Updated July 2026 · 8 min read
Part of the Travel Nurse Tax Hub — browse every related guide in one place.
Colorado is a strong travel-nurse market year-round — Denver's Level I trauma and academic systems, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, and the seasonal surge at mountain-resort hospitals in ski country. On tax, Colorado is refreshingly simple: one flat rate, no percentage city income tax, and a clean non-resident return. Here's how your assignment wages and stipends are treated in 2026.
Colorado uses a single flat income-tax rate rather than graduated brackets. For 2026 that rate sits at roughly 4.4% of taxable income. Because it's flat, a high-paying crisis contract will never bump you into a higher bracket — every taxable dollar is taxed the same. To ballpark your Colorado liability, multiply your taxable (non-stipend) Colorado wages by about 0.044. Note that Colorado's TABOR surplus mechanism can temporarily nudge the rate down in refund years, so the effective rate you file at is sometimes a hair below 4.4%. The rate is meaningfully higher than Arizona's flat 2.5% but far gentler than California's top brackets.
No Colorado city levies a percentage income tax on wages the way New York City or Philadelphia does. What Denver (and a handful of other municipalities such as Aurora, Greenwood Village, Glendale, and Sheridan) charge instead is the Occupational Privilege Tax, or OPT — a small flat monthly "head tax" on anyone earning above a low monthly threshold in that city. In Denver the employee share is a fixed few dollars a month, not a percentage of your paycheck. It's a rounding error next to your contract, but you'll see the line item and it's normal. It does not change your state filing.
Colorado follows the federal rule: tax-free housing and meal stipends require that you're duplicating living costs away from a genuine tax home. If your tax home is solid, stipends are excluded from taxable wages federally and in Colorado. If you've become itinerant — no permanent residence you maintain and return to — those stipends convert to taxable wages, and Colorado taxes its 4.4% share alongside the IRS's larger cut.
If your permanent home is in another state and you work a Colorado contract, you file a Colorado non-resident return: Form 104 with the 104PN schedule, which apportions your income between Colorado and elsewhere so Colorado only taxes the wages you earned inside the state. You'll also file in your home state; if your home state has an income tax, it generally gives you a credit for tax paid to Colorado so you aren't fully double-taxed. If your domicile is a no-income-tax state like Texas or Florida, you simply pay Colorado on the Colorado wages and owe no home-state income tax.
| Item | Colorado treatment (2026) |
|---|---|
| State income tax | Flat ~4.4% on taxable wages |
| City/county income tax | None as a percentage; small flat OPT head tax in Denver & a few cities |
| Non-resident form | Form 104 + 104PN apportionment schedule |
| Stipends | Tax-free with a legitimate tax home; taxable if itinerant |
| Reciprocity | None; rely on the home-state credit for tax paid to Colorado |
Colorado doesn't decide whether your stipends are tax-free — the federal tax-home test does — but if you're audited you'll want the same paper trail everywhere you work: proof you maintain a permanent residence (lease or mortgage, utilities in your name), evidence you return there between contracts, a duplicated-expense record showing you're paying for housing in two places, and your signed contract separating taxable hourly wages from non-taxable stipends. Keep it for at least three years after filing.
Related: The travel-nurse tax home, explained · Arizona travel taxes · California travel taxes
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