Colorado Paid Family Leave: Eligibility, Benefits, and Job Protection

Colorado Paid Family Leave, officially the Family and Medical Leave Insurance program or FAMLI, gives most workers in the state up to 12 weeks of partially paid time off for a new child, a serious health condition, caregiving for a family member, safe leave, or a military family emergency. Benefits began in January 2024, and as of mid-2025 the maximum weekly payment is $1,381.45.¹ The program is funded by a payroll premium that employers and employees split.

Who Qualifies for FAMLI

You’re eligible if you’ve earned at least $2,500 in wages in Colorado during the last five completed calendar quarters.² There’s no minimum hours-per-week requirement, and you don’t have to have worked for your current employer for any set length of time to draw benefits. Job protection is a separate question, covered further down.

Workers at small businesses are fully covered. If your employer has fewer than ten employees, the company still withholds and remits your share of the premium, but it doesn’t have to pay the employer share.³ Your benefits are the same either way.

Two situations work differently. Local governments in Colorado can vote to opt out of FAMLI. If yours did, you can still opt in individually through the My FAMLI+ system, paying a 0.45% premium on your wages and committing to at least three years. Benefits kick in after one quarter of reported wages and paid premiums. The catch: workers who opt in this way don’t get FAMLI job protection.⁴ Self-employed workers can also opt in voluntarily at any time, with the same three-year commitment.⁵

Reasons You Can Take Leave

FAMLI covers five categories:

Your own serious health condition — an illness, injury, or condition involving inpatient care or ongoing treatment by a healthcare provider that prevents you from doing your job.
Bonding with a new child during the first year after birth, adoption, or foster placement.
Caring for a family member with a serious health condition. Colorado’s definition of family is broad and covers spouses, domestic partners, children, parents, siblings, grandparents, and anyone whose close relationship with you is equivalent to a family bond.
Safe leave to deal with the effects of domestic violence, stalking, or sexual assault.
Military exigency — urgent matters like childcare arrangements or financial logistics when a family member is called to active duty.

The standard cap is 12 weeks in a benefit year. If you experience complications with pregnancy or childbirth, benefits can extend up to 16 weeks, provided a licensed healthcare provider verifies a serious health condition tied to the complication. Birthing parents who need the extension file a separate FAMLI claim listing their own serious health condition as the reason.⁶

How Much You’ll Be Paid

Your weekly benefit is calculated against the statewide average weekly wage, which is $1,534.94 as of July 1, 2025, and typically updates each July.¹ The formula has two tiers. The first half of the state average weekly wage — currently $767.47 — is replaced at 90%. Anything you earn above that is replaced at 50%. The overall ceiling is 90% of the state average weekly wage, or $1,381.45 per week right now.

A worked example: if your average weekly wage is $1,000, you get 90% of the first $767.47 ($690.72) plus 50% of the remaining $232.53 ($116.27), totaling about $807 per week. If you earn $767.47 or less per week, you get a flat 90% replacement with no second-tier math.

What Comes Out of Your Paycheck

FAMLI is funded by a premium of 0.88% of wages, split evenly: 0.44% from the employer and 0.44% from the employee. Some employers voluntarily cover the full amount.⁷ Premiums stop at the federal Social Security wage cap, which is $184,500 for 2026.⁸ For someone earning $60,000 a year, the employee share is about $264 annually, or roughly $5 a week.

How to File a Claim

Give your employer notice first. When your need for leave is foreseeable, provide at least 30 days’ advance notice. For emergencies, notify your employer as soon as it’s practical.

Then file through the My FAMLI+ portal at myfamliplus.state.co.us. To start, you need your Social Security Number or ITIN, your employer’s name, and a general idea of when leave will begin.⁹ Additional documentation depends on the reason for leave: a Serious Health Condition certification signed by a healthcare provider for medical or caregiving leave, and paperwork like a birth certificate or adoption papers for bonding leave. The portal walks you through five steps — personal details, employment, leave details, payment setup, and review — and gives you a confirmation number to track the claim.¹⁰

Payments come by direct deposit or a state-issued ReliaCard debit card.¹¹ For continuous leave, no payment is issued until you’ve missed at least one full week of work. Check the portal often; the Division may request more documentation, and slow responses hold up payment.

Job Protection

FAMLI includes job protection, but only if you’ve worked for your employer at least 180 days — about six months — before your leave begins.² Meet that threshold and your employer must hold your position, or an equivalent one with the same pay and benefits, until you return. Health insurance must continue during the leave.¹²

Employers can’t fire, demote, cut hours, or discipline you for applying for FAMLI, taking it, talking about it with coworkers, or filing a complaint. If you think your employer retaliated, you can file a complaint with the FAMLI Division’s Job Protection and Retaliation Investigations Unit, which reviews complaints within 90 days and can order damages and reinstatement.

Workers under the 180-day mark can still receive FAMLI payments; they just don’t have a statutory right to their specific job back. And the local-government opt-in exception mentioned earlier applies here too: no FAMLI job protection for those workers, regardless of tenure.

How FAMLI Interacts with Other Leave

If your situation qualifies under both FAMLI and the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, the two run concurrently. Twelve weeks of FAMLI uses up your 12 weeks of FMLA at the same time.¹³

Your employer can’t force you to burn through accrued vacation or sick time before taking FAMLI. Some employers do allow you to use PTO to “top off” your FAMLI payments to match your regular paycheck, but that’s optional on the employer’s side.¹⁴

How FAMLI meshes with a private short-term disability policy depends on the policy. Some require you to exhaust FAMLI first, some offset the disability benefit by whatever FAMLI pays, and some do neither. Your employer must give written notice of any such restriction before it takes effect.¹⁵

Are FAMLI Benefits Taxable

Federal treatment turns on whether the leave was medical or family, based on IRS Revenue Ruling 2025-4. For medical leave (your own serious health condition), the portion of your benefit attributable to your own premium contributions is excluded from federal gross income, and the portion attributable to your employer’s contributions is taxable as third-party sick pay.¹⁶ With the standard 50/50 premium split, that means roughly half of a medical-leave benefit is federally tax-free.

For family leave — bonding, caregiving, safe leave, or military exigency — the entire benefit is included in federal gross income. The state issues a Form 1099 if payments total $600 or more in a year.¹⁶

All FAMLI benefits, regardless of the reason for leave, are exempt from Colorado state income tax.¹⁷

If Your Claim Is Denied

You have 49 days from the original determination to ask for a reconsideration through the My FAMLI+ portal.¹⁸ That deadline can be extended by up to another 49 days if you show good cause. If the reconsideration doesn’t reverse the decision, the “Request Reconsideration” button in the portal becomes an “Appeal” button, and you can file a formal appeal and communicate with the hearings officer through the same system.¹⁹ An appeal is a legal proceeding, so it’s worth talking to an attorney if a meaningful amount of money is at stake.

If Your Employer Uses a Private Plan

Some Colorado employers run their own approved plans instead of using the state pool, either through a commercial insurer or by self-insuring. A private plan has to match or exceed the state plan on duration, wage replacement, conditions, and cost to employees.²⁰ You may file claims through a third-party administrator rather than My FAMLI+, but your rights and benefit levels should be at least equivalent. Appeals of private-plan decisions still go through the state — you create an appeals account in the My FAMLI+ portal.¹⁹ Employers must give at least 30 days’ notice before switching to a private plan.

1
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Rules and Guidance
2
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Individuals and Families FAQs
3
Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Small Business Corner
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Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). FAQs for Local Governments
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Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Opting In to FAMLI – What Self-Employed Individuals and Employees of Colorado’s Local Governments Need to Know
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Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Parental (Bonding) Leave
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Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Employers
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Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Premium and Benefits Calculator
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Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). My FAMLI+
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Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). My FAMLI+ User Guide – Filing a Claim
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Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). My FAMLI+ User Guide – Next Steps
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Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Job Protection and Retaliation
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Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). FAMLI and FMLA
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Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Employer FAQs
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Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). FAMLI and Other Types of Leave
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Internal Revenue Service. Revenue Ruling 2025-4
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Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). IRS Tax Guidance
18
Cornell Law Institute. 7 CCR 1107-3.11 – Benefits Reconsiderations
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Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Appeals
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Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI). Private Plans