Land · Colorado tax sale guide

Colorado tax lien sales by county

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Colorado sells the lien, not the property, and it sells the lien on a premium. Every fall, each county treasurer auctions the delinquent tax lien: the buyer pays the taxes, delinquent interest and fees, and wins by bidding the largest amount on top of that sum. The certificate earns a fixed statutory rate, 13 percent for the 2026 sale, but the premium paid to win it goes to the county general fund, earns no interest, and is never refunded. A Colorado bid is two decisions at once: what the lien is worth, and how much you will pay the county for the right to own it.

This page set covers the top 10 Colorado counties by population and sale volume. Each county page carries who sells, the 2026 sale status and date, the platform or venue, the registration deadline, the deposit, the list, and what happens to liens nobody buys, verified against the treasurer's own sources. Timing is the first fact: six of the ten 2026 sales in this set had already run when these pages were checked, three more run within days, and one county had published no dated sale, so this set is both the record of the 2026 season and the working map for 2027. The second fact is the deed: Colorado no longer issues treasurer's deeds on a holder's application. Under the Article 11.5 process reenacted in 2026, an unredeemed lien leads to a public auction of the right to the deed, where value above the debt is bid for openly and belongs to the former owner.

Verify before you go: counties can move a date, change terms, cancel a sale, or pull parcels at any time. The official sale list is the final word.

The 10 counties

Each row links to that county's own page: selling office, venue or platform, deposit, payment terms, leftover channel, and sources. Where a county has not posted a dated sale, the row says so instead of projecting a pattern onto it.

How Colorado tax lien sales work

• Unpaid taxes become a lien, and the lien is what sells. Property taxes in Colorado are a lien on the property, and delinquent interest accrues at 1 percent per month under CRS 39-10-104.5. When taxes stay unpaid, the county treasurer publishes the delinquent list once a week for three weeks (39-11-102) and sells the tax lien at the annual sale under Title 39, Article 11. What the buyer receives is a certificate of purchase: a lien position against the property, not the property, not a deed, and no right to enter or use it.
• The sale runs every fall, and the statute sets the outer date. The sale must begin no later than the second Monday in December (39-11-109), and each treasurer fixes the day. Counties in this set sell from late October into December, most of them in November. Most of the large counties sell online through a vendor the treasurer names; some still sell in person, and the county page says which.
• Bidding is a premium, and the premium is spent money. Under 39-11-115(1) the lien goes to the person who pays the taxes, delinquent interest and fees and bids the largest amount on top of that sum. The excess, the premium, is credited to the county general fund. It earns no interest, and it is not returned if the owner redeems. Competition in Colorado raises the price of the lien without raising its return by a cent.
• The rate is fixed by statute, and redemption is the normal exit. The certificate earns the redemption rate in 39-12-103: nine percentage points above the federal discount rate as of September 1, rounded to the nearest whole percent. For the 2026 sale that rate is 13 percent. The owner, or another interested party, may redeem at any time before a treasurer's deed is issued, and the holder may pay later delinquent taxes and endorse them onto the certificate at the same rate. Most certificates end in redemption.
• The deed runs through a public auction now. Colorado used to hand the treasurer's deed to the certificate holder on application after three years. That ended July 1, 2024 under HB 24-1056, and SB 26-144 reenacted the replacement process as Article 11.5 effective June 1, 2026. After August 1 of the third calendar year following the sale, the lawful holder applies, and the treasurer auctions a certificate of option for treasurer's deed: the opening bid covers what is owed to the holder plus treasurer fees and costs, any overbid belongs to the former owner, and if no qualifying bid is made and paid, the lawful holder is deemed the option purchaser and the deed issues to that purchaser. Liens nobody buys are struck off to the county and can later be bought by assignment.

One Colorado fact decides most bids: the premium is a cost, not an investment. The 13 percent rate is earned only on the taxes and fees inside the certificate amount, so a lien won with a heavy premium returns less than the headline rate even when the owner redeems exactly on schedule. Bid the premium you can afford to lose, because in the redemption outcome, which is the normal outcome, you do lose it.

Research the parcels before you bid

A sale list gives you the parcel, the date, and the opening terms. It does not give you the owner, the value, or the rest of the picture: liens, foreclosure status, and parcel history. PropertyRadar is the data platform for that layer. It carries owner records, assessed and market values, foreclosure and tax data, and property history for parcels across the country, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.

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Get the alert, not just the calendar.

The dates on these pages are the free layer. The Pine membership is the paid layer, proven in New York: members pick their counties, get alerts when a sale is scheduled or a list posts, and receive the full property list with the analysis already done. Colorado counties open from the interest list first, in the order readers join it.

Keep going

Once a deadline puts you in a sale, the Land Investor Due Diligence Toolkit is the checklist and bid worksheet to run on each parcel before you bid.