflicting', INS-CO-GL requiredKind 'not_required' with this conflict attached, rules CO-NO-STATEWIDE-GL / CO-WORKERS-COMP / CO-UNEMPLOYMENT-REG carry caveats). The $100,000/$300,000 figures are published here and on the fees/hub pages as the conflicting claim and are WITHHELD from deterministic logic — never encoded as a requirement, never deleted.
Analysis notes
Detected 2026-10-04 while seeding REQ-CO-NO-STATEWIDE-GL-001. Both sides are official DPO/statute publications — exactly why the conflict row exists (research §I/§Q).
Every other official fee pairing was checked the same day and found consistent: the $100/$120/$140 application ladder against the identical renewal ladder in the same guide table, the $30 apprentice figure against the guide's "currently" prefix, and the fee-setting delegation (§12-155-105(1)(d) → §12-20-105) against the absence of every unpublished amount — one charge, counted once; a missing charge is shown as NOT_VERIFIED, never estimated.