Colorado Behavioral Health Entity Licensing for Substance Use Treatment Programs

The endorsement list itself is asymmetric, and the asymmetry is real rather than a drafting accident. The outpatient endorsements are Behavioral Health Outpatient services, Behavioral Health High-Intensity Outpatient services, Walk-In Crisis services, Mobile Crisis services, and the two ambulatory withdrawal management levels. The residential and overnight endorsements are Residential services, Crisis Stabilization Unit services, Acute Treatment Unit services, Residential Respite services, Clinically Managed Residential Withdrawal Management at Level 3.2-WM, and Medically Monitored Inpatient Withdrawal Management at Level 3.7-WM.

Two further provisions have operational consequences that are easy to miss. First, an endorsement that has not been used for a year is subject to BHA review and may be removed from the license — so obtaining a broad endorsement set at licensure and phasing services in slowly carries a real risk. Second, a change in license type is treated as an initial licensure event rather than an amendment, which is a materially more onerous pathway and changes a transaction timeline.

Adding a location, a service or an endorsement mid-term requires notification to the BHA at least 30 calendar days in advance — and changes to the operation of the entity may not be implemented without prior BHA approval. Adding an in-person location also independently triggers the Certificate of Compliance obligation for that site, which is not a 30-day process.

Two rows carry a labeled inference rather than a quoted rule. Colorado’s rules place intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization among the Chapter 4 sub-endorsements but do not state expressly which outpatient endorsement they attach to. High-Intensity Outpatient is the most defensible reading, and it is the one used here — but it should be confirmed with the BHA before an application is filed, because it determines which endorsement the applicant requests.

The letter of intent comes first. The rule requires any person or business entity seeking a license to operate a behavioral health entity to notify the BHA initially by submitting one. Its practical function is to obtain credentials for LADDERS — the Licensing and Designation Database and Electronic Records System — which is where the application is actually submitted and where renewals, modifications and violation information are managed thereafter.

LADDERS remains the BHA’s licensing system. It is worth saying so plainly, because the BHA launched a separate system in 2026 — the Colorado Behavioral Health Reporting Model, on 1 July 2026 — that unifies several client-level data collections. That is a data-reporting system, not a licensing portal, and the two should not be confused.

The application itself must be filed at least 90 calendar days before the anticipated start-up date, accompanied by all specified information and the non-refundable fee, and signed under penalty of perjury by an authorized representative. An application may be considered abandoned if it is not completed within twelve months, after which a new filing and new fees are required. Entities transitioning from a prior approval — including programs previously approved as substance use disorder treatment programs — file an initial BHE application at least 60 calendar days before their existing approval expires.

• The legal name of the applicant and every other name used to provide services
• Contact information — mailing address, telephone and email
• The identity, address and telephone number of all persons and business entities with a controlling interest
• Proof of professional liability insurance, which must be maintained for the whole license term
• Articles of incorporation, articles of organization, a partnership agreement or other organizing documents
• The address of every physical location where services are delivered, and separately, if different, where records are stored
• A map for each floor of the buildings indicating room layout and the services to be provided
• A copy of any management agreement pertaining to operation of the entity, setting out the financial and administrative responsibilities of each party
• A copy of any lease, where the applicant leases a building to operate under the license
• A signed and dated statement as to whether specified disciplinary actions or convictions have occurred, with supporting detail for anything reported

Four items in that schedule carry more weight than their position suggests. Management agreements are disclosable without qualification — the rule says any management agreement, with no materiality or control threshold — and they connect directly to the change-of-ownership analysis below. Records-storage addresses are separately disclosable where they differ from service locations. Floor plans are a licensure deliverable, not merely a fire-and-building one. And the insurance obligation is continuing rather than a one-time filing.

Background checks run on two different tracks. Owners and managers submit a complete set of fingerprints to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation within ten days of application or of a change of ownership, with results forwarded for a federal check; the BHA may not issue a license where an owner or manager has been convicted of a disqualifying offense, and may not grant even a provisional license before the criminal history check is complete. Personnel are different: the entity obtains a name-based criminal history record check before hire or contract, and for volunteers only where the volunteer service involves unsupervised direct contact with individuals receiving services. Conflating the two regimes is a common readiness error.

One definitional caution worth carrying into any ownership analysis: the rule’s definitions section does not define “owner,” “manager,” or “controlling interest,” even though each term is operative — for fingerprinting, for disqualification, and for the change-of-ownership test. Where an ownership structure is anything but simple, who falls inside those terms is a question for counsel rather than one the rule answers on its face.

A worked example: an operator licensing one outpatient or administrative site plus two residential facilities pays $500 for the base, which covers the outpatient location, plus $600 for each residential location — $1,700 at initial licensure, and the same at each annual renewal. Endorsements themselves, including each ASAM sub-endorsement, carry no separate fee.

These are not the cost driver, and a plan built around them will be wrong. The BHA licensing fees are only one component of project cost. Site development, local code compliance, fire and life-safety review, professional services and project timing can be materially more consequential. Two further charges are separate from the table above and are described in their own sections below: Division of Fire Prevention and Control plan-review and inspection fees, and the fee for the separate controlled substance license where a program’s medication handling triggers it.

Two consequences follow regardless of how that question resolves. Any management agreement is disclosable with the license application — the rule says any, with no materiality threshold. And post-licensure, changes to the operation of the entity require prior BHA approval, with notification at least 30 calendar days in advance. There is no structure in which a management agreement for a licensed Colorado behavioral health entity is invisible to the BHA, and an acquisition or management structure is better analyzed before closing or commencement than after.

The ordinary equity test sits alongside it. A transfer of fifty percent of the ownership interest is a change of ownership, and the rule aggregates transactions over a five-year period — so a staged transfer designed to stay under the threshold in any single transaction does not avoid it. Forming a corporation or limited liability company from a sole proprietorship, with the proprietor as sole shareholder or member, is expressly not a change of ownership.

Where a change of ownership does occur, the mechanics are demanding. Notice and the buyer’s application are due at least 30 calendar days before the change; the buyer completes the full initial-application document schedule; the previous owner returns the license within five calendar days of the new owner receiving its own; and proceeding without following the procedure can result in termination of the existing license. The item most often missed in diligence is that uncorrected deficiencies transfer to the buyer unless a revised plan is submitted and approved by the BHA — which makes the seller’s open plan-of-correction file a closing condition rather than a formality.

For in-person service locations, the Certificate of Compliance remains a major licensing gate: the BHA will not ordinarily issue or renew a behavioral health entity license covering such a location until it has received one. Under the standard pathway the certificate comes from the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control, and behavioral health entities fall inside its remit because the statutory definition of a health facility expressly includes them. Two exceptions enacted in 2026 now sit alongside that general rule — a telehealth-only exemption and an outpatient-only local-inspection pathway — and both are set out at the end of this section.

Where deficiencies are cited they must be corrected within 90 days of the inspection, and a re-inspection is required to demonstrate compliance. An updated certificate following correction is good for a further three years. Plan review and permitting are required for licensed locations, with a narrow exception for small business occupancies — and that exception is a plan-review and permit exception only. It is not an inspection or certificate exception. Under the standard DFPC pathway — that is, outside the outpatient-only alternative enacted in 2026 — DFPC still inspects and still issues the certificate.

The applicable codes are worth knowing before a design team is engaged, because the editions do not run together: behavioral health entities are inspected against the 2012 edition of the Life Safety Code, NFPA 101, in all cases, and against the 2021 International Fire Code where DFPC is the fire code official, with the 2021 International Building Code adopted alongside.

Colorado makes local compliance a condition of state licensure. Every behavioral health entity must comply with all applicable local zoning, housing, fire and sanitary codes of the city, city and county, or county where it is situated, and all physical locations must be constructed in conformity with the standards adopted by the director of DFPC. An entity subject to fire and life-safety requirements may not provide services in areas subject to plan review except as approved by DFPC.

What the state does not do is prescribe a land-use classification. There is no statewide zoning category for substance use treatment facilities. The applicable zoning district, whether a conditional or special use permit is required, and any local separation, density or occupancy requirements have to be confirmed with the specific municipality or county — before a site is committed to, not after.

The former CDPHE behavioral health entity framework required a Facility Guidelines Institute design review, triggered by new construction or renovation, a new endorsement, a new physical location, or new service types at an existing location. That framework was repealed: CDPHE’s BHE authority effective 1 January 2025, and the rule chapter carrying the FGI requirement effective 15 May 2025. The BHA’s replacement physical-plant rule contains no FGI reference. For a behavioral health entity, FGI design review is no longer part of the licensing process — a genuine reduction relative to the pre-2025 regime, and one an operator working from older guidance will over-budget for.

That is not the same as saying Colorado has no construction review. Review moved and fragmented rather than ending. Building plan review, permits and the certificate of occupancy sit with the local building department where one exists. Fire code plan review and inspection sit with a local fire department that employs certified fire inspectors at the appropriate level. DFPC fills the gap where no local authority performs the function and remains the Life Safety Code official in all cases. Under the standard pathway it also issues the Certificate of Compliance; outside that pathway, the outpatient-only alternative enacted in 2026 allows the certificate to rest on inspections by a local fire department employing a certified inspector, and the enacted text does not settle who issues it in that case. FGI review also remains relevant to other facility classes that CDPHE still licenses — so an operator running both a behavioral health entity and a CDPHE-licensed facility type is in both regimes.

What the residential and overnight standards do establish, for every entity holding a residential or overnight endorsement, includes a minimum of one full bathroom for every six individuals with an enumerated fixture list; first aid equipment that must include an automated external defibrillator; at least one person trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid on site and on duty at all times when individuals are present; enough food and water on hand for three nutritionally balanced meals for four days; and a hot-water limit of 120 degrees Fahrenheit at accessible taps. The bathroom ratio is the one generally applicable numeric physical-plant requirement, and it bears directly on bed-count planning for a given building.

Several requirements operators commonly expect are simply not in these rules. There is no prescribed nursing station, no medication-room build requirement, no detox observation area, and no crash cart, oxygen or suction requirement for withdrawal management. Colorado regulates withdrawal management through staffing and protocol rather than through a prescribed build. Medication administration is regulated by who may administer — licensed or certified personnel within their scope, or unlicensed personnel qualified as QMAPs — rather than by the room. Secure storage obligations arise from drug and pharmacy law and from accreditation standards, which are a different body of law from the licensing rule.

One conditional requirement worth isolating, because it is a mis-transplant hazard: seclusion rooms must be a minimum of 100 square feet, lighted, clean, safe and fitted with an observation window. That rule binds only agencies that actually use seclusion, restraint or physical management. A residential program that does not use seclusion has no seclusion-room obligation at all — and note that this 100 square feet is numerically identical to, but entirely distinct from, the acute treatment unit bedroom figure above.

A 20:1 individual-to-personnel ratio applies at ASAM 3.1, 3.5 and 3.7, in each case at all times per physical location including nights and weekends. Clinically managed residential withdrawal management at 3.2-WM carries 10:1 — the strictest in the continuum and twice as demanding as anything else. ASAM 3.3, 3.7-WM and all three outpatient levels establish no numeric ratio by rule.

At the entity level, every behavioral health entity designates a clinical director responsible for overall clinical services and an administrator responsible for implementing endorsement and service policies. Personnel must be qualified through credentials, education, training or experience, and any licensed, certified or registered personnel must hold an active Colorado credential — verified through the Department of Regulatory Agencies not more than 30 days before the official hire date.

Colorado’s addiction counselor credentials run through DORA’s State Board of Addiction Counselor Examiners in four tiers: Certified Addiction Technician, Certified Addiction Specialist, Licensed Addiction Counselor, and Addiction Counselor Candidate. The candidate tier appears in the BHA staffing rules and is easy to omit from a credential matrix. Addiction counselor certifications and licenses expire on 31 August of odd-numbered years, which makes the next expiry after publication 31 August 2027.

Two composition caps recur across outpatient, IOP, PHP and the residential treatment levels: certified addiction technicians must not comprise more than twenty-five percent of the agency’s total personnel, and counselors-in-training and interns are capped at twenty-five percent on the same basis. The rule text computes both against agency personnel rather than per location, which for a multi-site operator is a materially more constraining denominator than a site-level calculation would be. Clinically managed residential withdrawal management carries a different composition rule instead: at least fifty percent of personnel providing 3.2-WM services must be treatment personnel.

Everything above is established by rule. Medicaid participation and accreditation commonly impose additional staffing expectations that are contractual or accreditation-based rather than regulatory, and an operator’s actual staffing model will often exceed the regulatory floor for payer reasons. The two should not be conflated when budgeting or when responding to a survey finding.

Colorado maintains a separate, annual, facility-level controlled substance license issued by the BHA under the Colorado Licensing of Controlled Substances Act. It is distinct from the BHE license, from DEA registration, and from individual prescriber licensure, and it is required for each place of business rather than per entity. The statute requires a substance use disorder treatment program that compounds, administers or dispenses a controlled substance to obtain one — three verbs, and prescribing is not among them.

Three sections of the rule cross-reference the license expressly, and they are the levels where on-site stock is routine: Level 2-WM and ASAM 3.2-WM each carry the stock-medication trigger language, and the rules governing ASAM 3.7-WM go further — they contemplate services delivered in residential settings that possess a controlled substances license, making it part of how that level is delivered rather than a separate question. Level 1-WM does not cross-reference it, and ordinary residential treatment without withdrawal management is not addressed by those provisions at all — but the activity-based trigger still applies to any program that holds and administers stock.

The license is annual, and renewal carries an obligation the BHE license does not: an on-site inspection before the license expires. An operator holding both licenses is therefore on two different inspection rhythms, and the controlled substance one is the more frequent — the BHE survey cycle can be extended up to three years for an entity with a clean compliance history, while the controlled substance inspection happens every year.

One date worth recording, because material written before it is wrong: Colorado’s controlled substance licensing program was scheduled to repeal on 1 September 2026. HB26-1214, effective 12 August 2026, continued it to 1 September 2041 — nineteen days before the scheduled repeal. Guidance written in 2025 will describe a program that was about to expire.

An opioid treatment program does not sit inside the ordinary substance use licensing analysis — it stacks additional requirements on top of it. Four tracks operate together: SAMHSA certification under 42 CFR Part 8, which cannot be obtained without accreditation by a recognized accreditation body; DEA registration as a narcotic treatment program, which is its own business-activity registration category rather than a practitioner registration; the Colorado controlled substance license where the program dispenses or administers from stock, which for an OTP is effectively unavoidable; and Colorado state requirements, with BHE licensure appearing to remain relevant alongside them.

Colorado’s State Opioid Treatment Authority function sits inside the BHA and is held jointly with the controlled substance licensing function — so the OTP gateway and the controlled substance license are administered by the same office. The authority also has an operative federal role beyond consultation, including in the approval of interim treatment.

The cleanest statement of the boundary is this: an office-based opioid treatment provider that only prescribes buprenorphine sits outside both the controlled substance license and the OTP regime; an OTP sits inside both; and methadone maintenance cannot be delivered through the office-based route at all. Federal certification confers no Colorado license, and a Colorado license confers no federal certification.

The relationship runs one way. A behavioral health entity may be licensed and operate entirely outside Medicaid — enrollment appears nowhere in the license application schedule. But Medicaid enrollment requires the license first: the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing directs providers to be licensed with the BHA for the specific ASAM levels of care that will be rendered and billed, then to enroll with Health First Colorado adding the specialty provider types matching those levels, then to contract with the regional accountable entities. Residential and inpatient providers have a fourth step that is easy to miss: room and board is reimbursed through a managed service organization rather than through the regional accountable entity, so a single contract is not sufficient.

Because a generic specialty type was retired in 2025, license endorsements and Medicaid specialty types must now correspond one to one. HCPF requires the Medicaid enrollment to carry the appropriate specialty type for each ASAM level of care reflected on the BHA license. When a licensed level is added, the enrollment should be updated accordingly before that level is billed; otherwise the enrollment may not support claims for that service. Since the BHA side requires 30 days’ advance notice and prior approval, the two processes have to be sequenced deliberately rather than run in whatever order they surface.

Recovery residences are not behavioral health entity clinical residential treatment and are not BHE-licensed today. They operate under a certification framework, and the residential treatment rules expressly state that they do not apply to recovery residences. Certification is currently administered by Ohio Recovery Housing under contract to the BHA. A residence that has operated in Colorado for 30 or more years as of 23 May 2019 sits outside the certification requirement.

SB26-113, signed 2 June 2026, moves recovery residences from third-party certification to BHA licensure. The transition has two dates and a notice obligation between them, and collapsing it into a single deadline would tell a certified operator it is out of compliance a year early.

• 1 May 2027 — the BHA begins accepting license applications. The implementing rules are not expected to be finalized before this date.
• 1 July 2027 — it becomes unlawful to conduct or maintain a recovery residence without a BHA license. A new entrant on or after this date must hold one; there is no prior certification to carry.
• Before 1 July 2027 — a residence already certified as of 30 June 2027 must give notice to the BHA. Having done so, its certification operates in lieu of licensure until it is licensed, and it may continue to operate and receive referrals.
• At least 60 calendar days before certification expiration — an existing certified residence submits its license application, keyed to its own certification cycle rather than to a common statewide filing date.
• 1 July 2028 — the outer deadline. On and after this date a previously certified residence may not operate without having applied and been approved for a license. Approval, not merely application, is the standard.

Two further details. Residences holding an active Oxford House charter as of 30 June 2027 are to be granted a license effective 1 July 2027 rather than applying. And licensed recovery residences will carry occurrence-reporting obligations to the BHA covering resident death and specified injury, abuse and neglect, misappropriation of resident property, and diversion of a resident’s drugs. The licensing program is subject to sunset review before repeal in 2033. Because the implementing rules are not final, minimum operating standards, the fee schedule and the application contents for recovery residence licensure are not yet established and are not stated here.

The license term is one year from the date of issuance, and renewal runs on a rolling anniversary rather than a fixed statewide date. Renewal is due at least 60 calendar days before expiration; the late fee attaches separately if a completed renewal application is not in by 30 days before expiration, and it equals the renewal fee, so the cost doubles. A Certificate of Compliance is required at renewal as well as at issuance. Inaccurate or incomplete reporting on a renewal application is itself good cause for denial.

• Applying for the wrong thing because the endorsement structure was flattened. There is no 3.5 endorsement. Residential ASAM levels are sub-endorsements under one Residential services endorsement, while each withdrawal management level holds its own named endorsement.
• Budgeting a capital plan around a bedroom square-footage figure lifted from the acute treatment unit rules. Those figures do not reach ordinary SUD residential treatment.
• Carrying one staffing ratio across the continuum. Three levels are 20:1, one is 10:1, and five establish no numeric ratio at all while still carrying other staffing obligations.
• Treating the 30-day language as a licensing timeline. It is an agency action deadline that begins only when an application is complete.
• Planning the opening date around the licensing review rather than the fire and life-safety path. For most projects the Certificate of Compliance sequence is the binding constraint.
• Assuming an occupancy classification before the code official has assigned one. Classification drives sprinklers, egress and construction type, and a wrong assumption is expensive to unwind.
• Applying to CDPHE. Its behavioral health entity licensing authority was repealed effective 1 January 2025. Older state web pages still describe the former pathway.
• Budgeting for a Facility Guidelines Institute design review that no longer applies to behavioral health entities — while assuming, in the same breath, that no construction review applies at all. Both halves of that are wrong.
• Obtaining a broad endorsement set at licensure and phasing services in slowly. An endorsement unused for a year is subject to BHA review and removal.
• Implementing a management agreement without engaging the BHA. Management agreements are disclosable at application, and certain arrangements constitute a change of ownership requiring a new license even where no equity moves.
• Adding an ASAM level to the BHA license without adding the matching Medicaid specialty type. Since the generic specialty type was retired, license scope and enrollment scope must be kept synchronized; an enrollment that does not carry the matching specialty type may not support claims for that level.
• Sizing a residential facility above 16 beds on the assumption that Medicaid reimbursement is settled. That reimbursement rests on Section 1115 demonstration authority, not on the state plan.

Colorado is a high-coordination state. There is no accreditation prerequisite for ordinary BHE licensure, and design-guideline review no longer applies to behavioral health entities. The difficulty sits in coordination — a license with endorsements recorded by location, a Certificate of Compliance process for each in-person location, with the ordinary DFPC pathway handled directly between the regulatory agencies rather than through a certificate maintained by the facility, local authorities whose roles shift depending on whether the jurisdiction has its own certified inspectors, a possible second annual state license turning on whether medication is held in stock, and a Medicaid enrollment whose specialty types must mirror the license endorsement for endorsement.

Aava Healthcare Management Group works on the regulatory-readiness and operational side of that: behavioral health entity applicability analysis, licensing strategy, endorsement and sub-endorsement mapping across the intended levels of care, the letter of intent and the LADDERS application process, ownership and management documentation, policies and procedures, staffing architecture and credential matrices, personnel file readiness, floor-plan coordination, local zoning and building coordination, DFPC and Certificate of Compliance sequencing, controlled substance licensing coordination where the service model triggers it, survey and inspection readiness across the three distinct inspection regimes, deficiency remediation and plans of action, governing-body and operational systems, and Medicaid enrollment sequencing where it applies.

Aava Healthcare Management Group is a healthcare management and operating company, not a law firm, an architect or an engineer, and nothing here is legal advice. Aava does not issue licenses, perform fire inspections, determine occupancy classification, or make code determinations. Licensing, certification, inspection, code and approval decisions belong to the Behavioral Health Administration, the Division of Fire Prevention and Control, and the applicable local authorities. No approval, inspection result, accreditation outcome, payer contract, opening date or processing time is guaranteed.

• Code of Colorado Regulations — 2 CCR 502-1, Behavioral Health, rule record and version history — Colorado Secretary of State
• Code of Colorado Regulations eDocket 2025-00415 — 2 CCR 502-1 rulemaking effective 1 January 2026 — Colorado Secretary of State
• Code of Colorado Regulations eDocket 2025-00142 — 2 CCR 502-1 rulemaking effective 1 August 2025 — Colorado Secretary of State
• Code of Colorado Regulations — 8 CCR 1507-31, health facility fire and life safety, rule record and version history — Colorado Secretary of State
• Code of Colorado Regulations — 8 CCR 1507-31, health facility building, fire and life safety code enforcement, eDocket 2025-00365 — Colorado Secretary of State
• Code of Colorado Regulations eDocket 2025-00015 — repeal of 6 CCR 1011-1 Chapter 3, Behavioral Health Entities — Colorado Secretary of State
• House Bill 26-1116 — signed act — Colorado General Assembly
• House Bill 26-1214 — Sunset Substance Abuse Treatment Program Licensing — Colorado General Assembly
• Senate Bill 26-113 — Require Recovery Residences to Obtain Behavioral Health Administration License — Colorado General Assembly
• Behavioral health licensing, designation, and approvals — Colorado Behavioral Health Administration
• Laws and rules — behavioral health rule volumes and rulemaking calendar — Colorado Behavioral Health Administration
• LADDERS — Licensing and Designation Database and Electronic Records System — Colorado Behavioral Health Administration
• Opioid treatment programs — Colorado Behavioral Health Administration
• Behavioral health entities — fire and life safety inspections — Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control
• Certificates of Compliance — health facilities — Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control
• Ensuring a full continuum of substance use disorder benefits — providers — Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing
• Institutes for Mental Disease — Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing
• Expanding the substance use disorder continuum of care — Section 1115 demonstration — Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing
• Index of regulated health facilities — Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
• State Board of Human Services — rulemaking agendas and calendar — Colorado Department of Human Services
• 2025 Sunset Review — The Colorado Licensing of Controlled Substances Act — Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, Colorado Office of Policy, Research and Regulatory Reform
• Addiction counselor licensing and certification — Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, Division of Professions and Occupations
• Summary of 2026 Behavioral Health Legislation — Colorado Legislative Council Staff
• 2026 Digest of Bills — Colorado Office of Legislative Legal Services
• 42 CFR 8.11 — certification and treatment standards for opioid treatment programs — U.S. Government Publishing Office, Electronic Code of Federal Regulations
• 21 CFR 1301.13 — registration for narcotic treatment programs — U.S. Government Publishing Office, Electronic Code of Federal Regulations

Three limits are stated rather than hidden. First, the official consolidated text of 2 CCR 502-1 effective 1 January 2026 was not machine-retrievable during the preparation of this page: the Secretary of State’s rule-PDF endpoint does not honor the version parameter for this rule series. The version currently in force is established here from the Secretary of State’s own rule record, the rulemaking filings and the Colorado Register, all of which are official; the wording of individual provisions was read from commercial reproductions of the code and cross-checked between them. Those reproductions are not the official Code of Colorado Regulations, and they are identified as reproductions rather than presented as Colorado sources. Second, Chapters 13, 15 and 16 could not be retrieved at all, which is why no controlled substance license fee amount is published on this page — no reproduction carrying the 1 January 2026 text of Chapter 13 could be identified, and a figure that cannot be traced to a source a reader can check is not published here merely because it is available — why no opioid treatment program endorsement is named, and why no recovery residence licensure standard is stated. The same applies to Division of Fire Prevention and Control charges: the fact and date of the 30 December 2025 increase are published, and no amount is. Third, several questions examined in preparing this page were left open rather than resolved — occupancy classification, the issuer of the Certificate of Compliance under the new outpatient option, the treatment of a management agreement in which the owner retains partial authority, and whether the telehealth and outpatient exceptions are measured per license or per location among them. Where this page is silent on a point an operator needs, that silence is usually deliberate. Confirm current requirements with the Behavioral Health Administration, the Division of Fire Prevention and Control, the applicable local authorities, and current codified statute and regulation rather than from any secondary source, including this page.

Working across more than one state? The national licensing pillar carries the multi-state view and the other published jurisdiction guides, including Nevada and Arizona. For the sector context behind these programs, see substance use treatment operations.