TL;DR: FAMLI Colorado — the state's Family and Medical Leave Insurance program — pays up to 90% of your wages, capped at $1,448 per week, for up to 12 weeks a year. You qualify after 180 days with your employer, and unlike almost every other state program, job protection applies no matter how many people your employer has on payroll. The often-misunderstood "10-employee" rule only decides who pays the employer's share of the premium — it has nothing to do with whether you can take leave.
If you've searched "famli colorado" hoping for a straight answer on whether you qualify, you're not alone — this is one of the most-confused parts of Colorado's paid leave law, even among HR staff. This guide walks through exactly who's covered, how the benefit is calculated, and the one rule that trips up more workers than any other: what that 10-employee number actually controls. You'll get the current quick-stats snapshot, a breakdown of benefits and eligibility, a full explanation of the employer-size nuance, the step-by-step application process, and answers to the questions people ask most.
Quick Stats: Colorado FAMLI at a Glance
Detail | Colorado FAMLI |
|---|---|
Program name | Colorado Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI) |
Benefits began paying | January 1, 2024 |
Maximum leave | Up to 12 weeks per benefit year |
Wage replacement | Up to 90% of wages, on a progressive formula |
Maximum weekly benefit | $1,448 (recalculated roughly twice a year) |
Job protection eligibility | 180 days employed — no minimum hours, no employer-size cutoff |
Employer premium obligation | Employers with 10+ employees pay part of the premium; smaller employers don't, but still must collect and remit the employee's share |
Filing deadline for full back pay | Within 30 days of the start of leave |
Administering agency | Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE), FAMLI Division |
Colorado FAMLI Benefits & Eligibility
Who Qualifies
Colorado ties FAMLI eligibility to time on the job, not hours worked and not company size. You need 180 calendar days employed with your current employer — there's no separate hours-worked test layered on top, which puts Colorado ahead of federal FMLA's stricter 12-month, 1,250-hour requirement. Part-time and hourly workers who'd never clear the federal bar can still qualify for FAMLI.
That eligibility rule applies the same way whether you work for a two-person landscaping crew or a 2,000-person hospital system. FAMLI doesn't carve out small employers the way federal FMLA does — where anything under 50 employees is exempt entirely.
How Much It Pays
FAMLI uses a progressive wage-replacement formula, so lower earners get a bigger share of their paycheck replaced:
90% of wages for pay at or below half the state average weekly wage
A lower blended rate on earnings above that threshold, up to the cap
Maximum weekly benefit: $1,448, which the state recalculates roughly twice a year as the average weekly wage changes
Because the cap moves, don't treat $1,448 as permanent — check famli.colorado.gov before you plan around a specific number, especially if your leave is months away.
What FAMLI Covers
FAMLI is family and medical leave insurance, so it covers more ground than a program named "paid family leave" might suggest:
Bonding with a new child after birth, adoption, or foster placement
Caring for a family member with a serious health condition
Your own serious health condition, including pregnancy and childbirth recovery
Military family leave for qualifying exigencies related to a family member's active-duty service
You get up to 12 weeks total per benefit year across these reasons combined — it's not 12 weeks per qualifying event.
Job Protection Applies to All Employer Sizes
Here's the part that causes the most confusion, so it's worth stating plainly: job protection under Colorado FAMLI applies to employers of every size — including a business with a single employee. There is no employer-size threshold that determines whether your job is protected while you're out on leave.
The number people keep tripping over is 10 employees. That figure is real, but it governs something different: who pays the employer's share of the FAMLI premium. Employers with 10 or more employees are required to pay part of the premium alongside their workers. Employers with fewer than 10 employees are exempt from that employer contribution — but they still have to withhold and remit the employee's share of the premium, and their employees are still fully entitled to FAMLI benefits and job protection.
In other words: the 10-employee line is a payroll-tax question for the business, not an eligibility question for you. If you've worked 180 days for your employer, your leave and your job are protected — full stop, regardless of whether your employer has 3 people or 3,000.
This makes Colorado genuinely unusual. Compare it to neighboring approaches: Washington's paid leave law only guarantees job protection once an employer hits 25 employees (a threshold that's still being phased down), and New Jersey's family leave act currently applies job protection at 30+ employees, dropping to 15 in mid-2026. Colorado skips the size test on the job-protection side entirely — a deliberate design choice that makes FAMLI one of the more worker-protective programs in the country, on paper and in practice.
If an employer tells a worker they're "too small to be covered" by FAMLI, that's incorrect. They may be exempt from paying the employer premium share — but that has no bearing on whether their employee can take protected leave.
How to Apply for Colorado FAMLI
Tell your employer you're taking leave. Give as much notice as you reasonably can, especially for foreseeable leave like a due date or a scheduled surgery.
Create an account at famli.colorado.gov. This is the state's official portal for filing and tracking claims.
File your claim online, including your employer's information and your leave dates.
Submit supporting documentation. Medical leave needs a provider's certification; bonding leave needs proof of birth, adoption, or foster placement.
Wait for a determination. Once your file is complete, FAMLI processes claims and issues a decision.
Get paid by direct deposit or a prepaid debit card, whichever you select when you apply.
Watch the filing clock. Claims filed within 30 days of the start of leave are paid retroactively from day one. File between 31 and 90 days after leave starts, and the state can still approve the claim for good cause — but benefits only run from the date you actually filed, not the start of your leave. Wait past 90 days, and the claim is denied outright. If you know leave is coming, file early.
If you're weighing FAMLI against unpaid federal leave, it helps to check your FMLA eligibility side by side, since the two programs run on different rules and can overlap. You can also see how a FAMLI check compares across states on our state leave laws page for Colorado, get the full program rundown on our Colorado paid family leave page, or run your own numbers through the paid family leave calculator to estimate your weekly benefit.