Two Property Tax Exemptions El Paso County Homeowners Miss

One unfiled form costs a qualifying Colorado Springs senior roughly $351 a year, every year they own the house.

I'm Brandon Behr, a REALTOR® with the Behr & Behr Team in Colorado Springs, and the two exemptions El Paso County homeowners miss most are the Senior Property Tax Exemption and the exemption for veterans with a disability. Each removes 50% of the first $200,000 of your home's actual value. Both are free. As I write on August 5, 2026, the senior late window closes August 15 and the veterans window for this tax year closed August 1.

The senior exemption, and the ten-year clock that trips people up

Colorado voters created it through Referendum A in 2000 and it first hit bills in tax year 2002. The El Paso County Assessor's test: age 65 by January 1, plus "owner of record of the property for at least ten consecutive years prior to January 1," occupying it as your primary residence that whole time. The Colorado Division of Property Taxation turns that into dates for tax year 2026. Born on or before January 1, 1961. Owned and occupied continuously since January 1, 2016 or earlier. Anniversaries do not matter. January 1 does.

The carve-outs are why there are two forms. The long form covers a surviving spouse plus four exceptions: title held in a trust purely for estate planning, confinement to a hospital, nursing home or assisted living facility, a prior home taken by eminent domain, and a prior home destroyed by natural disaster. Any of those can preserve a ten-year count you assumed a move had killed. Once approved you do not reapply, but you must report a change in ownership or occupancy within 60 days.

What the exemption is actually worth on a Colorado Springs house

Colorado assesses the same house at two rates: 7.05% for schools and 6.25% for local government in tax year 2025, per the Division of Property Taxation and the HB24B-1001 fiscal note of October 1, 2024. The exemption removes $100,000 of actual value, and that has to run through both rates separately.

From the El Paso County Treasurer's certified mill levy table for tax year 2025, a house inside city limits in School District 11 carries El Paso County at 6.857 mills, the City of Colorado Springs at 3.009, the Pikes Peak Library District at 2.938, the Southeastern Colorado Water Conservancy District at 0.850, and D11 at 37.695. Local government mills total 13.654.

My arithmetic, using the Treasurer's published levies and the state's published assessment rates. The benefit is capped by value, so a $260,000 bungalow and a $1.6 million house in the same tax area both save $351.09. Three quarters of it comes off the school line, because three quarters of the bill does. Joint Budget Committee staff modeled a statewide average near $585 per senior household in March 2026, so do not be surprised that my El Paso County figure is smaller than the number in the headlines. I walked through the rest of the statement in what your Colorado Springs property tax bill really says.

The veterans exemption, and the change that widened it in 2025

No ten-year clock here. You need an honorable discharge, a service-connected disability the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs rates as 100% permanent, and ownership and occupancy as your primary residence as of January 1. The dollar benefit is identical, so $351.09 on that D11 house. Two other groups qualify: the surviving spouse of a veteran who already held the exemption, absent remarriage, and a Gold Star spouse.

Colorado widened it in November 2024. Amendment G passed with 73.13% of the vote and extended eligibility to veterans holding individual unemployability status, generally a rating under 100% that the VA compensates at the 100% rate. Ballotpedia's summary projected roughly 3,400 additional Colorado veterans would qualify. It took effect for tax year 2025. Charles Graves, Manager of El Paso County Veterans Services, told KOAA on June 12, 2025: "People are in different stages of their lives financially. For some people, this helps stretch their dollar so they can spend more on their transportation needs and medical costs."

Here is the correction, because this is the most out-of-date instruction on the internet. Applications no longer go to the Colorado Division of Veterans Affairs. That Division's own property tax page and the Division of Property Taxation both state applications "must be submitted to the county assessor in the county where the property is located," effective January 1, 2024. Here that is the El Paso County Assessor at (719) 520-6600. If a site tells you to mail your award letter to Denver, it is two years out of date.

For 2026 the window ran January 1 through July 1, with late filings through August 1 and no appeal rights. SB26-046, signed March 26, 2026, moves the veterans and Gold Star dates onto the senior schedule starting January 1, 2027: July 15 regular, August 15 late. Do not file both forms expecting both benefits. Per the Division of Property Taxation, "no more than one exemption per tax year shall be allowed for a residential property, even if one or more of the owner-occupiers qualify for both." For veterans buying here, it sits alongside the loan mechanics in VA loan basics for Northgate buyers.

Moving used to erase it, and the replacement expires with this tax year

A senior who downsized used to lose the exemption and restart the ten-year clock. SB24-111, signed May 14, 2024, patched that with the Qualified Senior Primary Residence Classification. Held the senior exemption on a prior Colorado home in 2020 or later and lost it by moving? You can claim the same 50% of the first $200,000 at the new address, with no income limit.

The catch is the calendar. It covers tax years 2025 and 2026 only, and SB26-116, signed June 2, 2026, ends it "for property tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2027." The 2026 deadlines were March 15, and July 15 for late filers. Both are behind us. Veterans have plainer portability, since there is no clock to restart: move, then file fresh from the new address with a current VA Benefit Summary Letter.

Who pays for this, and the six years it went to zero

The state reimburses local governments, so your school district and fire district are made whole. Legislative Council Staff put reimbursements at $156.5 million in FY 2021-22, and the FY 2025-26 appropriation was $180,237,698 General Fund, per the Joint Budget Committee figure setting document of March 2, 2026, prepared by staff analyst Sam Rickman.

It has been switched off before. The final fiscal note for HB19-1317, from Legislative Council Staff, states that "exemptions were not available for 2003 through 2005 or for 2009 through 2011, when the General Assembly exercised its constitutional authority to set the exemption amount at zero to address budget shortfalls." Six tax years, two downturns, and the veteran exemption was not reduced in either. In March 2026, against a projected $1.5 billion shortfall, JBC staff recommended "a contingent mechanism that only funds the senior homestead exemption when there is a certified TABOR surplus." I could not confirm what the enacted budget did with that. The Assessor was still urging seniors to apply on July 10, 2026, without a caveat. File anyway.

The $70,000 subtraction, and the $8.88 it delivers here

For tax year 2026 the school rate holds at 7.05%, the local government rate rises to 6.80%, and a new value exemption subtracts 10% of the first $700,000 of actual value, capped at $70,000. It was announced as real relief. El Paso County Assessor Mark Flutcher, speaking to Colorado Politics on February 12, 2026, called the split rate structure something without precedent in state history.

Run it on a $500,000 D11 house with levies held constant. Tax year 2025: $1,755.44. Tax year 2026: $1,746.56. Relief of $8.88, by my arithmetic on the Treasurer's levies and the state's rates. The subtraction touches only the local government portion, 75.7% of that bill is the D11 school levy, and the local rate rose 0.55 points, clawing back most of what the subtraction gave.

The exemptions still sit on top. My 2026 estimate lands between $349 and $359 on that house, depending on whether the Assessor applies the value exemption before or after the 50% exemption. I could not confirm that sequencing anywhere published, so treat $351.09 as the firm figure.

If the bill is the problem, deferral is the other lever

Colorado's Property Tax Deferral Program, at C.R.S. 39-3.7-101, has run through the State Treasurer since SB22-220. Homeowners 65 and older may defer the full amount, as may homeowners called into active military service. Everyone else can use the tax growth cap door when the current year's tax rose 4% or more above the average of the two prior years, with a $100 minimum and a $10,000 cumulative maximum.

The El Paso County Treasurer describes it plainly: "When the State pays the taxes, it places a low-interest lien on the property, which becomes due when the property is sold or transferred." Summit County's published summary of the same program adds the limits nobody leads with: seniors need total liens and mortgages at or below 75% of actual value, active military 90%, and the property cannot be income-producing. Applications run January 1 through April 1, and interest accrues from May 1. This is borrowing against equity, not a discount.

Pulling your own exemption status and mill levy, for free

Ten minutes, no cost, for your exact address.

1. El Paso County Assessor property search, property.spatialest.com/co/elpaso. Pull the parcel, note actual value and tax area. Limit: I could not confirm every record displays exemption status, so a blank field is not proof.
2. El Paso County Treasurer tax record search, paydici.com/el-paso-county-treasurer/search/landing. This shows what was actually billed. With an exemption in place, taxable value sits below actual value by $100,000 of value across the two rates.
3. El Paso County Treasurer mill levy table, treasurer.elpasoco.com/mill-levies. Every taxing entity, tax years 2020 through 2025. Limit: it lists entities, not addresses, so you need your tax area first. Admitted second limit: the county serves that spreadsheet from an asset host that blocked my download, so my figures come from the Treasurer's page itself.
4. The Assessor's exempt coordinator, (719) 520-6600 or [email protected]. Fastest yes-or-no on your status. Forms are at assessor.elpasoco.com/forms.

If your statement shows taxable value computed on the full actual value and you meet the tests above, you are not receiving the exemption. Go file.

The number I went looking for and could not find

I wanted to tell you what share of eligible El Paso County households claim these. I could not source it. Legislative Council Staff, in its August 3, 2022 history of the exemption, counted 123,326 qualifying seniors statewide in tax year 2002 and 266,538 in tax year 2021, and JBC staff estimated roughly 313,251 participating senior households in March 2026. The Colorado Fiscal Institute, in a January 31, 2019 analysis by Chris Stiffler, counted 245,802 older households and 5,858 veterans with disabilities in 2017.

What I could not find anywhere, including the Division of Property Taxation's annual reports, is a count of El Paso County claimants or an estimate of eligible households that fail to file. So I will not hand you a percentage. If another site gives you one, ask for the source and the date.

What I would put on a client's calendar this month

• By August 15, 2026. Age 65 or older, same El Paso County home since January 1, 2016 or earlier, not yet filed? Get the short form to the Assessor. Late filers forfeit appeal rights and still receive the exemption if approved.
• January 2027. Veterans with a 100% permanent rating or individual unemployability status, their surviving spouses, and Gold Star spouses file between January 1 and the new July 15 deadline, with a VA Benefit Summary Letter dated within the last year.
• Within 60 days of any change. Report a change in ownership or occupancy. Selling does not pass the exemption to the buyer.
• January 1 to April 1. Deferral, if cash flow rather than the rate is the real problem.

Protesting your value is a separate track on separate dates. The Assessor's published assessment calendar mails the Notice of Valuation on May 1 and runs the real property objection period into early June, with County Board of Equalization appeals postmarked by July 15. Doing one does not do the other. If you are weighing whether the ownership math works here at all, I laid out the market picture in is it a good time to buy a house in Colorado Springs.

I'm Brandon Behr with the Behr & Behr Team at The Platinum Group, Realtors, in Colorado Springs. Most of my week is spent inside the mechanical parts of a transaction: mill levies, assessment rates, permits, and county forms nobody reads until they cost money. If you cannot tell from your statement whether you hold an exemption, call me and we will pull the parcel together.

I am a REALTOR®, not an attorney, a lender, or a tax professional, and none of this is tax or legal advice. Rates, levies and deadlines change. Verify your situation with the El Paso County Assessor at (719) 520-6600, the Colorado Division of Property Taxation, and the Colorado Division of Veterans Affairs before relying on it. The Behr & Behr Team serves El Paso County and supports Equal Housing Opportunity.