Teacher Cert Pathfinder

Transferring a Texas teaching licence to Colorado

Corridor record≈390 teachers a year ±17%

Open question · confirm with the agencyread 9 Sep 2026

Does CDE treat the Texas certificate Mathematics: Grades 7–12 as “identical” to Colorado’s Mathematics – Secondary (grades 6–12)?

Who can answer: CDE Educator Licensing, (720) 739-3304, Monday–Friday 08:30–16:30 Mountain

Colorado’s professional-licence route requires an identical endorsement. If the grade bands are not treated as identical you fall to Colorado’s second route, an evaluation for a comparable or equivalent endorsement. This single question can be the difference between a seven-year professional licence and a one-year interim authorization.

The published rules do not settle this. We have not yet put the question to the agency; when it answers, the answer and its date go here.

Every entry is cited and dated. Where it is not settled:To confirm with the agencyNot published by the agencyNot in our record yetChanged on a date

Which framework applies to you

Texas
Not a compact member
Colorado
Interstate Teacher Mobility Compact member (enacted 2023)

Colorado licence terms: Professional Licence, 7 years · Initial Licence, 3 years · Interim Authorization, 1 year.

Colorado Department of EducationCredentialing Guide for Out-of-State Applicants

Route

Which regime applies

Colorado is a compact member; Texas is not. The compact governs movement between member states only, so Colorado joining changed nothing for a Texas teacher. Colorado’s 2026 law, however, did change one thing for every out-of-state applicant.
Council of State Governments, National Center for Interstate CompactsInterstate Teacher Mobility Compact — member states

Which compact members actually operate the route →

Moving on military orders? Federal law gives a military spouse a separate route: a covered teaching certificate is valid in the new state on three documents. Colorado’s education agency does not mention that route on the pages we read. What federal law and Colorado publish →

United States Congress — 50 U.S.C. §4025a as amended by Pub. L. 118-159 §587 (text as published by the Mississippi Real Estate Commission)50 U.S.C. §4025a — Portability of professional licenses of servicemembers and their spousesColorado Department of EducationColorado Troops to Teachers

What Colorado requires

Route

Reciprocity

Licences do not transfer. Colorado evaluates whether you meet or exceed its own requirements.
Educator licenses do not "transfer" to Colorado across state lines.
Colorado Department of EducationCredentialing Guide for Out-of-State Applicants

ChangeDated 21 Apr 2026 · effective date to confirm

SB26-126 removed the seven-year recency window

Colorado may issue a professional teacher licence on three years of successful teaching experience in another state, and the requirement that the experience fall within the previous seven years is eliminated.
The act allows the state department of education (CDE) to issue a professional teacher license to a teacher with at least 3 years of successful teaching experience in another state or country for which CDE has granted reciprocity. The act eliminates the requirement that an applicant have the successful teaching experience within the previous 7 years.

Signed Act dated 21 April 2026; status Became Law. The verbatim effective-date clause could not be retrieved — content.leg.colorado.gov returns HTTP 403 to automated fetches. Press reporting places the effective date at 12 August 2026.

Colorado General AssemblySB26-126 — Licensure for Experienced Out-of-State Teachers

Who qualifies

Route 1 — professional licence

A valid standard licence from another state (not substitute, temporary, emergency, alternative, provisional, probationary or international faculty) carrying an identical endorsement to a Colorado one, plus all other Colorado requirements, plus three years of post-preparation full-time licensed experience in that state and content area.
If you hold a valid standard license (not substitute, temporary, emergency, alternative, provisional, probationary or international faculty) issued by another state that carries an identical endorsement to one issued by Colorado, meet all other requirements for the Colorado license requested AND have three years' post-preparation, full-time licensed experience in that state and in that content area, Colorado may issue a professional license with the identical endorsement requested.
Colorado Department of EducationCredentialing Guide for Out-of-State Applicants

Teaching meanwhile

Interim authorization

Lets you work in Colorado schools for a year while you take the required examination or demonstrate content knowledge through multiple measures. Renewable once only. Not available for Special Services licences.
The interim authorization allows the candidate to work in Colorado schools while providing a year's time to prepare for and take the required exam(s) or demonstrate content knowledge via the multiple measures options. An interim authorization may be renewed only once.
Colorado Department of EducationCredentialing Guide for Out-of-State Applicants

Fee

Base application fee, teacher licence

$110, and state statute prohibits refunding any application evaluation fee.
State statute prohibits the refunding of any application evaluation fee.
Colorado Department of EducationTeachers from Out-of-State/Out-of-Country

Deadline

The 30-day background-check window

You have 30 days from the time CDE receives your background check to apply. Miss it and you must be fingerprinted again.
You have 30 days from the time CDE receives your background check to apply for a license.
Colorado Department of EducationTeachers from Out-of-State/Out-of-Country

How it goes wrong

The 60-day cure window, and what happens if you miss it

An incomplete application must be cured within 60 days of notification or a written request for reconsideration submitted. Failing that, the application is deemed withdrawn and the withdrawal is not subject to appeal or review.
An applicant who fails to cure the deficiency or request reconsideration within these 60 days will be deemed as having withdrawn the application, and such withdrawal shall not be subject to appeal or review.
Colorado Department of EducationTeachers from Out-of-State/Out-of-Country

What to gather

Extra letter required of alternative-route completers

If you completed an alternative preparation programme and have not yet accrued three years of post-preparation fully licensed experience, you must also supply an official signed letter from that state’s department of education confirming the programme was state-approved and setting out its entry and exit requirements.
Out-of-state applicants who completed an alternative preparation program but who have not yet accrued the three years' fully licensed experience post-preparation must also include an official, signed letter from the department of education in the state in which you completed the alternative program confirming that the program you completed was indeed state-approved.
Colorado Department of EducationTeachers from Out-of-State/Out-of-Country

Your Texas credential

What Texas calls the certificate you hold, and where it sits in Texas’s own tiers — the thing Colorado will compare.

Credential tier

What tier a Texas certificate is, when you take it to another state

The Standard Certificate is Texas’s full classroom certificate — there is no separate “professional” tier issued above it today. 19 TAC §230.105 also recognises “a valid provisional, professional, standard, or enhanced standard classroom teaching certificate”, but provisional and professional are legacy classes held by long-serving teachers, not steps above Standard in the current scheme.
A teacher who holds a valid provisional, professional, standard, or enhanced standard classroom teaching certificate ... may qualify for an additional teaching field or certification to teach at another level by passing the appropriate certification examination(s) for that subject.

19 TAC §230.105. This matters most when the receiving state’s rule asks for a “professional standard” certificate, as Florida’s does: a Texas Standard Certificate is its holder’s highest current classroom credential, which is a materially stronger position than a sending state whose full tier sits below a separately-named professional one.

State Board for Educator Certification (via Texas Education Agency)19 TAC ch. 230 subch. G — Certificate Issuance Procedures (May 2024 Update)

The endorsement, side by side

The secondary mathematics endorsement in Texas and Colorado
TexasColorado
Certificate or endorsementMathematics: Grades 7–12Mathematics – Secondary (grades 6–12)
Grade band7–126–12
Named examinationTExES Mathematics 7–12 (235)Not in our record yet
Texas Education AgencyOut-of-State Certified EducatorsColorado Department of EducationColorado Teacher Endorsement Requirements

Note the grade-band mismatch. Texas issues 7–12; Colorado issues 6–12. Whether that matters depends on whether the destination applies an identity test or a comparability test — and those are different tests with different outcomes.

What it costs to get this corridor wrong

Money, time and outcomes, each set by a rule or published by the agency and cited on its entry. None is our estimate.

Money

Application fee

CDE states that state statute prohibits refunding any application evaluation fee.
Colorado Department of EducationTeachers from Out-of-State/Out-of-Country

Blocked route

Deemed withdrawn, no appeal

Miss the 60-day window to cure an incomplete application and it is withdrawn, and CDE states the withdrawal is not subject to appeal or review. The fee is not refunded.
Colorado Department of EducationTeachers from Out-of-State/Out-of-Country

Outcome

A one-year interim authorization, renewable once, instead of a seven-year professional licence

If the endorsement is not treated as identical, or the experience is not documented by matching certificate dates, the outcome drops to an interim authorization renewable only once.
Colorado Department of EducationCredentialing Guide for Out-of-State Applicants

Nothing here is a prediction about your file. It is what the published rules say happens, and what the agency charges, if a step is taken in the wrong order or on the wrong document.

Licence classes on this corridor

This corridor covers 6 licence classes: Secondary mathematics, Elementary, Middle grades, Secondary science, Secondary English language arts, Special education. The requirements above apply to all of them. A pack is written for Secondary mathematics only, and it is not yet on sale. Subject-specific facts are on the Colorado page where we have them.

Written · not yet on sale

Pathway Pack: Texas → Colorado · Secondary Mathematics

Free, first: CDE Educator Licensing, (720) 739-3304, Monday–Friday 08:30–16:30 Mountain can answer the open question above. Military spouses: the federal route and free help.

The route for this move in the order that matters, every requirement cited and dated, the fees and the timelines the agency publishes, and the questions the published record leaves open, with the number to call.

Held from sale until the question this corridor turns on has been put to the agency and its answer is on the record. We will not sell a researched question as if it were an answer.

$59 once on sale.

Where these facts come from

This page cites 5 sources. Every one is named on the entry that uses it, with the date we read it. The full register, including what we archived and what we could not retrieve, is at every source we cite.

Everything we have verified about Colorado → · About Texas →

Cite this page: Teacher Cert Pathfinder, “Texas to Colorado,” record as of 9 September 2026. Changes and corrections are logged on What changed.