Who pays to lobby at the Gold Dome.
Registered lobbyists, the clients that hire them and the lobbying income reported for each client, from the Colorado Secretary of State's lobbyist disclosure records.
individual lobbyists named on registrations
Individual lobbyists (953) plus single-member lobbying firms (109), which the Secretary of State defines as a lobbyist who is the firm's only employee; lobbying firms with two or more members (54) and the one reporting-only entity are left out.
lobbyists or lobbying firms registered
Professional lobbyist registrations the Secretary of State's directory lists for fiscal year 2025-2026, counted once each, including registrations since ended (directory status on Oct. 31, 2026: 643 current, 237 terminated, 237 expired). By type: 702 individual lobbyists not employed by a lobbying firm (this group includes clients' own staff who lobby), 251 individual lobbyists employed by a lobbying firm, 109 single-member lobbying firms, 54 lobbying firms with two or more members and 1 entity reporting only contributions and expenditures. State agency liaisons and volunteer lobbyists are registered separately and are not counted.
clients (lobbyist employers)
Distinct client names on fiscal year 2025-2026 registrations (6,242 client listings on 1,097 lobbyist registrations), counting names that differ only in capital letters or spacing once; names spelled differently in other ways are counted separately, so this somewhat overstates the number of organizations. 125 further names that match a registered lobbying firm or lobbyist (firm staff list their firm as client) are not counted.
| Xcel Energy | $610,000.50 |
| Sports Betting Alliance | $498,213.09 |
| Colorado Hospital Association | $342,881.27 |
| Western Resource Advocates | $339,813.55 |
| Colorado Contractors Association | $309,992.04 |
| Boulder County | $282,510.00 |
| Colorado Catholic Conference | $272,100.00 |
| Colorado Retail Council | $245,496.04 |
| Colorado Restaurant Association | $242,002.86 |
| Pharmaceutical Research Manufacturers of American (PHRMA) | $227,500.00 |
| COPIC | $224,029.07 |
| Early Care and Education Consortium | $223,153.00 |
| Colorado Chamber of Commerce | $211,841.00 |
| CommonSpirit | $210,293.22 |
| Colorado Health Care Association | $207,746.00 |
| COLORADO COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM | $200,687.84 |
| Colorado Apartment Association | $197,240.00 |
| Pinnacol Assurance | $188,500.00 |
| College Board | $184,250.00 |
| COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES | $183,507.00 |
Income for lobbying that Colorado's registered professional lobbyists and lobbying firms reported receiving from this client on their monthly disclosure reports to the Secretary of State for state fiscal year 2025-2026 (July 1, 2025 - June 30, 2026; report months July 2025 through June 2026), added up over every lobbyist and firm that reported income from the client. Colorado law counts payments made and amounts agreed to for lobbying, and lobbyists may spread a lump sum across months; an in-house lobbyist reports the share of salary that went to lobbying. Payments that a lobbying firm or another lobbyist passed on to a lobbyist (firm staff and subcontractors) are left out so the client's money is not counted twice. Lobbying expenditures are reported separately and are not included. As filed by Oct. 30, 2026; not adjusted for later amendments.
Sources: Colorado Secretary of State, Professional Lobbyist Income, fiscal year 2025-2026 (data.colorado.gov dataset dxfk-9ifj, run 2026-10-30; matches the SOS 5-year income download row for row); Colorado Secretary of State, Lobby Disclosure System data reports: professional lobbyists and firms directory; client directory; Colorado Secretary of State, Professional Lobbyist Bills, fiscal year 2025-2026 (data.colorado.gov dataset sche-yqzf); Colorado Secretary of State, Lobbying Guidance Manual (revised March 2025) and lobbyist FAQs.
How to read this
Colorado has professional lobbyists (people or businesses paid to lobby, including a client's own employees who lobby) register with the Secretary of State each state fiscal year, which runs July 1 to June 30, and list the clients they represent. Each month they file a disclosure report, due the 15th of the next month, giving the income they received or were promised for lobbying from each client of $100 or more, their lobbying expenses, payments to subcontracted lobbyists, and the bills and subjects they worked on with the client's position. Lobbying firms report the money their clients pay; a lobbyist who works for a firm reports the firm as the source of their pay. Clients themselves do not register or report. The table adds up, by client, the income entries on the fiscal year 2025-2026 reports. Hiring and paying lobbyists is lawful and public; these records do not show that any official acted because of it.
What is not here yet
- The income figures are as filed and published by Oct. 30, 2026. Late or amended fiscal year 2025-2026 reports after that date are not included; the June 2026 report was due July 15, 2026.
- Colorado's records give no client ID, so clients are grouped by name. Names that differ only in capital letters or spacing are combined; other spellings of the same client (for example with or without 'Inc.' or a comma) are not combined, so a client's total may be split over two or more rows and some may rank lower than they would if combined.
- Payments passed between lobbyists were identified by name: a payer is set aside when its name matches a registrant in the Secretary of State's directory that itself reported income from someone else (1,692 entries, $18,093,760.57). The records do not flag these payments, so the split is approximate: a few organizations whose staff lobbyist also reported another payer (for example Climate Jobs Colorado or ACS CAN) are set aside, and a lobbying business listed under a name that does not match the directory stays in the client table. Every set-aside payer is below the 20th-ranked client except clear lobbying firms, so the top 20 does not depend on these cases; the totals do, slightly.
- Lobbyists need not itemize a client that paid less than $100 in a month, so small clients may show $0 or less than they paid.
- Expenditures cannot be tied to clients: Colorado's itemized expense records name the lobbyist only. They are reported here as a statewide total, kept apart from income.
- The report-summary totals of income and expenditures do not match the itemized records (see report_summary_totals_separate); the table uses the itemized income only. Why some summary expenditure entries are so large was not yet checked with the Secretary of State.
- The bill-level file for fiscal year 2025-2026 (about 164,000 rows, one per lobbyist, client, bill and month) was not saved; the portal's grouped count by bill, client and position was saved instead. The SOS 5-year bills download (196 MB) and 5-year income download (20.2 MB) were not kept in the repo; their URLs and hashes are in PULLS.md.
- State agency liaisons (state employees who lobby for their departments, on separate datasets) and volunteer lobbyists are not included; not yet checked.
- Legislative officials who received gifts or entertainment are named in the expense records' purpose fields in some cases; none is copied here.
- Annual cumulative reports (due July 15, 2026) were not pulled separately; the monthly itemized records they are built from were used.
Gaps in the lobbying records as of the date checked.