Flyhi Data

Colorado Cannabis Tax Tracker

Every dollar of state cannabis tax Colorado has collected since legal sales began in 2014: how much, where it went, and why the total keeps shrinking.

Data through , from the Colorado Department of Revenue.

I've been tracking Colorado's weed tax numbers since legal sales started, mostly so I could say "I told you so" to everyone who said legalization would be a disaster. The numbers have always been public, but good luck finding them on the state's websites. So we built the page I always wanted: every dollar, where it went, and the schools it helped build. All of it straight from state records.

Steve, Flyhi

Spot something off? Email us and we'll fix it.

$0
in state cannabis taxes and fees collected since , through
peak year,
from the peak to
in taxes and fees per day in
in legal cannabis sold since 2014

The boom, and the slide

Colorado's cannabis tax haul climbed every year from 2014 to a record in . It has fallen every year since, as prices dropped and more states legalized.

See the data

Where the money went

Colorado splits its cannabis taxes into a handful of state funds. The biggest share goes to the Marijuana Tax Cash Fund, which lawmakers spend each year on things like behavioral health, education about cannabis, regulation, and law enforcement. Schools get the next-biggest cut.

Cities and counties used to get 10% of the state's 15% retail cannabis sales tax. Lawmakers cut that to 3.5% starting in 2025, and in 2026 a budget bill (HB26-1409) proposed ending it entirely. Local governments can still charge their own cannabis taxes on top of the state's, and those aren't counted here.

Which counties sell the most?

Legal cannabis sales by county in . Switch to per adult to see where sales are biggest compared to how many people (21+) actually live there. That's where the border towns jump out.

Top 10 counties

    * Some months weren't published by the state (too few stores to report), so the total is an undercount.
    See the data

    Cannabis Built This

    The schools cannabis helped build

    Colorado's 15% cannabis excise tax goes to BEST (Building Excellent Schools Today), the state's school construction grant program. Since 2014 it has put into the BEST fund, about the program has awarded in that time. Here's every project, from new schools on the plains to roof repairs in the mountains.

    in BEST grants,
    projects in counties
    new or replacement schools
    roof projects, plus safety and security upgrades

    Tap a county to see its projects.

    BEST also gets money from State Land Board revenue, the Colorado Lottery, and interest, so cannabis didn't pay for any single school on its own. It is one of the program's main funding sources, and every project here was paid from a fund cannabis helps fill. Districts also chip in their own matching money, on these projects so far.

    Use this data

    Writing about Colorado cannabis? Grab a chart, the numbers, or a citation. All we ask is a link back.

    Cite this page

    Get the numbers

    Monthly taxes, fund-by-fund distributions, and sales since 2014, as a spreadsheet-ready CSV.

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    How we built this

    • Tax, fee, and sales figures come from the Colorado Department of Revenue, published monthly on Colorado's open data portal. This page checks for new numbers every time it loads.
    • Totals are state taxes and fees only: the 15% retail sales tax, the 15% excise tax, the 2.9% state sales tax, and license fees. Local city and county cannabis taxes aren't included.
    • "Where the money went" uses the state's distribution records. Money is distributed a little after it's collected, so a single month won't always match, but over the whole period the funds add up to within 0.1% of total collections.
    • County sales come from the state's sales by county data. Per-adult figures use 2024 population estimates for ages 21+ from the State Demography Office.
    • School projects come from the Colorado Department of Education's BEST lists of awarded grants (2020-21 on) and BEST annual reports (2014-15 to 2019-20). Awards that weren't funded until a later cycle are counted once, in the year they were funded, and each year's total matches the state's published figure. Project types are tagged from project titles, and a project can have more than one. 2026-27 recommendations are listed but not counted in totals.
    • Fund rules come from Colorado Legislative Council Staff's January 2026 memo on marijuana in the state budget.

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