Pueblo apartment property taxes are set in three steps: the Pueblo County Assessor estimates a building’s market value every two years, a state-set assessment rate converts that value to a taxable figure, and the mill levies of the city, county, school district and special districts are applied to the result. Because Colorado classifies apartment buildings as residential property, a 20-unit complex in Pueblo is valued with sales comparisons and taxed at the same assessment rates as a single-family home.
What follows explains each step for an owner of a multifamily building in the City of Pueblo, using the rules in force for tax years 2025 and 2026, and points out the dates and decisions that most affect the final bill.
Why Pueblo apartment property taxes matter to owners
Pueblo is the county seat of Pueblo County and one of the larger cities in southern Colorado. The Census Bureau’s QuickFacts profile for the City of Pueblo estimates 110,404 residents as of July 1, 2025, slightly below the 111,876 counted in the 2020 Census. Its 2020–2024 survey data show an owner-occupancy rate of 61.4%, so roughly four in ten households rent. The median gross rent is $1,082 and the median owner-occupied home value is $247,200.
Those numbers frame the tax question. With rents near $1,100, a few hundred dollars per unit in property tax is a noticeable share of income, and a change in the assessment rate can move a building’s net operating income more than a typical rent increase would. Owners who understand how the bill is built can check it, plan for it and, where the value is wrong, contest it on time.
Step one: the two-year reappraisal cycle
Colorado revalues real property every odd-numbered year. According to the Colorado Division of Property Taxation’s guide to understanding property taxes, 2025 was a reappraisal year, and the values set in 2025 carry over unchanged into 2026. The next reappraisal is in 2027. Personal property, by contrast, is valued every year.
The values do not reflect today’s market. For 2025 and 2026, assessors used sales that closed between January 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024, an 18-month data collection period. Where there are not enough sales of a property type, the assessor may reach back in six-month steps, up to five years before June 30, 2024. The legal valuation date is June 30, 2024, and Pueblo County’s 2025 Notices of Value state that an owner who protests must give an estimate of value as of that date.
This lag matters for apartment owners in two ways:
- A building bought in 2025 at a price above or below its 2024-based value will keep its assessed value until the 2027 reappraisal, regardless of the sale price.
- Rent growth or a drop in occupancy after June 30, 2024 does not change the 2025 or 2026 value. The market level is fixed at that date, while the property itself is listed as it physically exists on January 1 of each tax year, the assessment date set by state law (C.R.S. 39-1-105).
How the assessor values an apartment building
Most commercial property in Colorado can be valued with the cost, market or income approach. Residential property is different. The Division of Property Taxation and Pueblo County’s own Notice of Value both state that residential property is valued using the market approach, meaning comparable sales, rather than the income approach.
Apartment buildings fall on the residential side of that line. The state’s Assessors’ Reference Library sorts residential improvements into subclasses, including duplexes and triplexes, buildings with four to eight living units, and buildings with nine or more living units. A property qualifies as residential when it is designed for use predominantly as a place of residency, which covers ordinary apartment complexes.
For owners, the practical effect is that the rent roll is not the starting point. The assessor compares the building with sales of similar apartment properties during the data collection period, adjusted for size, age, condition and location. Income can still be useful as supporting evidence of what buyers were paying, but the core of any challenge is sales data. An owner who wants to understand a valuation should ask which comparable sales the assessor relied on.
Step two: assessment rates for 2025 and 2026
Once the actual value is set, an assessment rate converts it to an assessed, or taxable, value. Colorado has changed these rates repeatedly since 2022, so the year on the tax bill matters.
Tax year 2025, payable in 2026
House Bill 24B-1001, passed in an August 2024 special session, set the residential rate for tax year 2025 at 6.25% for local-government levies and 7.05% for school district levies. The bill included lower fallback rates if statewide value growth exceeded a threshold, but state and county rate sheets show the 6.25% and 7.05% rates applied.
Tax year 2026, payable in 2027
For 2026 and later, the residential local-government assessment rate is 6.80%, applied after subtracting 10% of the first $700,000 of actual value, a subtraction capped at $70,000. The subtraction cannot reduce assessed value below $1,000, and the $70,000 cap is scheduled to be adjusted for inflation each reassessment cycle starting in 2027. The school rate stays at 7.05%, with no subtraction.
No separate apartment rate
Owners who followed the 2022 to 2024 debates may remember that multifamily property once had its own rate. For 2025 and 2026, county rate sheets list duplex and triplex, four-to-eight-unit and nine-plus-unit subclasses at the same rates as single-family homes. One open question for larger buildings is how the 2026 local-government subtraction applies to a multi-unit parcel. Owners should confirm that treatment with the Assessor’s office before relying on it in a budget.
How the rates got here
The history helps explain why prior-year bills are poor guides:
- Proposition HH, a statewide property tax measure, failed in the November 7, 2023 election.
- For 2023 the residential rate was 6.765%, and for 2024 it was 6.7%, with a $55,000 reduction in residential actual value in both years.
- SB24-233, passed in spring 2024, would have set 2025 rates of 7.15% for schools and 6.4% for local governments. HB24B-1001 replaced those figures a few months later.
Step three: mill levies and the Pueblo bill
Assessed value is multiplied by the mill levies of every taxing district that covers the parcel. One mill is one-tenth of a cent, or $1 of tax for every $1,000 of assessed value.
In Pueblo, the levies come from the City of Pueblo, Pueblo County, the school district and any special districts at that address. In tax area 60B, an area inside the city served by Pueblo School District 60, the county’s tax records show a total levy of 92.605 mills for tax year 2025. Levies differ by tax area, so a building a few blocks away may carry a different total.
Because school levies use the 7.05% rate and local levies use a different rate, the bill is calculated in two pieces and then added together. The county’s record for one residential parcel in tax area 60B shows an actual value of $235,891 and a 2025 tax of $1,468.88, roughly 0.62% of actual value. That ratio is a useful sense check, though an individual building’s figure depends on its tax area and the mix of school and non-school mills.
A worked example for 2026
Take a hypothetical apartment building with an actual value of $1,500,000.
- School portion: $1,500,000 × 7.05% = $105,750 of assessed value, multiplied by the school mills.
- Local-government portion: if the full $70,000 subtraction applies to the parcel, ($1,500,000 − $70,000) × 6.80% = $97,240 of assessed value, multiplied by the city, county and special district mills.
- Without the subtraction, the local-government assessed value would be $102,000.
For comparison, the same building in tax year 2025 carried $93,750 of local-government assessed value at the 6.25% rate, with the school portion unchanged at $105,750. So even with no change in actual value, the local-government piece rises in 2026: by about 3.7% if the subtraction applies to the parcel, or about 8.8% if it does not. Owners budgeting for 2027 payments should not simply roll forward their 2026 bill.
The $4,760 gap between the two 2026 local-government figures is modest on a building this size, which is why the per-parcel question matters more for small buildings than large ones. The bigger driver of the bill is the actual value itself, and that is what an owner can protest.
Personal property in furnished rentals
Real estate is not the only taxable item in a rental building. Colorado’s Assessors’ Reference Library lists a residential personal property subclass for household furnishings used to produce income from residential rental units. Appliances, furniture and similar items in furnished units can fall into that category.
There is a threshold. For tax years 2025 and 2026, Colorado exempts business personal property when its total actual value in a county is $56,000 or less, and owners under that amount do not need to file a declaration. Owners above it must file a personal property declaration with the Assessor by April 15. An owner of an unfurnished building with a laundry room may fall under the threshold, while an owner of a furnished corporate-housing building may not.
Building a protest for an apartment building
Because Colorado values residential property on sales comparisons, a strong protest for a multifamily building looks different from one for a commercial property. An owner, or the owner’s representative, usually assembles:
- Sales of similar apartment buildings in Pueblo that closed between January 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024, with unit counts, year built and price per unit
- Evidence of the building’s physical condition on the assessment date, such as inspection reports, contractor bids or photographs of deferred maintenance
- A check of the assessor’s record for errors in unit count, building size, year built or number of bedrooms, which are among the simplest problems to correct
- Income and expense statements for the period, used as supporting evidence of what a buyer would have paid rather than as the valuation method itself
A record error is often the fastest win: if the county shows twelve units on a ten-unit building, the value built on that record is wrong before any comparison of sales begins. Owners of buildings that changed physically, through a fire, a major renovation or a partial demolition, should ask the Assessor how the change is reflected, since the property is listed as it stood on January 1 of the tax year while market prices stay pinned to the June 30, 2024 date.
Protest and appeal deadlines in Pueblo County
Pueblo County’s 2025 Notices of Value were dated May 1, 2025, the statutory mailing deadline. Those notices lay out the appeal path for values that carry through 2026:
- File a written protest with the Assessor, postmarked by June 8.
- The Assessor mails a determination by the last working day of June.
- An owner who disagrees can appeal to the County Board of Equalization by July 15.
- After the Board decides, the owner has 30 days to take the matter to the state Board of Assessment Appeals, to district court or to binding arbitration.
If a deadline falls on a weekend or holiday, it moves to the next business day. A change in the assessment rate is not a valid ground for protest; the protest has to be about value. In a non-reappraisal year, such as 2026, value changes are limited, so the main protest window for most apartment owners is the spring of each odd year.
The Pueblo County Assessor’s office, led by Frank Beltran, is at 215 W. 10th Street in Pueblo. The Treasurer, who collects the tax, works from the first floor of the same County Courthouse.
Paying the bill and planning for it
Colorado taxes are paid in arrears: 2025 taxes are billed and paid in 2026. Owners can pay in full by April 30 or in two halves, the first by the last day of February and the second by June 15. For 2025 taxes, the county’s records show a first-half due date of February 28, 2026.
For an apartment owner, this produces a predictable planning rhythm:
- Spring of odd years: review the Notice of Value, pull comparable sales and decide whether to protest by June 8.
- Each April: file a personal property declaration if furnishings exceed the $56,000 threshold.
- Each January and February: confirm the bill uses the right assessment rate for the tax year and pay the first half or the full amount.
- Each budget season: model the next year’s tax using the correct rate. For 2026 values payable in 2027, that is 6.80% local and 7.05% school.
There are also exemptions an owner should not count on. Colorado’s senior property tax exemption applies only to a qualifying senior’s primary residence, so it does not reduce taxes on rental units.
What this means for Pueblo owners
The tax on a Pueblo apartment building is mostly the product of a value set from 2023 and 2024 sales, a state rate that has changed almost every year, and local levies that vary by address. Owners can influence the first of those through a well-documented protest in reappraisal years. They can only plan around the other two.
That planning shows up in valuations. A buyer will underwrite the property tax line at the rate for the year being projected, not the seller’s last bill, and will expect it to reset with the 2027 reappraisal. Owners can see how Colorado’s tax and rent rules compare with other states in our state-by-state guide to rent control and property tax, browse the Colorado market page, or read about selling an apartment building in Pueblo for more on the local market.
