Teller County Passes Ordinance 23: Permits Begin December 1.

Published September 11, 2026.

A note on sourcing: this account is based on reports from attendees at the September 10 meeting. As of publication, Teller County has not posted the adopted ordinance, and its ordinances page still lists Ordinance 22 as the most recent. We flag below what is confirmed and what is not, and we will update this page as official documents are published. Confirm anything you are relying on directly with the county.

Disclosure: we co-host short-term rentals in Teller County and operate properties affected by this ordinance.

The short version.of Ordinance 23

On September 10, 2026, Teller County commissioners adopted Ordinance 23, the first county-level short-term rental ordinance in the county's history.

Three things matter most:

• Permitting begins December 1, 2026.

• Existing short-term rental operators are grandfathered.

• Owners who start operating after December 1 have 60 days to obtain a license.

Commissioners Bob Campbell, Erik Stone, and Dan Williams passed it on first reading August 6 with amendments. The county has used roughly 850 as its working count of short-term rentals operating here.

What "grandfathered" does and does not mean

This is the word everything hinges on, and it is also the word people use most loosely. Before you conclude you are safe, get answers to these four questions from the county in writing.

1. Does grandfathered status still require a license? In most ordinances structured this way, it does. Grandfathering usually means you are protected from a restriction, not exempt from registering. Assume you still need to apply until the county tells you otherwise.

2. Are you exempt from the 10% subdivision cap, or do you count toward it? This is the consequential one. If existing operators are exempt from the cap but still count toward the 10%, then subdivisions with concentrated short-term rental activity may already be at or over the limit, and no new licenses issue there at all. If you own in a subdivision with a lot of rentals, this determines whether anyone new can enter your market.

3. Are you exempt from the zoning restriction? If your property sits outside the A-1, R-1, RR, and R1M districts, does grandfathering protect you, or does the zoning restriction apply regardless?

4. Does grandfathered status survive a sale? The draft ordinance made licenses non-transferable. If grandfathering is tied to the license and the license does not transfer, then selling the property extinguishes the protection and the buyer applies as a new entrant. If you are buying an existing Teller County short-term rental, this question decides whether you are buying a business or a house. Do not close without the answer.

We are working on confirming all four. When the adopted text posts, this section gets updated.

The December 1 date and the 60-day rule

Permitting opens December 1, 2026. Owners who begin operating after that date have 60 days to obtain a license.

For buyers, that 60-day runway is more generous than it first appears. You are not blocked from operating while an application is pending. If you close in November or December, you can furnish, list, and begin taking bookings while the license moves through the county.

That matters particularly for buyers pursuing the short-term rental tax strategy, where the property has to be placed in service before December 31 to claim first-year depreciation. Teller County's structure does not obstruct that timeline.

Two things to confirm: whether the 60 days runs from December 1, from closing, or from the first booking, and whether licenses under the density cap are issued first-come. If they are first-come, your position in line has real value and waiting until January is a mistake.

What the ordinance 23 requires

These provisions come from the August 7 draft. Amendments were made at both readings, so treat this as the baseline and verify against the adopted text.

Zoning. Permitted only in A-1, R-1, RR, and R1M districts, covering residential single family, mobile and modular homes.

Density cap. No more than 10% of residential properties containing a dwelling within any subdivision eligible for a license.

One building per license. An owner applies to operate one building as a short-term rental.

Annual, non-transferable license. One year from issuance, tied to the property, does not transfer on sale.

Septic inspection. Third-party inspection of the onsite wastewater treatment system, dated within 365 days of application, showing no deficiencies and no components in failure.

Occupancy. Set by septic design capacity, or two per bedroom on central sewer.

Parking. At least two off-street spaces. On-street guest parking prohibited.

Local contact. A designated local contact, management company or full-time resident, able to respond to complaints within 60 minutes.

Emergency notification. Licensed owners and local agents must register with Everbridge or PeakAlerts.

Operating standards. Quiet hours 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., wildlife-secure trash, no outdoor signage advertising the rental.

Enforcement. No routine pre-licensure or annual inspections. Self-certification with complaint-driven investigation. Violations are civil infractions with fines up to $1,000 each.

Fees. Reported figures have varied between accounts. We are not publishing a number until the county does.

What we are still confirming

• The vote count and how each commissioner voted

• The exact scope of grandfathering, per the four questions above

• Whether the 10% cap and the four zoning districts survived unchanged

• The final fee structure

• Whether the 60 days runs from December 1, from closing, or from first operation

• Whether licenses under the density cap are issued first-come

• Whether the county is contracting an outside administrator for the program, as attendees reported

We will update this page as each is confirmed against county documents.

What to do before December 1

1. Confirm your zoning. Ten minutes on the county assessor map. Everything else is moot if your parcel is not in a permitted district.

2. Schedule your septic inspection now. The report must be dated within 365 days of application and show no deficiencies. Roughly 850 owners are about to need the same inspection from a small pool of local providers, and permitting opens in eleven weeks. Call this week and you are inspected in weeks. Wait and you are inspected in months. If your system has a problem, you want that on your own schedule.

3. Get your grandfathering status in writing. Call the county, ask the four questions above, and keep the answer. Do not rely on a Facebook group, including ours.

4. Check your occupancy math. If your listing sleeps ten and your septic design capacity supports six, your revenue model just changed.

5. Solve the 60-minute local contact requirement. If you self-manage from Colorado Springs, Denver, or out of state, you cannot meet that standard alone.

6. Register with PeakAlerts or Everbridge. Five minutes, and it is required.

The objections owners raised

Opposition ran through the whole process, and the strongest version of it is about evidence rather than property rights in the abstract.

The county's estimate of how many short-term rentals exist has reportedly ranged from a few hundred to 2,000 over the review, with 850 now used as the working figure. Owners asked for the methodology: how many are active, how many owner-occupied, how many duplicated across platforms. They also asked for a breakdown of the complaints driving the ordinance and how many produced code violations, law enforcement calls, or septic failures.

That request was made early rather than late. The county's own outreach materials document participants calling for data-driven regulation: register properties first, find out where they are, gather impact data, then decide.

Commissioners' position has been that the review ran two years, included a survey through an outside firm, public meetings around the county, and published results. Commissioner Erik Stone cited 30 active rentals operating where they were not permitted with no mechanism to address it. Commissioner Dan Williams framed the ordinance around life safety, citing the inability to notify short-term rental guests during fire evacuations, and has separately pointed to a workforce housing shortage affecting first responders.

Both things can be true. The safety rationale is sound and the request for published data is fair. The ordinance is adopted either way, and owners now have a date on the calendar.

Will it be challenged?

There is direct precedent here, and it does not favor a challenge.

The Teller County Short-Term Rental Alliance and a co-plaintiff sued the City of Woodland Park to annul Ordinance 1469. The 4th Judicial District Court dismissed it. Judge William Moller found the plain text of the HOME Act does not implicate short-term rental regulation, and because the court found short-term rental use was not already allowed, the vested property rights claim failed too.

That is the same legal theory underneath Ordinance 23, already tested in Teller County District Court and upheld.

Comply on the assumption the ordinance stands. If a challenge succeeds, you have lost nothing by getting your septic inspected. If it fails, you are licensed while others scramble.

Woodland Park and the county are separate fights

Inside Woodland Park city limits, non-owner-occupied short-term rentals in residential zones are already prohibited under Ordinance 1469, passed by 59% of voters, enforced since March 2025. That is unrelated to Ordinance 23.

In unincorporated Teller County, including Divide, Florissant, and areas outside city limits, Ordinance 23 governs.

If you are buying, confirm jurisdiction by parcel, not mailing address

What this means for the market

Teller County has effectively written professional management into county law. An owner living elsewhere and self-managing through an app cannot meet a 60-minute complaint response standard, and the county now has a complaint-driven mechanism to test it.

Add annual renewals, third-party septic inspections, occupancy verification, alert registration, and self-certification exposure carrying per-violation fines, and the administrative load has gone up substantially.

Some owners will exit, convert to long-term rentals, or sell. For operators who stay and comply, that means less competition in a market with steady Pikes Peak and Mueller State Park demand.

If grandfathering does not survive a sale, the market shifts in a second way. Existing operators hold something a buyer cannot inherit, which makes staying more attractive and makes acquisition in capped subdivisions harder. That is worth understanding before you list your property or make an offer on someone else's.

We will keep this page updated

We co-host short-term rentals in Woodland Park, Divide, and Florissant and are working the same checklist on every property we manage. As the county publishes the adopted ordinance, the fee schedule, and the application process, we will update this page and note what changed.

If you own a short-term rental in Teller County and want a second set of eyes on where your property lands, send us the address. We will tell you what zone it is in, whether the density cap is likely to be a problem in your subdivision, and what to fix before December 1. No charge, no obligation, no requirement that you hire us.

[BOOK A CALL WITH EVERGREEN ESCAPES] 

Evergreen Escapes co-hosts short-term rentals across Teller, Park, Clear Creek, Jefferson, El Paso, and Douglas counties. This article summarizes a county ordinance based on the best information available at publication and is not legal advice. Confirm all requirements and deadlines directly with Teller County.

Related reading: [Best Places to Buy a Short-Term Rental in Colorado] and [Why Colorado Is the Best State to Use the STR Tax Loophole]