3 Steps to Navigate Denver’s Residential Rental Licensing Program
Joe Phillips • June 17, 2025
How to Get Your Denver Rental License in 3 Easy Steps (Without the Headache)
If getting your Denver rental licensed is still sitting on your to-do list—or you didn’t even know you needed one—you’re not alone.
Since Denver rolled out its Residential Rental Licensing Program, many landlords have been left confused, overwhelmed, or simply unaware of what’s required to stay in compliance.
At Focus Real Estate, we've helped dozens of rental owners through the licensing process—and we know the tips, tricks, and shortcuts that can save you time, stress, and re-inspection fees. We even have inspector referrals, streamlined checklists, and templates to make things easy.
🏠 Who This Is For
This guide is for landlords who own single-family homes, condos, or townhomes in Denver’s Central Park neighborhood or surrounding areas.
⚠️ Note: If you rent your home for fewer than 30 days at a time, you’ll need a Short-Term Rental License instead. And if your property received a Certificate of Occupancy in the last 4 years, you can skip the inspection steps—we’ll explain more below.
👀 Why This Matters
Owning an unlicensed rental can expose you to:
- Fines or citations from the city
- Delays in leasing your property
- Headaches when selling or refinancing
With Focus as your property manager, we take this off your plate completely—from inspection scheduling to application submission—at no extra cost.
🎁 Want to Skip the Work?
We don’t just know how to do this—we’ve done it, many times. If you sign up for property management with Focus this year, we’ll:
- Guide you through the entire licensing process taking much of the work off your plate entirely
- Refer you to great local inspectors
- Cover your city licensing fee*
So you can stay compliant and more hands-off.
Let us handle the logistics so you can focus on your investment. Contact us here.
🚀 Step 1: Pre-Inspect Your Property
Before calling a certified inspector, do a walk-through. Denver has created a “ Rental Program Inspection Checklist Guidebook”, but this document is long. The goal of this post is to save you time. With that in mind, we make available our more efficient pre-inspection checklist. You’ll want to catch common issues that can cause a property to fail—like:
- Non-working smoke or CO detectors
- Blocked egress windows
- Missing handrails or GFCI outlets
This step helps you avoid costly re-inspections and delays.
If you’re already thinking, “I’d love to offload this to someone else”, we’re here to help! Our contact page is here so you can schedule a chat about our property management services whenever is most convenient for you!
🔎 Step 2: Schedule a Certified Inspection
You must use a city-certified rental inspector. You can find their current list online, but we’ve already reached out to 4 that we’d suggest and put their contact info and pricing** below for you! We even negotiated a deal for you as a reader of our blog. We recommend great local partners (like Tom at Denver Rental Property Inspections who was easy to book with, punctual, professional, and lives in Central Park so he’s familiar with the homes in our neighborhood. We can even help schedule it for you if you are a client of ours.
Tom Unterwagner
(720) 385-7434
Website
Inspection Cost: $149 if you mention “Central Park Scoop” ($179 regularly)
Reinspection Cost: $59
Jordan Van Voorst – Checkup Property Inspections LLC
(720) 751 – 7121
Website
Inspection Cost: $199
Reinspection Cost: $0 (no reinspection fee)
Axium Inspections
(719) 301-6615
Website
Inspection Cost: $194
Reinspection Cost: $194
Scott Home Inspections
(303) 373-2424
Website
Inspection Cost: $195
Reinspection Cost: $125
** Pricing subject to change** Once your home passes the inspection, the inspector will give you a signed document to include with your license application.
What happens if you fail for non-compliance on an item? If this happens, you need to have the home re-inspected and it can cost upwards of $195 based on the inspectors we’ve spoken with. This reinspection must happen within 90 days so you can move forward with the application within that timeframe; otherwise you have to do a completely new inspection. So once you start the process, see it through and get it done in 90 days.
📝 If your home was built or issued a Certificate of Occupancy within the last 4 years, you’re exempt from this step and can go straight to Step 3.
🌐 Step 3: Apply for Your License
Once you’ve completed your pre-inspection, fixed any issues and passed your third-party inspection, it’s time to apply for the actual Denver rental license.
Unfortunately, this can be the trickiest part because the online system is clunky and at times confusing. (Sorry, Denver, but it’s true!) It is what it is though, so let’s work through it and get it done. Head to the Denver’s Permitting and Licensing Center to create an account and complete your application.
Things you’ll need for your application:
- A government-issued ID
- The signed inspection checklist
- Deed or proof of ownership
- A credit card for the application fee (around $50)
Denver also created this 40+ minute video to explain the application process and offers other support resources here . If you prefer not to watch a video that long and navigate these resources, you can just start the application process and use my tips and tricks below to get you through it:
- As you work on the application, you can always click “Save and Resume within 30 days” on the bottom left side. If you do this, be sure to then also log out or it will time out and you’ll lose your saved work!
- Once you’ve created your account and login, go here:
- Then go here:
- Once you’re here, you’ll get into the application and most of it is self-explanatory. As you work your way through the process, you’ll hit the screen below that shows you’ll be completing three separate applications within the overall application. This is correct, so don’t let that concern you.
- Here are tips about each of these 3 applications you’ll be completing:
- Entity Registration Application – This section is all about your ownership of the rental property.
- Tip: Early in the process it will ask you if you completed an entity registration. If this is your first time doing the process, just say no and it will help you complete it later in the process.
- Tip: Even if you own the property as an individual, you have to register as an entity. (This isn’t just for LLCs, etc.; it’s for everyone.)
- Tip: If you own the property as a “trust”, there is no option to state that so Denver suggests you select the “sole proprietor” option and then use one of the trustee names as the name on the license application.
- Licensed Establishment Application – This section is all about your property. Licensed establishment makes it sound like you’re running a bar, but it’s just referring to the rental property.
- Tip: It will require you to enter information for an “On Site Manager”. Even if no one is on site at your rental, you still have to enter a contact and for most landlords that will be yourself. (Even if you have a property manager, list yourself as the On-Site Manager.)
- Tip: At one point, it will ask you if you Own or Rent the property. As landlord, you should select “own”. (Even though you rent it out, the answer is you “own” it.)
- Residential Rental License Application – This section is all about providing the information needed to actually get the license. In this section you’ll submit all the required documentation including the completed inspection and the two inspector certifications.
- Tip: It’s going to ask you questions about your inspector’s various certifications. Just refer to the paperwork the inspector gave you, and you’ll be able to locate it easily.
- Tip: This section is also where you can provide documentation of your exemptions from getting this license. (For example, if your home is less than 4 years old.)
- Once you have completed all three applications, you can then submit!
- Once you submit, you will need to pay. It would be nice if there was a big “Pay” button at the end, but there isn’t. Read their instructions carefully to make your payment.
- Right now the cost for a single unit property application is $75. It’s $150 total for licensing a 2–10-unit property.
- Once you pay, Denver then has 7 -10 days to respond with approval or to request more information. Either way, they will communicate with you about this via the email you provided.
- Once you get your license, save it and be sure to put your license # in all your rental ads!
⚠️ Legal Note & Disclaimer
Focus Real Estate is not a legal, tax, or insurance advisor. The content in this post is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice. Licensing rules may change, and we encourage landlords to confirm current requirements via the City of Denver’s official site.
* Offer valid for new clients who sign a 12+-month property management agreement in 2025. Licensing fees up to $75 covered per property.
Is Focus Real Estate the Right Fit for Your Property Management Needs? Is Focus Real Estate the right fit for your property management needs? We spend a lot of time talking to prospective property management clients early in the process as we help them answer that very question in their minds. To save time for you and for us, we wrote this blog post that explains who we’re a good fit for…and who we aren’t a good fit for! Providing great service is largely dependent on knowing our ideal client and pouring all your efforts into serving them, rather than trying to be the right fit for everyone. Before we jump into this post, I want to mention that we provide both brokerage (buying/selling) and property management services to the Central Park community. If you need either of those services we’d love to help, and you can find more info on our website . Ok…back to helping you decide if we’re the right property manager for you. Property management is a long-term relationship and it’s critical that both you as the property owner and us as the manager feel good about the relationship. If we’re not a good fit based on investment philosophy, communication style, personality type, etc we’d rather figure that out upfront as that’s best for you and us. Let’s review who we’re a good fit for and see if that’s you! If you prefer to watch a video on this topic you can find that here . We’re a good fit to be your property manager if: You have a relatively newer home (built in 1990 or later) and it’s located within Central Park or 15 minutes of there. Why are we only serving this area? Because this is where we live, where we’ve been buying/selling homes for 13+ years and where we are confident we can provide a high level of service. We don’t believe in the “we go anywhere and do anything” approach to business, which we think often results in a diluted, generic level of service. ( Here is a sample of the homes we manage )
Considering renting out a home you own in the Central Park neighborhood of Denver but not sure what it would rent for? We’ve got you covered! Check out our latest version of the Central Park Rental Rate Cheat Sheet below. At Focus Real Estate we help busy people in Central Park with their real estate needs, whether they want to buy, sell, rent or need help with property management. We focus exclusively on Central Park so we can provide our clients with a very high level of service. In this post we’ll focus on the property management side of our business, and specifically on helping you understand the rent you could expect to receive on your Central Park home. When we talk to homeowners who potentially want us to manage their home one of their first questions is naturally “What would my home rent for?”. Of course, the exact answer is dependent on a lot of factors; the time of year, the availability of other similar rental homes, the finish level of the home, the location of the home, the bedroom/bath count, the layout and more! That said, because we just focus exclusively on this area, we can provide a general rental range for homeowner’s based on their home type, and that’s exactly what we’ve done with our Central Park Rental Rate Cheat Sheet! Before we give you the cheat sheet, we want to explain a few key points: The cheat sheet is broken out by property type and includes a likely rental range for carriage homes (also called a “mother-in-law” apartment), small/large condos, small/mid/large/luxury townhomes, small/large paired homes, and small/mid/large/luxury single family homes. The rental rates in this cheat sheet assume the home is in good condition, is unfurnished, would be available for lease in ~ 12 month increments and the tenant pays all utilities. In short, these are typical long term rental rates, they are not short term rates (night by night Airbnb) or mid-term rates (30/60/90 days). Why would we give away this information? Couldn’t a homeowner take it and go rent out their own home without us as their property manager? Our goal is always to be a source of useful, good information. Sure, someone could take these rental rates and go rent out their home, but the true value of property management is really offloading all the work, headaches and details that come with it! Here is a list of all the services we provide and the pricing . If the ballpark rental rate range for you home in the Central Park Rental Rate Cheat Sheet below appeals to you, the next step would be to schedule a call with us ! In this easy, low pressure call we’ll get to know you, your goals and see if we’re a good fit to manage your property. Here is the cheat sheet, hope it’s helpful!
Buy your next home before selling your current one! Learn how homeowners can tap into their equity, qualify without contingencies, and avoid the stress of a rushed sale with this unique financing solution. No prepayment penalties, more flexibility—find out how it works!
Learn about the history of lead-based paint and its risks based on a home's construction year. Discover why lead was once used in paint, when it was banned, and how to assess potential exposure in older homes. Read our latest blog post for key insights and EPA statistics on lead-based paint in residential properties.
Keeping a rental property in top condition requires the right professionals, and Emerald Window Cleaning is one of our trusted local vendors. With over eight years of experience, owner Luis Estrella and his team specialize in window cleaning, screen repair, and seasonal maintenance—helping homeowners and property managers maintain their properties year-round.
Worn-out window screens can make a home look neglected, invite pests inside, and reduce energy efficiency. To help, Emerald Window Cleaning is offering a limited-time special—most window screens can be repaired for just $25 each. Now is the perfect time to schedule repairs before peak rental season!
Beyond window services, Emerald Window Cleaning also provides gutter cleaning and Christmas light installation, making them a great resource for year-round property maintenance.
Learn more about their services and how to schedule an appointment in our latest blog post!
Building a new home in Stapleton, or any neighborhood, from the ground up can be a great experience. My family and I did it, we love our new home and I’ve been lucky enough to help other families navigate the building process as well. That said, buying new is very different from buying a resale, especially when it comes to the contract that is used. Builders have their own in-house contracts they use rather than using the Colorado approved forms, which were designed to handle resale transactions. My goal is to help buyers understand some of these differences between a builder contract and a standard resale contract. I’m a big supporter of the builders so I don’t want this to come off as negative, but these are the recurring issues that buyers ask me if they can change when they read the builder contracts. 7 Things to Know about New Home Builder Contracts: 1. Earnest money on a new build is typically much more than a resale. A builder is building a home for you and allowing you to pick all the structural upgrades and finishes. There is risk involved with that (if you fall through that next buyer may not love the green carpet you picked!) so they usually require earnest money upon signing the contract and then additional earnest money as a percentage of the finishes that are selected along the way. (amount varies by builder) 2. The buyer’s loan “out” may not be as favorable as it is on a resale. On a resale transaction in Colorado buyers can back out all the way up to their Loan Objection Deadline if they have a loan problem, typically with no loss of their earnest money. With new builds, a buyer typically has 30 -45 days to back out based on loan reasons but there are often penalties that the builder will hold back from the buyer’s earnest money. Even if they tell you there is a loan “out” be cautious and read the fine print in their contract. If the buyer’s loan falls through late in the building process the builder typically keeps the earnest money. 3. Builder contracts are not contingent upon an appraisal. Meaning if the appraisal of the home comes in low once it’s built the builder is not obligated to drop their price to match the appraisal. The lender can still lend on it but because it appraised low the buyer will have to bring more cash to the table to keep the lender happy. The buyer can’t back out if the appraisal is low, unlike a resale, without losing earnest money. 4. Builders typically give themselves 1 – 2 years to build the home per the contract. This always makes buyers nervous. They are expecting to have the home built in 8 months based on conversations with the sales staff but when it comes time to sign the contract the builders give themselves a ton of leeway and most builders say they have 2 years to build it. (I’ve never seen one last even close to 2 years) 5. Inspections on a new build are different. When you inspect your home on a resale you can back out of the deal if you find issues. If you find issues on a new build you can’t back out but they will fix them for you if you are still in the building process. (or under warranty after closing) 6. Builders do not offer a lot of flexibility for changes. Buyers should know that most builders are “production builders”, meaning they build off a preset plan they offer their clients. Builders aren’t typically set up to make a lot of custom changes, so what you see in the floor plan is what you get. “Custom” builders are the ones who serve clients who want to build something completely unique where changes are encouraged. 7. Lastly, new build contracts involve time frames that are much longer than resale ones, so buyers can’t lock their interest rates right away because lenders don’t usually lock rates that long. New home buyers will need to wait to lock their rate later in the building process. In a rising rate environment this can be nerve racking. So those are the 7 most common issues that buyers have once they review their builder contracts. Am I saying new homes are bad compared to resale? Absolutely not! They are a great fit for many of my buyers because they offer flexibility, customization and often the longer building time allows the client to sell their existing home. I just want buyers to go into the contract process knowing it will be a little different than the resale transactions they’ve done in the past. Can anything be done by buyers to negotiate on some of these items from the builder contract? I’ll give you the attorney answer….it depends! Your leverage as a buyer depends on the state of the market and currently it’s a seller’s market…so builders don’t need to be flexible on making changes for their buyers. If you don’t like their terms there are other buyers that do right now. As the market balances, and eventually shifts back to a buyer’s market (real estate is always a cycle) buyer’s will gain more power and builders will be more eager to adjust some of these contract items. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try to improve the contract but I want to be upfront with clients that if they want a ton of changes made to the contract it’s not happening in the current market. Hope this has helped set the right expectations regarding some of the differences between builder contracts and resale ones. If you have questions or if I can be of service as you make your next move I’d love to help! As a Realtor I’m not affiliated with any one builder so I can show clients the new and resale market to help them find the home that fits their needs!
Getting a rental property ready for the market can be a complex, time-consuming process, but that’s where a Focus Real Estate comes in!
If “Get Denver Rental License” has been sitting on your “To Do” list for way too long this post can help you get it checked off! Not only will the post help you get it done, we’ll also provide you with the inspectors you need, give you tips and tricks to save you time and give you a deal that will save you money just for being a Scoop reader! We just completed the process successfully for one of our Denver rentals and we’re starting the process to help our property management clients as well. So we wouldn’t say we’re experts on this process yet, but we’ve been through it and we’ve learned some things we’ll share with you to make the process as painless as possible. As we continue to go through the process for more clients we’ll continue to update this and share what we learn. At Focus Real Estate Property Management we manage single family homes, townhomes and condos in Denver’s Central Park neighborhood and the surrounding areas. So this post is geared towards landlords that have those types of homes, it’s not geared to help those with larger multifamily properties. By the way, if you sign up with us for property management you can skip the rest of post… we’ll navigate this process for you at no extra charge, other than paying for your own inspection and license application. (Here is our Services and Pricing page .) A few quick things to cover before we jump in… First, the post should not be taken as legal advice. I’m going to share the information, tips and tricks that I’ve learned through navigating this process myself. Your property, your home inspector and your ownership structure may be different so you may have a different experience. Second, the rules for this program have been evolving and will likely continue to evolve. To make sure you’re always looking at the most current rules here is a link to Denver’s website for this program. Third, there are a few types of landlords that don’t need to do the entire process we outline below. If you have a Certificate of Occupancy from the last 4 years (which means your home is less than 4 years old) you’re exempt! You’d still need to go through the application part of the process but you can skip the first 2 steps below. Also, if you only rent your property out for less than 30 days at a time you don’t need this license, you need a short term rental license. Ok, for the rest of you… let’s get your Denver rental license done! 3 Steps to Get Your Denver Rental License We’ve broken the process into three main steps, which are outlined below. In each step we’ll include some tips and tricks based on our experiences. It’s important that you go through the 3 steps in the correct order or you can waste time and money. Note: If you get stuck during the process, we recently learned of a resource that could help. Go to this page on the city website and then scroll down on the right you’ll see “Schedule a virtual appointment (Microsoft Teams)”. (See screenshot below). You can choose a 15 or 30 minute time slot where they will meet with you virtually and get you through the process.
New “Wee Cottages” in Central Park – And 3 BIG Incentives for Buyers!
At Focus, we understand that your rental property is an investment and that setting the right price is important for optimizing your potential profit. Determining the best rental rate for a property can be challenging. Setting the rental rate too low will hurt your bottom line. Conversely, charging a high premium compared to similar properties in the area can lead to longer tenant vacancy, which is also costly and affects your bottom line more than you might suspect. This document shares information about: How Focus helps you determine the rental price sweet spot, Factors to consider in the pricing process – including the cost of vacancy, and How Focus’ processes are designed to proactively command top dollar. Focus’ Rental Rate Estimate Ultimately, the final rental rate decision is up to you as the owner. That said, as your property manager, Focus will complete and send you a rental analysis and estimated rental rate. Our rental analysis takes into account several factors such as: Rates for comparable properties looking at: Active and leased comparable properties on the MLS, which is the site that real estate brokers access to help clients buy and sell homes. Rental data is less prevalent in this system compared to “for sale” property data, but some rental data exists, and we comb through it to leverage what we can. Rental rates for properties on Zillow. The Zillow “Rent Zestimate,” which is what Zillow thinks the property could rent for. Redfin’s Rental Estimate, which looks at aggregate rental data and presents an estimate of the fair market rental value of an individual home. Level of market demand and lease-up time that we are seeing based upon: Overall market conditions (driven by numerous factors such as rental saturation, seasonality, and interest rates) and Rentals similar to yours (size, location, pet policy, amenities, etc.). Your pet policy since allowing pets opens up the prospective tenant pool, can decrease time on the market, and can decrease tenant turnover. The Cost of Vacancy Despite the rental analysis, some owners are torn on whether to charge “just a bit more” on their rental property. For this reason, we want to outline some important considerations in making the final rental rate decision because charging too high of a premium compared to similar properties in the area can lead to longer tenant vacancy, which can be costly. In fact, the cost of vacancy can, at times, quickly offset the benefit of “just a bit more” rent. Let’s break this down a bit by listing some of the tangible costs of vacancy: Lost rent (which we often see in the range of $3,000 to $4,000 in our portfolio) Re-leasing fee costs, which is half of the lease’s first month’s rent Tenant turnover costs, which includes maintenance that inevitably pops up between tenants and is necessary to get the property ready to re-lease Your property carry costs, which includes your mortgage, taxes, insurance, utilities, etc. The lost rent alone is significant. If “just a bit more” rent results in your property being on the rental market for longer, it could take months (or even years) for the higher rent to make up for the cost of prolonged vacancy. To bring this to light, below is an example where, if you chose to increase the rent by $100 more / month and that caused the home to be on the market for an extra 2 weeks, it would take 1.3 years for the higher rent to make up the cost of vacancy. If the leasing took 4 extra weeks, it would take over 2 years for the higher rent to make up for the cost of vacancy.