In Colorado, two separate risks run side by side. HB21-1110 (C.R.S. § 24-85-101 et seq.) lets people with disabilities sue state and local government sites in Colorado court for $3,500 per violation. Private businesses are not covered by that law — but they still face federal ADA Title III website suits.

Colorado’s distinct angle: a state law with real teeth

Most states have no website-specific accessibility statute at all — businesses and governments alike are governed only by the federal ADA. Colorado broke that pattern. With HB21-1110, signed in 2021, Colorado became one of the first states in the nation to write digital accessibility directly into its anti-discrimination law for government technology, complete with an explicit private right of action and statutory damages (Colorado General Assembly; Colorado Newsline).

That matters because the federal ADA has no statutory-damages provision for Title III at all — a plaintiff typically recovers only an injunction plus attorney fees. HB21-1110 added a hard dollar figure: a covered Colorado government entity can be ordered to pay a statutory fine of $3,500 per violation, payable to each affected individual, on top of actual damages, court-ordered remediation, and attorney fees (Colorado Office of Information Technology FAQ; Accessible.org).

This page is general information, not legal advice. For your specific situation, consult a qualified Colorado attorney.

Who HB21-1110 actually covers — and who it doesn’t

This is the single most misread part of the law, so be precise: HB21-1110 covers government, not private business. The statute reaches Colorado state agencies across the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, public higher-education institutions, and every local government entity — counties, municipalities, towns, school districts, and special districts such as water, fire, library, and transit authorities (Accessibility.Works).

The technical standard those entities must meet is WCAG 2.1 Level AA, set by the Colorado Office of Information Technology under C.R.S. § 24-85-103 (Colorado OIT). If you run a private Colorado company — a Denver retailer, a Boulder restaurant, a Colorado Springs clinic — HB21-1110 generally does not create a cause of action against you. Your exposure comes from the federal side, covered below. The one bridge between them: if you build, host, or supply digital content for a covered government entity, accessibility obligations can flow to you through procurement and contract terms.

The deadlines: Colorado moved first, and didn’t wait for the feds

HB21-1110’s original compliance date was July 1, 2024. The legislature then passed HB24-1454, a “grace period” bill granting government entities immunity from liability until July 1, 2025, provided they could demonstrate good-faith efforts toward compliance or toward resolving a complaint (Boia.org; Accessible.org good-faith guide). That grace period has now expired.

Here is the Colorado-specific twist that catches public entities off guard. In April 2026 the U.S. Department of Justice extended its federal Title II web rule deadlines — to April 2027 for larger entities and April 2028 for smaller ones and special districts (Federal Register). The federal delay does not move Colorado’s deadline. Colorado government sites have been legally required to conform since July 1, 2025, and a Colorado plaintiff can sue under state law today, regardless of the looser federal timeline (Castle Rock Sky). Paper plans without real remediation behind them are not a defense.

The federal layer: Tenth Circuit law shapes private-business risk

Because HB21-1110 leaves private companies to federal law, the controlling question for a Colorado business is how courts in the Tenth Circuit — which includes Colorado — handle ADA Title III website cases.

The Tenth Circuit has taken a defendant-friendly position on one key issue: standing. In Laufer v. Looper, 22 F.4th 871 (10th Cir. 2022), the court held that a self-described ADA “tester” who visited a hotel’s reservation site with no intention of booking had not suffered a concrete injury and therefore lacked standing to sue (Justia; McAfee & Taft; Law Week Colorado). That ruling puts Colorado among the circuits that have rejected tester standing — unlike the First, Fourth, and Eleventh Circuits — which raises the bar for drive-by plaintiffs who never intended to use the business.

That is real, but do not over-read it. Laufer curbs one category of plaintiff; it does not immunize Colorado businesses. A plaintiff who genuinely tried to shop, book, or get service and hit a barrier still has a viable claim, and many courts in this circuit treat a website as a “place of public accommodation” where it has a nexus to a physical store, office, or restaurant. The practical takeaway: standing arguments are a litigation defense, not a substitute for an accessible site. For how these cases unfold, see our guides to serial ADA plaintiffs and settlements and costs.

Who’s getting sued in Colorado

Federal filings make the picture concrete. In the first half of 2025, Colorado saw 34 website accessibility lawsuits filed in federal court — enough to tie for tenth-busiest state nationally — and the state logged 117 ADA Title III suits in 2022 at its recent peak (Seyfarth ADA Title III blog). Nationally, plaintiffs filed roughly 3,117 federal website accessibility lawsuits in 2025, a 27% jump over the prior year, with a large share targeting businesses that had already been sued at least once (Seyfarth ADA Title III blog; UsableNet lawsuit tracker).

The Colorado targets mirror the national pattern: consumer-facing businesses with a transactional website and a physical footprint — ecommerce shops, restaurants, healthcare practices, and real estate firms. On the government side, the new state-law exposure reaches any Colorado public entity whose site, PDFs, or online forms fail WCAG 2.1 AA — and disability advocates have made clear they intend to use the private right of action.

How a Colorado organization reduces exposure

Whether you’re a covered government entity facing HB21-1110 or a private business managing federal Title III risk, the defensible path is the same — and it is not an overlay widget, which fixes none of the underlying code and has itself drawn lawsuits. See why overlays don’t work.

  1. Audit against WCAG 2.1 AA. Start with a manual accessibility audit that tests with a keyboard and real screen readers, not just an automated scanner. Colorado names WCAG 2.1 AA specifically, so test against that exact standard. A free accessibility scan is a fast first read.
  2. Remediate the real code. Curbcut’s manual remediation fixes the HTML, ARIA, contrast, forms, and keyboard traps by hand — the work that holds up when someone actually tests your site. Don’t forget linked PDFs and online forms, which are explicit pain points for Colorado government sites.
  3. Document everything. For HB21-1110, good-faith documentation is part of the legal standard; for federal claims, it shows intent. Keep your audit reports, remediation logs, accessibility statement, and a responsive complaint process. Ongoing accessibility monitoring keeps new content from reopening gaps.

Already received something in the mail? Read what to do after an ADA demand letter, and remember that under Laufer a Colorado defendant may have standing arguments a plaintiff in another circuit would not — a reason to involve counsel early.

The bottom line for Colorado

Colorado is unusual: it pairs a strict government accessibility law that carries $3,500-per-violation statutory damages with the ordinary federal ADA risk that every business faces, all under a Tenth Circuit that has trimmed back tester lawsuits. None of that is solved by a plugin. It’s solved by an accessible site you can prove. Find your gaps with a free accessibility scan, then let [EXPERT_NAME] and the Curbcut team remediate them by hand.