Denver, Friday, SEPTEMBER 25, 2026 — The Colorado Department of Revenue (DOR) Taxation Division today announced a temporary pause of the Sales and Use Tax System (SUTS) bulk address lookup feature. The pause will start on September 29,2026. The decision follows extraordinary system utilization that has far exceeded statutory budget allocations established under the Electronic Sales And Use Tax Simplification System Act (H.B. 23-1017).
Core SUTS Services Unaffected
The Department emphasizes that the primary SUTS Filing, Remitting, and Payment Portal, as well as the single-address GIS lookup software, remain 100% active, operational, and free for all businesses and taxpayers. Taxpayers can continue using the portal to look up accurate sales tax rates for any individual address across Colorado’s municipal, county, state, and special district tax jurisdictions in real-time.
Unprecedented Demand and Statutory Cost Structure
House Bill 23-1017 established funding for the SUTS bulk lookup tool at $1.275 million annually, covering up to 75 million lookups per fiscal year. During Fiscal Year 2025–26, usage spiked to 136.5 million lookups, requiring an additional General Fund allocation to sustain operations.
In the first three months of FY 2026–27 alone, lookup volume surged past 50 million queries. Demand has grown tremendously.
The State of Colorado’s fiscal year is July through June.
Fiscal Responsibility and Planned Reactivation
To protect public funds and manage General Fund impacts, the Department will temporarily deactivate the bulk spreadsheet upload feature. To assist businesses when local tax rates and boundary definitions update, the feature is scheduled to be re-enabled on January 1, 2027, in a managed capacity.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q1: Is the entire SUTS system shutting down?
No. The primary SUTS Filing, Remitting, and Payment Portal, along with the single-address GIS lookup tool, remain 100% operational and free. The automated bulk spreadsheet upload feature is being temporarily paused and will be turned back on on January 1 to align with local rate adjustments.
Q2: Why is the Department rolling back the bulk lookup feature?
SUTS bulk lookup experienced extraordinary demand, reaching 136.5 million lookups last fiscal year and 50 million in the first two months of this fiscal year alone. The feature was budgeted under H.B. 23-1017 for 75 million annual lookups. Contractual costs increase by $425,000 for every additional 25 million lookups. Because recent usage is dominated by commercial entities (>85% of volume), continuing to fund this feature would require significant, unscheduled General Fund additions.
Q3: How can businesses find sales tax rates for Colorado addresses moving forward?
Businesses can continue using the free SUTS GIS lookup tool to find accurate sales tax rates for individual addresses across all 600 state, municipal, county, and special district jurisdictions in real-time.
Q4: Will local governments still be able to audit and verify tax jurisdictions?
Yes. Local governments and their auditing partners can continue using standard SUTS tools, single-address GIS lookups, and direct municipal tax reporting.
Quick Links
Sales & Use Tax System (SUTS) Information
What is SUTS?
SUTS is the Sales & Use Tax System from the Colorado Department of Revenue. The SUTS System is a one-stop portal that allows you to do all manner of tasks related to collecting and remitting sales and use tax in an easy, automated and seamless fashion. The system has the following capabilities:
- Accurately look up sales and use tax rates by address
- Single point of remittance and a uniform remittance form
- Taxability and exemption matrix
- Ability to calculate tax rates on items with differing tax rates in the same jurisdiction
- A record of the history of any changes
Remittance Portal
The primary element of the SUTS System is the Remittance Portal. This portal allows you to file your retail sales tax returns for state, state-collected, and participating home-rule self-collecting taxation jurisdictions in one place.
Note: For special event sales tax, businesses should continue to use Revenue Online to e-file their special event sales tax returns (DR 0098).
Geographic Information System (GIS)
Another element of the SUTS System allows businesses to easily, and with the aid of free technology, identify the correct taxing jurisdictions related to the sale of a taxable good or service. The Geographic Information System (GIS) now allows businesses to look up the specific sales tax rate for an individual address.
The GIS not only shows state sales tax information, but it also includes sales tax information for counties, municipalities, and special taxation districts. This system allows for a complete tax rate to be determined so the correct tax is collected from customers in real-time.
Also, if your internal point of sale system supports it, the GIS information can be accessed through an Application Programming Interface (API). This API can automatically reference current tax information directly from the CDOR. Please note that the Department will need to verify that you have registered for an account for the Remittance Portal before using the API. Additionally, in some instances, the base map from Google cannot resolve some queries where, for example, “county road” is abbreviated as C.R. This issue is being investigated by Google Maps staff and should be resolved shortly.