Fort Collins apartment operating costs are shaped by a handful of local line items that owners elsewhere in Colorado may not face in the same form: city-owned utilities that moved to raise rates for 2026 and have proposed larger increases for 2027 and 2028, a rental registration fee charged per property and per unit, building energy and water scoring for mid-size buildings, a recycling mandate for apartment complexes, and Larimer County property taxes calculated at Colorado’s multifamily assessment rates. State laws passed since 2024 add compliance costs on top.
This guide goes through each of those items, using City of Fort Collins, Larimer County and State of Colorado sources, and closes with how they fit into an operating budget.
The Fort Collins rental market behind the budget
Fort Collins is an incorporated city in Larimer County and home to Colorado State University. The Census Bureau’s QuickFacts profile for Fort Collins estimates 171,500 residents on July 1, 2025, up from 169,810 in the 2020 Census. The owner-occupied housing rate was 51.6% for 2020 to 2024, so close to half of occupied homes are rented. Median gross rent was $1,690 and median household income was $85,070.
Colorado State University reported a record total enrollment of 34,412 in fall 2025. A large student population means frequent turnover, which affects several cost lines in this article, from cleaning and repainting to utility account transfers and trash volumes at move-out.
Utilities: city-owned rates rising in 2026 and beyond
Most Fort Collins properties buy electricity, water, wastewater and stormwater service from Fort Collins Utilities, which is owned by the city. That means rate changes are set by the City Council rather than a state utility commission. According to the city, the council typically approves rates in November and new rates take effect in January.
For 2026, the council agenda item that came before members on November 18, 2025 described increases to monthly rates of:
- 6% for electric customers
- 9% for water customers
- 8% for wastewater customers
- 6% for stormwater customers
The ordinances had been unanimously adopted on first reading on November 3, 2025.
Larger increases proposed for 2027 and 2028
The city has also published proposed utility rates for 2027 and 2028. The proposal calls for increases in each of those years of 7% for electric, 15% for water, 10% for wastewater and 5% for stormwater. The city’s example household using all four services would pay $203.89 a month in 2026 and $222.75 under the 2027 proposal, an increase of about 9.3%. The city notes that there will not be a final decision until November, so these are proposals rather than adopted rates.
For an apartment owner, the impact depends on how utilities are split. Buildings with master-metered water and sewer, which is common in older complexes, absorb the full increase unless they bill back to residents. A 15% water increase in each of two consecutive years, if adopted, would be one of the faster-growing expenses in a typical Fort Collins budget.
Stormwater fees depend on the lot
Stormwater charges are based on the property rather than consumption. The city’s stormwater rate formula multiplies lot size by a base rate and a rate factor tied to how much of the lot is covered by hard surfaces, such as roofs and parking. A garden-style complex with large parking lots will pay more than a compact building on a small lot, and adding paving can increase the fee.
Not every Fort Collins address gets water from the city. Some areas are served by separate water districts with their own rates, so owners should confirm which provider serves a property before budgeting.
Property taxes under Colorado’s multifamily rates
Property taxes for Fort Collins apartments are assessed by the Larimer County Assessor. Colorado taxes residential and multifamily property on a share of actual value set by state law, and that share has been changing as the legislature revised property tax rules.
According to the county’s 2026 assessment rates by property subclass, multifamily properties, including apartments with nine or more units, buildings with four to eight units and duplexes and triplexes, are assessed at:
- 7.05% of actual value for school district taxes
- 6.8% of actual value for local government taxes, after a reduction of 10% of the first $700,000 of value
By comparison, commercial property is assessed at 25%. In 2025, the county listed residential rates of 6.25% for local government and 7.05% for schools, so the local government rate is higher in 2026.
Reappraisal and payment timing
Larimer County revalues real property every odd-numbered year. For the 2025 reappraisal, the county said most homeowners would see values move between a 6% increase and a 6% decrease, and that the median home value fell nearly 1%, to $550,600. Countywide, total actual value rose 12.89% and assessed value rose 9.79%, according to the assessor’s biennial report. The 2025 appeal window ran from May 1 to June 9.
Owners can pay the full year’s taxes by April 30 or pay in two halves, due by the last day of February and June 15. Budgeting for the next reappraisal in 2027 is important because a multifamily building’s value can move differently from the single-family figures the county highlights.
Rental registration fees and inspections
Fort Collins requires long-term rentals to register with the city. According to the city’s rental housing registration page, most long-term rental properties, meaning homes rented for 30 days or more, have had to register since January 1, 2025, and registration is renewed every year.
The fee structure is straightforward:
- $37 per property per year
- $10 for each additional unit on the same parcel
- The city’s own example: a four-unit apartment building costs $67 a year
For a larger building, that works out to roughly $10 to $11 per unit per year. It is a modest cost relative to the size of most apartment budgets, but it is a recurring line that did not exist before 2025.
Registration does not require a routine inspection. Instead, owners self-certify that their units meet the International Property Maintenance Code, and tenants may request an inspection at any time. The city says fines will be assessed for owners who do not comply. It has also given out more than $200,000 in repair grants through the program, with grant rounds that usually open in December, which can offset some of the cost of addressing code issues.
The end of U+2 occupancy limits
Fort Collins was long known for its “U+2” rule limiting how many unrelated people could live together. Colorado’s HB24-1007, signed on April 15, 2024, took effect on July 1, 2024 and limits occupancy rules to those based on health, safety and welfare. The city’s occupancy page says the old extra-occupancy rental regulations are no longer required. For owners near campus, that removes a compliance cost and a leasing constraint, though occupancy must still meet safety codes.
Energy and water scoring requirements
Fort Collins has its own building benchmarking program. Under the city’s Building Energy and Water Scoring program, most commercial and multifamily buildings of 5,000 square feet or larger must report energy and water use each year by June 1. Multifamily buildings with fewer than three stories above grade are exempt. Missing the June 1 deadline may result in a $3,000 fine.
Larger buildings also face state rules. Building Performance Colorado applies to most commercial buildings of 50,000 square feet and larger, including large multifamily properties, with an annual benchmarking report and fee due November 1. The state program sets targets to reduce emissions from covered buildings by 7% by 2026 and 20% by 2030, compared with 2021.
The direct cost of reporting is mainly staff or consultant time to gather utility data. The larger long-term cost comes from meeting performance targets, which may require upgrades to lighting, heating systems, controls or water fixtures.
Trash and recycling rules for apartment complexes
Fort Collins contracts residential trash service to a single hauler, Republic Services, under a five-year contract that began September 30, 2024. That program covers buildings with seven or fewer units. Buildings with eight or more units, large apartment complexes and properties using dumpsters are not part of it, so most apartment owners still contract for their own service.
Those owners must follow the city’s Community Recycling Ordinance, adopted in 2016. Under the ordinance’s requirements for apartment complexes, multifamily properties must subscribe to single-stream recycling, and at least 33% of each complex’s total waste service volume must be recycling. The city notes that owners can offset the cost by reducing trash service. Turnover months near campus, when move-outs generate large volumes of discarded furniture and bulk items, are when these costs and contamination problems usually peak.
Sales and use tax on supplies and construction
Taxes on purchases add to maintenance and capital budgets. According to the city’s sales tax page, the combined sales tax rate in Fort Collins is 8.30%, made up of the city’s 4.35%, Larimer County’s 1.05% and the state’s 2.90%. The combined rate was 8.05% from the start of 2024 through 2025, and the city portion was 3.85% from 2019 through 2023.
The city also collects use tax on construction materials. Building permits numbered B24 and later are taxed at 4.35%. For a renovation program, that applies to materials used under the permit, so a large interior upgrade or exterior project should include the use tax in its cost estimate.
State landlord laws that add operating costs
Several Colorado laws passed in 2024 and 2025 affect how apartments are run and what they cost:
- For-cause eviction (HB24-1098). In effect since April 19, 2024, it generally requires landlords to have cause to evict or decline to renew a tenancy, with 90 days’ notice for no-fault grounds such as major renovation or demolition. Tenancies under 12 months are among the exemptions. The added notice period can lengthen vacancy during renovations.
- Habitability response times (SB24-094). Effective May 3, 2024, landlords must begin remedial action within 72 hours of notice of an uninhabitable condition, or within 24 hours for conditions that threaten life, health or safety. Faster response times can raise maintenance staffing and after-hours vendor costs.
- Security deposits (HB25-1249). Since January 1, 2026, the default deadline to return a deposit is 30 days, extendable by lease to no more than 60. Wrongful retention can lead to treble damages after a seven-day written demand, bad faith is presumed when the amount kept is 125% or more of actual damages, and charges for normal wear and tear are void, according to the Colorado Division of Real Estate’s summary.
- Carbon monoxide alarms. State law requires CO alarms in rental units with fuel-fired appliances or attached garages when certain work is done or a new tenant moves in, and owners must replace missing or nonfunctioning alarms before a new tenancy.
Insurance and the hail factor
Insurance is one of the hardest Fort Collins costs to pin down from public data. The Colorado Division of Insurance has identified hail as the number one cost driver of insurance in the state, estimating that hail makes up about 26% to 54% of average homeowners premiums. Those figures are for homeowners policies, not apartment buildings, but they show why roof condition, roofing materials and claims history weigh heavily when insurers price Front Range properties.
For apartment owners, that means a newer impact-resistant roof can matter both for premiums and for a buyer’s underwriting. Older roofs, deferred maintenance and past hail claims can all raise costs or limit coverage options.
Fitting Fort Collins apartment operating costs into a budget
Putting the local items together, a few practical points stand out for Fort Collins apartment budgets:
- Model utilities forward. Use the 2026 increases the council advanced in late 2025 and treat the 2027 and 2028 proposals as a scenario until the council votes. Water and wastewater are the lines to watch.
- Budget property taxes on the multifamily rates. Apply the 7.05% school and 6.8% local government assessment rates to a realistic value, and plan for the next reappraisal in 2027.
- Include small recurring fees. Rental registration, benchmarking time and recycling service are each modest, but together they belong in the budget.
- Price compliance into turnover. Faster habitability response times, stricter deposit rules and 90-day notices for no-fault terminations affect staffing, vacancy and legal costs.
- Treat the roof as an insurance asset. In a hail-prone market, roof condition affects both premiums and sale value.
A hypothetical 40-unit example
To see how a few of these items scale, consider a hypothetical 40-unit building on one parcel with an actual value of $8 million and master-metered water and sewer:
- Rental registration: $37 for the property plus $10 for each of the 39 additional units, or $427 a year.
- School assessed value: 7.05% of $8 million is $564,000. The mill levies of the school district and other taxing bodies are then applied to the assessed values to produce the bill.
- Local government assessed value: the 6.8% rate applies after the reduction tied to the first $700,000 of value, so the local assessed value is slightly lower than 6.8% of the full $8 million.
- Water and sewer: if the building paid $60,000 a year for water and wastewater combined, split evenly, the proposed 2027 increases of 15% and 10% would add about $7,500 in a single year.
The numbers are illustrations, not a forecast for any real property, but they show where the larger exposures sit. Small city fees barely move the budget, while utilities and property taxes can shift net operating income meaningfully from one year to the next.
Working these figures through a pro forma is the best way to see their effect on net operating income. Our NOI calculator can help estimate how changes in utilities, taxes and fees flow through to the bottom line. For statewide context, see our Colorado multifamily market overview, and for a local perspective on how buyers view these costs, visit our Fort Collins market page.
