The Colorado pay transparency law, formally the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, requires every employer with at least one employee in the state to disclose pay ranges, benefits, and application deadlines in job postings, announce openings to current employees, and stop asking applicants about their salary history. Fines run from $500 to $10,000 per violation, and since a 2023 overhaul, employees can recover back pay for up to six years of wage discrimination.
Which Employers Are Covered
Coverage starts at one employee. Any person or entity employing at least one worker in Colorado falls under the Act, including private companies, state agencies, school districts, and local governments.1Justia. Colorado Code 8-5-101 – Definitions There is no size-based exemption. A two-person startup owes the same obligations as a Fortune 500 employer.
Headquarters location doesn’t matter. If an out-of-state company has even one remote employee in Colorado, the law reaches that employer’s job postings and internal notices. The 2023 amendments created one narrow carve-out: an employer located entirely outside Colorado with fewer than 15 employees in the state, all working remotely, only has to give notice of remote job opportunities.2Colorado General Assembly. Senate Bill 23-105
What Every Job Posting Must Include
Every notification of a job opportunity, whether it appears on a careers page, a third-party job board, or an internal email, must include three things:3Justia. Colorado Code 8-5-201 – Employment Opportunity Transparency
- The hourly rate or salary, or a range. A range must be a good-faith estimate of what the employer actually intends to pay, not a placeholder running from $40,000 to $200,000.
- A general description of health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, bonuses, commissions, and any other compensation tied to the role.
- The date the employer expects to close the application window.
The deadline requirement catches employers used to posting “open until filled.” Rolling applications aren’t prohibited, but the posting still has to state an anticipated closing date. If the timeline shifts, update the listing.
Notifying Current Employees
Posting externally isn’t enough. Employers must announce every job opportunity to all current employees on the same calendar day the position is posted, and before making a hiring decision.3Justia. Colorado Code 8-5-201 – Employment Opportunity Transparency The internal notice has to contain the same compensation, benefits, and deadline information as the external posting.
A “job opportunity” means any current or anticipated vacancy the employer is considering filling, whether newly created or recently vacated.2Colorado General Assembly. Senate Bill 23-105
The disclosure obligation continues after the hire. Within 30 calendar days of the new hire starting, the employer must notify at least the employees who will regularly work with that person. The announcement has to include the selected candidate’s name, their former title if they were an internal hire, their new title, and information on how other employees can express interest in similar openings.2Colorado General Assembly. Senate Bill 23-105
Career Progressions and Career Development
Some roles have built-in advancement tracks where employees move up based on tenure or objective performance metrics. The Act calls these “career progressions” and treats them differently from competitive openings. Employers don’t have to post them as job opportunities, but they do have to disclose the requirements for advancing through the progression to all eligible employees, including each position’s compensation, benefits, full-time or part-time status, duties, and access to further advancement.3Justia. Colorado Code 8-5-201 – Employment Opportunity Transparency
“Career development” is a separate concept, covering changes to an employee’s title or compensation that reflect work the employee has already been doing, such as updating a job title to match responsibilities that grew over time. Career development is also excluded from the posting requirement.2Colorado General Assembly. Senate Bill 23-105
Salary History Ban
Colorado prohibits employers from asking applicants about their wage history at any point in the hiring process. Recruiters, hiring managers, and third-party screeners cannot ask what a candidate earned in a previous role, and they cannot use salary history to set the candidate’s pay even if that information surfaces on its own.4Department of Labor & Employment. Equal Pay for Equal Work Act Retaliating against an applicant who refuses to share past wages is also barred.
If a candidate volunteers a prior salary, the employer may hear it, but that number still cannot be the basis for the compensation offer. Pay decisions have to rest on the role’s requirements, the posted range, and the candidate’s qualifications.
When Pay Differences Are Legally Defensible
The Act doesn’t require every employee with the same title to earn the same dollar amount. It prohibits pay differences based on sex for substantially similar work, and an employer can justify a gap only by proving all four of the following:5Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. INFO #8 – Equal Pay, Part 1
- The difference is based on a legitimate factor: seniority, merit, a system measuring output by quantity or quality, geographic location, education or training reasonably related to the work, or travel that is regular and necessary for the role.
- The factor was applied reasonably, not as a pretext.
- The factor accounts for the entire pay gap, not just part of it.
- The employer did not rely on prior wage history to justify the difference.
That last requirement is where employers get caught. Even if a company can point to a legitimate factor like experience, the defense fails if salary history also played a role in setting the pay rate. The burden of proof sits on the employer.
Records Employers Must Keep
Employers must retain job descriptions and wage rate histories for each employee throughout the employment relationship and for two years after it ends.6Justia. Colorado Code 8-5-202 – Record Keeping Failure to keep those records is a separate violation for each affected employee, with fines starting at $500 per violation.7Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. INFO #9A – Transparency in Pay and Job Opportunities
The stakes go beyond fines. If an employee sues for unequal pay and the employer cannot produce the required records, a court may presume the missing records contained information supporting the employee’s claim. The jury can also be instructed that the failure to keep records is evidence the violation was not made in good faith.8Justia. Colorado Code 8-5-203 – Enforcement That presumption can turn a defensible case into a losing one.
Penalties and How Violations Are Counted
The director of the Division of Labor Standards and Statistics can impose fines between $500 and $10,000 per violation.8Justia. Colorado Code 8-5-203 – Enforcement How violations are counted matters a lot for employers who hire frequently:7Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. INFO #9A – Transparency in Pay and Job Opportunities
- Each job not properly posted is one violation, regardless of how many platforms carried the same listing.
- Each job that should have been posted but wasn’t is one violation.
- Each employee whose records the employer failed to maintain is a separate violation.
Those violations stack quickly. A company that posted 20 roles without compensation ranges could face 20 separate fines, each up to $10,000.
Filing a Complaint and the Deadlines That Apply
Anyone who believes an employer violated the transparency requirements can file a written complaint with the Division of Labor Standards and Statistics. The complaint has to include the employer’s name and address and a detailed description of the alleged violation. The Division accepts complaints through its online portal or by mailed printed form.9Colorado Division of Labor Standards and Statistics. Division of Labor Standards and Statistics Online Claims Portal
Two clocks apply, and they can run at the same time. For transparency and posting violations under Part 2 of the Act, a complaint must be filed within one year of learning about the violation.8Justia. Colorado Code 8-5-203 – Enforcement For unequal pay claims under Part 1, the window is longer. As of January 1, 2024, an employee can recover back pay for up to six years of ongoing wage discrimination, double the prior three-year limit.2Colorado General Assembly. Senate Bill 23-105 Employees who discover a pay gap that persisted for years now have a realistic path to meaningful damages.