The Centennial State made major changes to its emotional support animal laws in 2026. After federal assistance-animal guidance was withdrawn in 2025, Colorado lawmakers moved to put important assistance-animal protections directly into state law.
Governor Jared Polis signed House Bill 26-1045, Disability Housing Protections, on May 28, 2026. The law took effect on August 12, 2026. And Colorado shed light on the ESA question. The new law defines both “assistance animal” and “emotional support animal,” and establishes standards for handling housing accommodation requests, and creates a presumption in favor of permitting assistance animals when the statutory requirements are met. In layman’s terms, Colorado isn’t leaving ESA housing protections to federal guidance anymore. Below is what the law contains.
An emotional support animal provides disability-related emotional support that helps alleviate a symptom or effect of a person’s disability. Unlike a service animal, an ESA does not need to be individually trained to perform a disability-related task. An ESA’s presence is its therapeutic effect.
Here’s some quick notes for your pad:
House Bill 26-1045 was signed into law on May 28, 2026, and became effective August 12, 2026.
Under the new law, an assistance animal is an animal that works, performs tasks, assists, or provides therapeutic emotional support for an individual with a disability. The definition includes both service animals and emotional support animals.
Colorado separately defines an emotional support animal as an animal that provides solely emotional support to alleviate a symptom or effect of a person’s disability.
That’s the important part. Colorado didn’t merely prohibit disability discrimination in general and leave everyone to argue about whether ESAs are included. Colorado put emotional support animals directly into the statute. (Hooray!)
Here’s the new law’s particular strength.
Under HB26-1045, permitting an assistance animal is presumed to be a reasonable accommodation when the housing provider has been given an opportunity to engage in an interactive accommodation process with the person requesting the accommodation.
Colorado goes a step further. The law says that a complete prohibition of assistance animals in housing is presumed to be discriminatory. That’s the direct approach.
So, a housing provider can’t simply announce: “No animals. End of discussion.” and assume that’s the end of the legal analysis.
When someone requests an assistance animal because of disability, Colorado’s reasonable-accommodation process becomes applicable.
Colorado’s new law also puts considerable emphasis on communication.
A housing provider may engage in a good-faith interactive process with the person requesting an assistance-animal accommodation. That process can include determining whether the accommodation is necessary and whether reasonable supporting documentation is appropriate.
The law also clarifies that a housing provider does not commit discrimination solely by requesting reasonable documentation or engaging in a good-faith interactive process to evaluate each accommodation request. That’s helpful to both sides.
The law isn’t saying: “Someone said ESA, therefore they cannot be questioned.” But it also isn’t giving housing providers unlimited authority to investigate someone’s private medical history.
The goal is a legitimate accommodation process — not 20 Questions.
HB26-1045 specifically addresses this issue.
When a person’s disability or disability-related need for the assistance animal isn’t obvious, a housing provider may request reasonable documentation supporting the disability or disability-related need for the animal.
The key word is reasonable.
A request for appropriate disability-related information is different from demanding someone’s entire medical file, DNA and background check. (What do they wanna do? Frame you for a crime!?)
Colorado’s framework is designed to determine whether the accommodation is a medical necessity, not to give a landlord unrestricted access to someone’s medical history.
An assistance animal being provided as a reasonable disability accommodation isn’t the same thing as a standard household pet. There’s a key distinction.
A housing provider may need to make an exception to a no-pets rule or waive pet-related charges when doing so is necessary as a reasonable accommodation. That can include pet deposits, pet fees, or similar pet-related policies in appropriate circumstances.
Responsibility for actual damage caused by an animal is on the ESA owner. An accommodation doesn’t mean an animal can discolor the carpet, eat the handles off doors, and send the landlord a copy of its ESA letter after the fact. 😅
Housing providers can still address actual damage and legitimate animal-related problems under applicable law. The distinction is between charging someone merely for having a disability-related assistance animal and addressing the conduct or damage caused by that animal.
Colorado addressed this directly too.
The new law says that the mere presence of an assistance animal does not establish that the animal poses a direct threat to the health or safety of others. Likewise, simply having an assistance animal present doesn’t automatically mean the animal will cause substantial physical damage to property. (that’s absurd)
But that doesn’t mean every animal must be accepted regardless of its behavior.
A housing provider may consider documented, specific conduct of the particular animal when evaluating whether it poses a direct threat or causes substantial physical property damage. That’s an important distinction.
Colorado’s approach focuses on the actual animal and actual evidence, rather than assumptions about what the animal might theoretically do.
Colorado has already seen what an assistance-animal housing dispute can look like when things go badly.
In United States v. Creekside Condominium Owners Association, a federal Fair Housing Act case involving a condominium association in Snowmass Village, the U.S. Department of Justice alleged that the association repeatedly refused to allow a resident to live with her emotional assistance dog despite disability-related documentation from medical and mental-health professionals.
According to federal authorities, the resident was forced to live elsewhere for several months and spent more than a week living in a van.
The 2020 consent order required the association to:
The case predates HB26-1045 and therefore did not interpret Colorado’s new 2026 statute. But it’s a useful real-world example of how seriously assistance-animal housing disputes are taken.
And Colorado’s new law now gives residents and housing providers much clearer state-law rules to work from.
Housing rights and public-access rights are different.
A task-trained service animal can have public-access rights that an emotional support animal does not. Under the federal ADA framework, a service animal is generally a dog individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability. The ADA separately addresses qualifying miniature horses in certain circumstances.
Emotional support, comfort, or companionship alone does not transform an animal into a service animal.
An ESA that qualifies for a housing accommodation does not automatically gain access to restaurants, stores, theaters, or other public accommodations.
Different laws. Different rules.
Colorado also addresses deliberate abuse of assistance-animal housing protections.
Under C.R.S. § 18-13-107.3, intentionally misrepresenting entitlement to an assistance animal in order to obtain housing-accommodation rights can constitute a civil infraction when the statutory requirements are met.
Importantly, this isn’t written to punish someone who makes an honest mistake. Among other requirements, the person must have previously received a written or verbal warning that intentionally misrepresenting entitlement to an assistance animal is illegal and must knowingly make the misrepresentation.
The person must know either that:
The current civil penalties are:
Colorado also separately addresses intentional misrepresentation of a service animal for public-access purposes under C.R.S. § 18-13-107.7.
Again, these laws target intentional misrepresentation and fraud. They do not make legitimate emotional support animals illegal.
Colorado’s state protections operate in lockstep with federal fair-housing law. The federal Fair Housing Act contains a statutory reasonable-accommodation requirement for people with disabilities.
Previously, federal fair-housing enforcement applied that framework to disability-related assistance animals, including emotional support animals.
But federal policy changed substantially beginning in 2025.
There were two separate federal developments.
In September 2025, HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) withdrew its earlier 2013 and 2020 assistance-animal guidance documents.
Then, on May 22, 2026, HUD issued a new enforcement memorandum changing FHEO’s administrative approach to animal-related reasonable-accommodation complaints.
Under that approach, FHEO focuses its reasonable-cause and charging decisions on animals specifically trained to perform disability-related work or tasks. The memorandum states that requests involving untrained emotional support animals are not presumptively reasonable under that federal administrative enforcement approach.
That federal change matters. But so does Colorado’s response.
In a quick turnaround just six days after HUD issued the May 2026 memorandum, Governor Polis signed HB26-1045. And rather than leaving the definition of emotional support animals to federal agency guidance, Colorado’s new law expressly defines them in its own Anti-Discrimination Act.
HUD’s federal enforcement memorandum did not repeal Colorado law. The federal Fair Housing Act’s statutory reasonable-accommodation provision also remains in place, and HUD’s memorandum does not eliminate private FHA actions in court.
Colorado residents now have something particularly important in the post-2026 landscape: Clear assistance-animal protections written into Colorado law itself.
The Colorado Civil Rights Division (CCRD) enforces the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. Someone who believes a housing provider unlawfully discriminated against them because of disability can contact the CCRD about filing a housing discrimination complaint.
Federal Fair Housing Act complaints may also be filed through HUD where applicable.
Because administrative and court claims can have different filing requirements and deadlines, someone dealing with an active housing dispute should act promptly rather than assuming the issue can be addressed indefinitely.
Colorado’s 2026 law did something increasingly important: It took rules that had often been discussed through federal guidance and put meaningful assistance-animal protections directly into Colorado law. In 2026, that’s a pretty big deal.
This article is provided for general educational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Fair-housing rights can depend on federal, state, and local law, the type of housing involved, the facts of an individual accommodation request, and legal developments after publication. For guidance about a particular housing dispute, consider contacting a qualified attorney or appropriate fair-housing or civil-rights agency.
Medical content reviewed by: Dr. Rick Rieser, MD — Medical Director, My ESA MD. Stanford-trained physician with 30+ years of clinical experience.
Legal research: Based on statutes, regulations, government agency materials, court filings, enforcement actions, and other primary legal sources reviewed for this article. Medical review does not constitute legal review.
Last reviewed: October 8, 2026