Last verified: August 2026. Confirm with CDPHE Retail Food or your local public health agency before paying for anything.
| Required | Get it within | Valid for |
|---|---|---|
| No — not statewide, not in Denver, not in any county | — | — |
Law: No statewide mandate · Authority: Colorado CDPHE · Verified: August 2026
No Colorado county requires a worker card either. What did change in March 2025 is the manager rule, explained below.
Colorado does not require food workers to hold a food handler card. Not in Denver, not in Colorado Springs, not anywhere in the state. There is no state card, no county card, and nothing for a line cook or server to buy.
Denver is the county people ask about most, and it has the most interesting answer: Denver used to require employee food handler certificates, and repealed the requirement in August 2000. The chapter of Denver’s code is still titled “Food and Food Handlers,” which is a large part of why the confusion persists.
Quick answer
- Do you need a food handler card in Colorado? No. No state law and no local ordinance requires one.
- Denver? No. The ordinance that once required employee food handler certificates was repealed in 2000 and the section sits empty in the code today.
- What changed in March 2025? A lot — but at the manager level. The person in charge of most Colorado food establishments must now be a certified food protection manager.
- Does that affect you as a worker? Only indirectly: it means there is more likely to be a certified person on shift than there used to be.
- Why does everyone say Colorado requires a food handler card? Because Colorado does require food safety training — of home-based cottage food producers, under a completely different law. That requirement gets scraped and misapplied to restaurant workers constantly.
- What do you personally owe? Health reporting, handwashing, and complying with exclusion or restriction. Enforceable. No card.
Find your Colorado county
No Colorado law requires a worker card, but county pages below cover what each area actually asks for. Jump to yours:
Denver: the requirement that was repealed in 2000
Denver is the one Colorado jurisdiction with express statutory power to go its own way. C.R.S. 25-4-1604 carves it out by name: the state’s uniform licensing provisions “shall not apply to the city and county of Denver, which, by ordinance, may provide for the licensure of retail food establishments.”
So the question is a real one rather than a formality — and Denver’s own code answers it.
Denver Revised Municipal Code Chapter 23 is titled “Food and Food Handlers.” It runs to twenty-nine sections covering licensing, inspection, enforcement, penalties, mobile units, pushcarts, peddlers, temporary establishments and ice cream vendors. Not one of them requires a food worker to hold a card or certificate.
Section 23-41 is where such a requirement would sit. It is marked Reserved, and carries this editor’s note:
“Ord. No. 619-00, § 1, adopted Aug. 7, 2000, repealed section 23-41 in its entirety. Former section 23-41 pertained to employee food handler certificates, and derived from Ord. No. 97-99, § 1, adopted Feb. 8, 1999.”
So Denver enacted an employee food handler certificate requirement in February 1999, and repealed it eighteen months later, on 7 August 2000. It has not had one for twenty-six years. We checked this against the current code version, stamped 17 August 2026.
Two things follow. First, anyone selling you a “Denver food handler card” is selling a document Denver deliberately stopped requiring a quarter of a century ago. Second, if you find an old page or forum post saying Denver requires one, it may well have been right when it was written — which is exactly why this keeps circulating.
What Denver’s code does say about workers
One section reaches you personally. Sec. 23-5, “Procedure when infection is suspected,” lets the department act where it has reasonable cause to suspect disease transmission from a food establishment employee — including “the immediate exclusion of the employee from all food establishments,” restriction to an area where there is no danger of transmission, and “adequate medical and laboratory examination of the employee and other employees.”
That is a public health power exercised when something is suspected. It is not a screening requirement, and it is not a card. It is worth knowing it exists.
Where the “Colorado food handler card” idea comes from
This one is worth naming precisely, because the confusion is not random — there is a real Colorado law that requires a food handler card, and it applies to someone else entirely.
The Colorado Cottage Foods Act, C.R.S. 25-4-1614, requires that “a producer must take a food safety course that includes basic food handling training,” comparable to or given by CSU Extension or a public health agency, and must “maintain a status of good standing in accordance with the course requirements.”
CDPHE’s own cottage foods page lists the acceptable options — and one of them is, in so many words, “a Food Handlers Card from an online course provider.”
That is an official Colorado government page, saying Colorado accepts a food handlers card. It is about home-based cottage food producers selling directly to consumers — people making jam or baked goods at home — and it has nothing to do with employees of licensed restaurants, groceries or bars. But it is the single most quotable “Colorado requires a food handler card” line in Colorado law, and it gets lifted onto pages aimed at restaurant workers.
If you are a cottage food producer, that requirement is real and you should follow it. If you are a food worker, it is not yours.
The March 2025 change: Colorado does not work like most states
Most states that require a certified manager require one to be employed, not present — a manager can be certified and off-site while a separate person in charge runs the shift. Michigan, Arkansas, North Dakota, Montana and Minnesota all work that way.
Colorado no longer does. The 2022 Food Code collapsed the two roles into one, and Colorado adopted it.
Two provisions do the work together:
- 2-101.11(A) — the permit holder “shall be the person in charge or shall designate a person in charge and shall ensure that a person in charge is present at the food establishment during all hours of operation.”
- 2-102.12(A) — “The person in charge shall be a certified food protection manager who has shown proficiency of required information through passing a test that is part of an accredited program.”
Colorado delayed that second provision when it adopted the code. Section 2.3(D) of 6 CCR 1010-2 provides that “Subpart 2-102.12 (A) (Certified Food Protection Manager), will be effective March 1, 2025.”
Jefferson County states the practical effect: “Effective March 1, 2025, you will need at least one employee that is certified as a Food Protection Manager (CFPM) on duty during operating hours.”
The exception that stops this being absolute
A certified manager is not required in every establishment at every moment. Both 2-101.11 and 2-102.12(B) allow the regulatory authority to exempt establishments “deemed … to pose minimal risk of causing, or contributing to, foodborne illness based on the nature of the operation and extent of food preparation.”
Larimer County gives the worked examples: a CFPM “may not be required during all hours of operation” — in bakeries, where the risky preparation happens before opening, or in bars where drinks and low-risk foods are served with the kitchen closed.
Note that Colorado publishes no list of exempt establishment types. It is case-by-case discretion held by your local public health agency, which is why two counties can describe the same rule slightly differently.
What the state does not set
Two gaps worth knowing, because pages fill them in with invented numbers:
- No state validity period. Nothing in 6 CCR 1010-2 or the incorporated Food Code sets an expiry or renewal interval for a Colorado food protection manager certificate. Any expiry you encounter is set by the certifying programme, not by Colorado. The commonly quoted five years is the programme’s, not the state’s.
- No replacement window. We found no grace period in the rule, the Food Code, or CDPHE’s guidance for an establishment that loses its certified manager. That is an absence in the state layer, not a deadline of zero — ask your local agency.
What Colorado actually requires of you
Colorado’s rules for workers come from the 2022 FDA Food Code, which 6 CCR 1010-2 § 2.6 incorporates. Two details matter for accuracy: the current rule took effect 16 March 2024, and the incorporation is frozen at the text “in effect on January 18, 2023, and no later amendments” — so the FDA’s later Supplement to the 2022 Food Code does not apply in Colorado.
Reporting
Under 2-201.11 you must report to the person in charge: vomiting, diarrhea, jaundice, sore throat with fever, and lesions containing pus on hands or arms; a diagnosis of Norovirus, Hepatitis A, Shigella, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, typhoid or nontyphoidal Salmonella; and household or outbreak exposure.
Exclusion and restriction
Under 2-201.12 you are excluded if you are symptomatic with vomiting or diarrhea, jaundiced within the last 7 days, or diagnosed with Hepatitis A or typhoid. You are restricted for asymptomatic Norovirus, Shigella or STEC in most facilities, asymptomatic nontyphoidal Salmonella, or an infected wound “that is open or draining and not properly covered.”
Handwashing
2-301.14 lists nine triggers, including after using the toilet, when switching between raw food and ready-to-eat food, before putting on gloves to start a food task, and after coughing or sneezing.
Training
2-103.11(O) requires the person in charge to ensure employees “are properly trained in food safety, including food allergy awareness, as it relates to their assigned duties.” That is a duty on your employer to train you, discharged however they choose. No course, provider, exam or document is specified.
County by county
Colorado’s local public health agencies have genuine independence, so this is worth checking rather than assuming. Under C.R.S. 25-1-508(5)(g) a county or district board of health may adopt rules, provided they are “not inconsistent with the public health laws of this state nor with the orders or rules of the state board.” Stricter is not barred outright.
No Colorado jurisdiction we checked requires a worker card. Four say so in their own words:
- Larimer County — “basic food safety training is not required by the 2022 Food Code.”
- Boulder County — “The Colorado Food Code doesn’t require food handlers to complete a food safety course, but we highly recommend having all staff take this level of training.”
- Mesa County (Grand Junction) — “A food safety basics or food handler course is strongly encouraged, but not required in Colorado.”
- Northeast Colorado Health Department — its food handler course “does not meet the requirement of having a certified food protection manager, but it does give food handling staff more knowledge on basic food safety principles.”
Pueblo County — the one that reads like a requirement
Pueblo deserves its own note, because its wording is stronger than anywhere else in the state. On its food safety page, under a heading “Food Handler Training,” the Pueblo Department of Public Health and Environment says: “In addition to the manager being trained and utilizing AMC, every food employee must have food safety training.”
Read alone, that sounds like a mandate. Read in context, it is the person-in-charge training duty stated as an expectation of the establishment. The tell is in the list of acceptable training, which includes “specialized in-house training which is reviewed/approved by us.” No card is issued, no hours are set, no validity period or renewal is published, and no handler-level fee exists. A credential regime does not accept unaccredited in-house training.
The practical takeaway for a Pueblo worker: you do not need to buy a card, but you should expect your employer to train you and to be able to show the inspector that they did.
Everywhere else
El Paso County (Colorado Springs) publishes a complete set of Board of Health regulations — bylaws, administrative, fees, hearings, air quality, body art, fetal death review, onsite wastewater — and no retail food chapter at all, handling food under the state Act instead. Jefferson, Adams, Douglas, Weld, Summit, Eagle, Pitkin, Routt, San Miguel, Garfield and La Plata all address the certified manager requirement and treat handler training as optional. Several counties sell their own handler course — Pitkin at $10, El Paso at $15, Boulder onsite for a flat session fee — which is a service, not a mandate.
Two we could not verify and will not guess at: Arapahoe County blocks automated access to its public health pages entirely, and Alamosa County‘s directly on-point FAQ could not be retrieved. Neither publishes anything suggesting a card requirement, but we have not read them, and we would rather say so than pad the list.
Agencies that no longer exist
If you are checking your own county, start from the CDPHE local public health agency directory — and note that two reorganisations catch people out. Tri-County Health Department dissolved on 31 December 2022 — Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas now each run their own department. San Juan Basin Public Health dissolved as well, replaced by La Plata County Public Health and a separate Archuleta County department. Both old websites are still live and still serving food safety pages alongside their successors.
What a county cannot do
Even a Colorado county that wanted a card scheme would struggle to fund it. C.R.S. 25-4-1607(1.1)(d)(II) provides that the statutory licence fees “must be the only annual license fees charged by the state or by a county, district, local, or regional inspection authority.” Counties may set fees lower. They may not add fees on top.
Two things that look like worker requirements and are not
The “medical examination of all employees” clause
C.R.S. 25-4-1604 authorises CDPHE to make rules including “provisions for the initial and periodic medical examination by the department or other competent medical authority of all employees of retail food establishments.”
That reads like mandatory health screening for food workers. It is a grant of rulemaking authority that has never been exercised in that form. The adopted rule contains no medical examination requirement for employees; what exists instead is self-reporting to the person in charge. Citing 25-4-1604 as proof that Colorado screens food workers mistakes an enabling clause for an operative one.
Superseded rules still published on government websites
This is the practical hazard when you try to check Colorado yourself. The Colorado Department of Education still hosts a copy of the “Colorado Retail Food Establishment Rules and Regulations” with an effective date of 30 July 2004, containing no certified manager provision at all. Larimer County still hosts the 1 January 2019 rules, built on the 2013 Food Code with the 2015 Supplement. Summit County hosts a 2013 edition. All three are on .gov sites. All three are superseded by the rule effective 16 March 2024.
A .gov URL tells you the publisher is official. It does not tell you the document is current. Check the effective date on the face of the document.
What this should cost you
As a Colorado food worker: nothing. No card, no state fee, no renewal. If a site is charging you for a “Colorado food handler card” or a “Denver food handler card,” you are buying a certificate of attendance with no legal standing in Colorado.
Optional handler courses do exist and some are genuinely cheap and useful — Pitkin County sells its own for $10, El Paso County lists a basic food safety class at $15. Those are county courses, priced by the county, and entirely voluntary.
If you are becoming the person in charge, the certified food protection manager exam is the real cost. It must be part of an accredited programme — Colorado approves by accreditation, not by a list of approved companies, and agencies across the state point at the ANAB directory rather than naming vendors. Expect roughly $60 to $180 depending on whether you take a course with it.
Food handler requirements by Colorado city
Colorado’s county health departments have genuine independence, but none require a worker-level food handler card. Here is how the major cities break down:
Aurora (Adams and Arapahoe counties)
Aurora is unique in Colorado in that it straddles two counties — roughly the western portion sits in Arapahoe County and the eastern portion in Adams County, with a small slice in Douglas County. Neither Adams County nor Arapahoe County requires a food handler card for individual workers. Aurora’s large food service workforce (the city has over 400,000 residents) is subject to the state food safety baseline only. Food service permits in Aurora are issued by the county health department based on your establishment’s address — either Tri-County Health Department (Adams/Arapahoe/Douglas) or the county directly.
Fort Collins (Larimer County)
Larimer County states plainly that “basic food safety training is not required by the 2022 Food Code.” Fort Collins food workers are not required to hold a card. The Larimer County Department of Health and Environment handles food service permits and inspections. Many Fort Collins employers — particularly in the college-town restaurant scene near Colorado State University — require their own internal training, but no county permit is required.
Lakewood, Englewood, Littleton (Jefferson and Arapahoe counties)
Lakewood (Jefferson County) and the south Denver suburbs of Englewood and Littleton (Arapahoe County) follow their respective county baselines — neither requires a worker food handler card. Jefferson County Public Health and Tri-County Health handle inspections in these areas.
Greeley (Weld County)
Weld County does not require a food handler card for workers. The Weld County Department of Public Health and Environment handles food service permits. Greeley’s food service industry includes significant agricultural processing operations, but the card requirement does not apply to those workers differently than any other food service employee.
Thornton and Westminster (Adams County)
Both cities fall in Adams County and are served by Tri-County Health Department (Adams, Arapahoe, and Douglas counties). No worker food handler card required. The certified food protection manager rule at the establishment level applies statewide including in these cities.
What to do
- If an employer asks for your “food handler card” — Colorado has none. Ask whether they mean their own onboarding training, which is what the Food Code actually requires them to give you.
- If you are in Denver — the certificate requirement was repealed in 2000. The chapter title “Food and Food Handlers” is a historical artefact, not a live rule.
- If you are becoming the person in charge — since 1 March 2025 you very likely need to be a certified food protection manager yourself. This is the one Colorado change that has real consequences, and it is at your level if you are being promoted.
- Ask your local agency about the low-risk exemption — it is discretionary and unpublished, so the only reliable answer is theirs.
- Learn the reporting list. The symptoms and diagnoses under 2-201.11 are the part of Colorado law that binds you personally.
If your employer asks for a card anyway
No Colorado law requires a worker card, but many employers ask for one. An ANSI-accredited online food handler course runs $7–$15 and gives you documentation to show a new employer.
Colorado at a glance
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Worker food handler card required? | No — nowhere in Colorado |
| Denver food handler card? | No — repealed 7 August 2000 |
| Certified food protection manager required? | Yes — the person in charge must be one, since 1 March 2025 |
| Must the certified person be present? | Yes, in most establishments — this is unusual |
| Low-risk exemption? | Yes, but discretionary and unlisted |
| State-set certificate validity | None — the programme sets it, not Colorado |
| Replacement window if the CFPM leaves | None found in the state layer |
| Exam approval | By accreditation, not a named provider list |
| Food Code edition | 2022 FDA Food Code, effective 16 March 2024, frozen at the 18 Jan 2023 text |
| Does the FDA Supplement apply? | No |
| Cost to a worker | $0 |
| Can a county add its own fee? | No — statutory fees are the only annual licence fees allowed |
| Cottage food producers | Different rule — food safety training genuinely is required |
Sources: 6 CCR 1010-2 (Colorado Retail Food Establishment Rules, effective 16 March 2024); FDA 2022 Food Code as incorporated; C.R.S. §§ 25-1-508, 25-4-1603, 25-4-1604, 25-4-1607, 25-4-1614; Denver Revised Municipal Code Chapter 23 (version 17 August 2026); CDPHE; and the published pages of Larimer, Boulder, Mesa, Jefferson, El Paso, Weld, Pueblo, Summit, Eagle, Pitkin, San Miguel, Garfield, La Plata, Otero and Northeast Colorado public health agencies. Requirements were checked against rule and ordinance text, not against training providers.
Managing or supervising a Colorado food establishment? See Colorado Food Manager Certification.
Work across a state line?
Food handler rules follow the establishment’s location, not where you live. If you work in a neighbouring state, its requirements may be different:
Frequently asked questions
Does Colorado require a food handler card?
No. Colorado does not require food workers to hold a food handler card — not in Denver, not in Colorado Springs, not anywhere in the state. There is no state card, no county card, and no employer mandate under state law.
Do Denver or Colorado Springs require a food handler card?
No. Neither Denver, Colorado Springs, Boulder, nor any other Colorado jurisdiction currently requires an individual food worker card. Colorado is one of the cleaner ‘no card’ states — no county has its own rule.
Does Colorado also require a food manager certification?
Yes — Colorado adopts the 2022 FDA Food Code directly, keeping the mandatory certified food protection manager requirement in Chapter 2 intact.