Teacher Salary in Colorado 2026,
$63,410 Median | BLS Data by City

Colorado teachers earn a median $63,410 a year per BLS OEWS May 2025, with the middle half between $59,020 and $80,160 and a full range of $48,410 to $98,950. That is 0.9% below the $63,970 national median, though the statewide figure conceals an enormous district-level spread.

Boulder at $80,640, then Denver-Aurora-Centennial at $76,910, Fort Collins-Loveland at $62,930, Pueblo at $62,000 and Colorado Springs at $61,140. The nearly twenty thousand dollar gap between Boulder and Colorado Springs is the largest in this Colorado unit, and it reflects local funding capacity rather than any difference in the work.

Through the Colorado Department of Education's Office of Educator Licensure. The initial licence is the entry credential, held while completing an induction programme, and it converts to a professional licence that renews on continuing professional development. Colorado also operates alternative pathways that place candidates in classrooms while they complete preparation, which is one response to persistent vacancies in rural and mountain districts.

School funding. Colorado has spent decades below the national average in per-pupil funding, constrained by constitutional limits on revenue and spending, and districts set their own schedules against that funding. Wealthy Front Range districts with strong local support can pay far above the state figure — Boulder at $80,640 — while the rest cannot, which is why the statewide $63,410 sits below the national median despite those salaries.

A flat 4.4% state income tax, applied at the same rate regardless of income, which is less favourable for a teacher than a graduated schedule would be. Denver, Aurora, Greenwood Village, Glendale and Sheridan add a small flat monthly occupational privilege tax on people working in the city — a few dollars rather than a percentage. Front Range housing costs are the far larger pressure on take-home.

Because local funding capacity does the work that state funding does not. Colorado's constitutional revenue limits have held state education spending below the national average for a long time, which pushes districts toward local ballot measures — mill levy overrides — to top up their budgets. Communities that can pass and afford those measures, like Boulder Valley and the wealthier Denver suburbs, pay substantially more; Pueblo, Colorado Springs and the rural districts cannot. That is the mechanism behind an $80,640 figure in Boulder and a $61,140 one in Colorado Springs.

It annualises a contract that is typically nine or ten months and does not capture the extended contracts, summer school, coaching and stipend work many Colorado teachers use to close the gap. More importantly it says nothing about housing: the Front Range districts that pay best sit in the state's most expensive housing markets, and the mountain districts have vacancy problems that are almost entirely a housing story rather than a salary one.

The district, decisively. Moving from a low-override district to a high-override one with the same licence and the same experience is worth more than a decade of steps in this state — the metro table makes that unusually visible. After that, an advanced degree moves you across lanes on most Colorado schedules, National Board certification is recognised in many districts, and instructional coaching and administrative roles are what reach the $80,160 seventy-fifth percentile and the $98,950 ninetieth.