Colorado runs contract claims on three years but gives creditors six years to collect a debt for a fixed sum of money. The general rule in C.R.S. § 13-80-101(1)(a) covers “all contract actions,” then immediately carves out an exception “as otherwise provided in section 13-80-103.5.” That cross-reference is where most consumer debt actually lands.
The deadlines, and where each one is written
| What is being collected | Deadline to file suit | Statute |
|---|---|---|
| A liquidated debt, or an unliquidated but determinable amount of money | 6 years | C.R.S. § 13-80-103.5(1)(a) |
| Rights under an instrument securing or evidencing a debt | 6 years | C.R.S. § 13-80-103.5(1)(a) |
| Contract actions generally | 3 years | C.R.S. § 13-80-101(1)(a) |
| Note payable at a definite time | 6 years | C.R.S. § 4-3-118(a) |
| All other actions for which no period is provided | 2 years | C.R.S. § 13-80-102(1)(i) |
Note how narrow Colorado’s residual is. Where most states park unclassified claims at six or ten years, § 13-80-102(1)(i) sets two.
Six years or three? What the code settles and what it does not
Section 13-80-103.5(1)(a) reaches “all actions to recover a liquidated debt or an unliquidated, determinable amount of money due to the person bringing the action.” That is a description of the sum owed, not of the product. Colorado’s limitations scheme never uses the words credit card, revolving credit, or consumer debt anywhere, in any title of the code.
What this means in practice: the six-year answer commonly given for Colorado credit card debt rests on the account being a “liquidated debt,” and the statute never defines that phrase. The definition comes from a court decision, summarized in the editorial annotation published alongside the section: a debt is liquidated if the amount due can be ascertained by reference to an agreement or by simple computation, and a debtor’s dispute over it does not change that. That is case law rather than statutory text, and the page treats it as such.
When the clock starts
Colorado is one of the few states with an express accrual statute, and it is unusually specific. Section 13-80-108(4) provides:
A cause of action for debt, obligation, money owed, or performance shall be considered to accrue on the date such debt, obligation, money owed, or performance becomes due.
That is a pure due-date rule with no discovery element. Subsection (5) adds that a claim for a balance due on an open account for goods or services accrues “at the time of the last item of goods or services proved in such account,” and subsection (6) applies a discovery rule to breach of contract claims. Which subsection governs a revolving credit account is not stated.
What restarts the clock in Colorado
Colorado has a revival statute, forty years unamended, and it is a signed-writing statute with a deliberate gap. Section 13-80-113 reads in full:
No acknowledgment or promise shall be evidence of a new or continuing contract sufficient to take a case out of the operation of the statute of limitations, unless it is in writing signed by the party to be charged; but this section shall not alter the effect of a payment of principal or interest.
An acknowledgment or promise therefore needs both a writing and a signature. A payment is expressly removed from that requirement, but read the clause carefully: the statute says only that it does not alter the effect of a payment. It never states what that effect is. Colorado’s code does not say that a partial payment restarts the clock, and we are not going to add a proposition the legislature left out.
Three companion sections do real work and are easy to miss. Under § 13-80-115, a creditor’s own endorsement or memorandum of a payment written on the note “by or on behalf of the party to whom such payment is made” is not sufficient proof of that payment. Under § 13-80-114, no joint debtor loses the benefit of the article “by reason only of any acknowledgment, promise, or payment made by any other of them,” which covers payments as well as signatures. And § 13-80-116 allows a plaintiff barred as to one co-obligor to proceed against another who did revive.
Colorado debt collection statute of limitations: what state law does not add
Colorado has no statute prohibiting suit on time-barred debt, no revival prohibition, and no required disclosure that a debt is too old to sue on. A sweep of all forty-five titles of the 2026 code found the phrase “time-barred” only in case annotations and in unrelated contexts such as tort damages and air-quality penalties. Nothing appears in Title 5, which houses both the Uniform Consumer Credit Code and the Colorado Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
Colorado plainly bars the remedy rather than the debt. Each section is phrased as a command that an action be commenced within a period “and not thereafter,” and the Consumer Credit Code states the point from the other direction at § 5-5-201(4): “Except as otherwise provided, no violation of this code impairs rights on a debt.”
Two provisions do help against debt buyers, though they are pleading rules rather than limitations rules. Section 5-16-111(2)(a)(III) requires a collector suing on purchased credit card debt to attach “the most recent monthly statement recording a purchase transaction, payment, or balance transfer.” Section 5-16-111(3) requires, before a default judgment on debt-buyer-owned debt, filing evidence that includes the date of the last payment or the date of the last transaction. Both put the date you need in the plaintiff’s own filing.
One forward-looking note: § 5-16-135 provides that the article “is repealed, effective September 1, 2028,” subject to sunset review.
A 2026 medical debt bill that did not become law
Because it is easy to find and easy to misread, it is worth stating plainly: House Bill 26-1267 would have created a three-year period for certain medical debt collection actions and rewritten § 13-80-103.5(1)(a) to route them there. It failed. The motion to refer it as amended was defeated in committee on March 31, 2026 and the bill was postponed indefinitely. The published 2026 code confirms it: § 13-80-101(1) ends at paragraph (p) with no (q), and § 13-80-103.5(1)(a) retains its original single exception. Colorado medical debt sits on the same six-year track as other liquidated debt.
How often Colorado consumers report collection problems
Colorado consumers filed 2,330 debt collection complaints with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the 12 months ending August 26, 2026, which is 0.7% of the 323,584 filed nationwide and ranks 26th among reporting states, one of the lower placements we track.
Of those, 409, or 18% of the Colorado total, were categorized as a collector taking or threatening to take negative or legal action, against 25% nationally.
These are raw complaint counts, not rates. They are not adjusted for population, and a complaint is an allegation the CFPB has published, not a finding that a company broke the law. The figures refresh weekly from the CFPB’s public database.
If you are sued on a debt you believe is too old
Rule 8(c) of the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure requires a party to “set forth affirmatively” a list of defenses that expressly includes the statute of limitations. The rules are promulgated by the Colorado Supreme Court rather than the legislature, and the current text was adopted en banc in March 2020.
Two practical points specific to Colorado. Because the six-year period depends on the debt being liquidated or determinable, it is worth understanding which characterization the plaintiff is relying on. And if the plaintiff bought the debt, § 5-16-111 requires it to put the last payment or transaction date in front of the court before taking a default judgment, which is the fact a limitations argument is built from. Court deadlines are unforgiving, so this is a point at which speaking with a Colorado attorney or a legal aid organization is worth the call.
How Colorado compares
Three states worth reading next to Colorado, because each shares or inverts one of its rules:
- Michigan: six years, and the code declines to say what a payment does
- Wisconsin: a creditor cannot prove the payment from its own records
- Pennsylvania: the statute is likewise silent on payment
The full comparison table covers every state we have published.
Sources and verification
Statutes quoted from the Colorado Revised Statutes 2026 published by the Office of Legislative Legal Services, which states the edition is “Current with the changes made by amendments, additions, and repeals to Colorado Revised Statutes by the Seventy-fifth General Assembly at its Second Regular Session in 2026.” Provisions cited: C.R.S. §§ 13-80-101, 13-80-102, 13-80-103.5, 13-80-108, 13-80-109, 13-80-113, 13-80-114, 13-80-115, 13-80-116, 13-80-118; § 4-3-118; and §§ 5-5-201, 5-16-107, 5-16-108, 5-16-109, 5-16-111, 5-16-135. The definition of “liquidated debt” quoted above comes from an editorial annotation published with § 13-80-103.5 summarizing Rotenberg v. Richards, 899 P.2d 365 (Colo. App. 1995), and is not statutory text. House Bill 26-1267 status confirmed on the General Assembly’s own bill page as “Lost.” Rule 8(c) text taken from the Colorado Supreme Court’s own rule change order adopted March 5, 2020. Text retrieved August 26, 2026. Complaint data: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, filtered to the Debt collection product and the Colorado state field over a rolling 12-month window, re-queried weekly by this site. Our data sources and update policy lists every figure on this site that refreshes automatically and how often.
This page explains what the Colorado statutes say. It is general information, not legal advice, and it does not resolve whether a particular credit card account is a liquidated debt, because the code does not define that term.
Frequently asked questions
How long can a debt collector pursue an old debt in Colorado?
A collector may contact you indefinitely, but the deadline to sue on a liquidated debt or an unliquidated, determinable amount of money is six years under C.R.S. § 13-80-103.5(1)(a). Contract actions that do not involve such a sum run three years under § 13-80-101(1)(a).
Is Colorado credit card debt three years or six?
The code does not say. Section 13-80-103.5 describes the kind of sum owed rather than the kind of account, and no Colorado limitations statute mentions credit cards. The six-year answer depends on the balance being a liquidated debt, a term the courts have defined rather than the legislature.
Does making a payment restart the statute of limitations in Colorado?
The statute does not say so. Section 13-80-113 requires an acknowledgment or promise to be in a writing signed by the person being charged, then adds that the section “shall not alter the effect of a payment of principal or interest” without stating what that effect is. Section 13-80-115 separately provides that a creditor’s own record of a payment is not sufficient proof of it.
Did Colorado shorten the deadline for medical debt in 2026?
No. House Bill 26-1267 proposed a three-year period for certain medical debt collection actions, but it failed in committee on March 31, 2026 and was postponed indefinitely. The published 2026 code contains none of its changes.