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DENVER – The Colorado Chamber of Commerce today released its 2025 Regulatory Landscape Update, a follow-up report to its comprehensive 2024 study that brought widespread attention to the state’s growing regulatory burden last year.
This analysis provides updated metrics for key findings from the original study one year later. The updated data through the end of 2025 finds that Colorado remains the sixth most regulated state in the nation with more than 205,000 state level regulatory restrictions, a 2.4% increase in regulatory burden since 2024 year-end.
“As the Chamber continues its efforts to bring more accountability to Colorado’s regulatory climate, it’s important to understand the scale of the problem and track our performance,” said Colorado Chamber President and CEO Loren Furman. “Employers continue to tell us that our regulatory system has become increasingly complex, making it harder for businesses of all sizes to plan, invest and grow. We’re providing this update to ensure state leaders remain informed and focused on delivering meaningful reform to keep Colorado competitive. We’re proud of the progress we’ve made so far to bring greater transparency to our regulatory system, and we look forward to continuing that work this session.”
The study examines the effects of increasing regulatory burdens on Colorado’s economy, businesses and workforce. It was conducted by a team of economists and experts with StratACUMEN, a business analysis and research firm with vast experience assessing state and federal regulatory impacts across the nation.
“The regulatory landscape in Colorado continues to have a negative impact on the state’s economy,” said Dr. Memo Diriker, President and CEO at the StratACUMEN Group. “Business creation, business retention, innovation and jobs are still feeling the unintended consequences of the duplication and compliance costs that come with new regulations. This 2025 update of Colorado’s regulatory landscape shows that the state is adding rather than reducing these impediments. It is our hope that seeing these numbers will encourage public policy decision makers to take action. This can be done without taking away from the positive impacts of regulations if the focus is on the unintended consequences.”
The 2024 Regulatory Impact Analysis released last year quickly became one of the most cited studies the 2025 legislative session. Its publication followed a multiple-years-long effort by the Chamber to assess Colorado’s economic health, which included several business surveys and competitive landscape analyses.
These findings led to the first step of the Chamber’s regulatory reform initiative in the 2025 legislative session. Senate Bill 25-306 passed unanimously last year, placing certain state agencies under regular performance audits to improve transparency. For the 2026 session, the Chamber is currently working with lawmakers to continue these efforts. As outlined in the organization’s legislative agenda, the Chamber will be advancing legislation in the coming weeks to create more robust standards and criteria for how state agencies review existing regulations.
Key findings of the 2025 Regulatory Landscape Update include:
- Colorado has the sixth highest number of business restrictions in the United States with over 205,000 state level restrictions, a 2.4% increase in regulatory burden from 2024.
- Environmental regulations were flagged as one of the most significant areas of concern in the 2024 report. For 2025, Colorado still ranks seventh in the nation for highest number of environmental restrictions, with over 60,000 estimated environmental restrictions at the end of 2025.
- For every 10% increase in state regulations, there is a direct loss in Colorado of 36,000 jobs and 9,000 firms due to increased compliance costs, lost sales and other unintended consequences.
- Excessive business restrictions also increase the cost of goods and services for consumers, which doesn’t affect all Coloradans equally. Consumers in lower income households experience a 3.01% higher inflation impact, compared to 2.40% for higher-income households.
View the full report here: https://cochamber.com/wp-content/uploads/2025-CO-Reg-Update.pdf
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The Colorado Chamber of Commerce champions free enterprise, a healthy business environment and economic prosperity for all Coloradans. It is the only business association that works to improve the business climate for all sizes of business from a statewide, multi-industry perspective. What the Colorado Chamber accomplishes is good for all businesses, and that’s good for the state’s economy. It was created in 1965 based on the merger with the Colorado Manufacturers’ Association.