Colorado's Fluorescent Ban: What It Means for Your Commercial Building
Your next burned-out tube can't be replaced with another fluorescent
If your office, warehouse, or retail space still runs on fluorescent tubes, here's something you need to know: since January 1, 2025, those tubes can no longer be sold in Colorado.
It's easy to miss until it affects you: a tube goes out, someone heads to the supply house, and there's no fluorescent replacement to buy. Here's what the law says, what it means for your building, and how to handle it without scrambling.
What the law says
In 2023, Colorado passed House Bill 23-1161. Section 8 of that bill is called the Clean Lighting Act, and it phases out general-purpose fluorescent lamps because they contain mercury.
The key rule: with certain exceptions, on and after January 1, 2025, no one may manufacture, distribute, sell, or offer for sale in Colorado any linear fluorescent lamp or compact fluorescent lamp (CFL).
A few details matter for commercial buildings:
"Linear" covers more than straight tubes. The bill's definition includes linear, U-bend, and circular lamps. That means your T8s, T12s, and U-tubes are all covered.
CFLs are covered too, including the pin-base CFLs common in commercial can lights.
Some special-purpose lamps are exempt. These include lamps made only for image capture and projection, germicidal use, medical or veterinary diagnosis or treatment, and academic and research use.
You can read the bill summary yourself on the Colorado General Assembly's website.
What this means for your building
The law bans the sale of fluorescent lamps. It does not order you to rip out fluorescent fixtures that are working today.
The catch is replacement. Every fluorescent tube in your building now has a countdown on it. When it burns out, you can't buy a new fluorescent to put in its place. You'll need an LED option.
That creates a real planning problem for property owners and facility managers:
Patchwork failures. Tubes rarely fail all at once. If you swap them one at a time as they die, you can end up with mismatched light color and brightness across the same room.
Ballast failures. Many older fixtures have aging ballasts. A dead ballast plus no fluorescent replacement often means the whole fixture needs attention anyway.
Stockpiles run out. Any spare fluorescent tubes sitting in your maintenance closet are a short-term fix, not a plan.
The better move is usually to plan the switch on your schedule, room by room or floor by floor, instead of reacting one burned-out tube at a time.
Your options when a tube burns out
You have four main paths. The right one depends on your fixtures, your budget, and how quickly you need the lights back on.
Type A (plug and play) LED tube - Works with the existing ballast. Ideal if you need a fast swap and the ballast is healthy.
Type B (direct wire) LED tube - Bypasses the ballast; line voltage goes straight to the sockets. Ideal if you want to remove the ballast as a future failure point.
Type A+B (hybrid) LED tube - Runs on the ballast now; can be rewired to direct wire later. Ideal if you want a quick fix today and flexibility later.
Full LED fixture replacement - Replaces the whole fluorescent fixture. Ideal if fixtures are old, damaged, or you’re remodeling.
Before you buy any LED tube, check two things:
The base. 8-foot high-output fixtures often use R17d bases, while most 4-foot fixtures use G13 bi-pin.
Ballast or no ballast. Our blog posts on Type A vs. Type B tubes, plug-and-play tubes, and bypassing the ballast walk through this choice in detail.
Not sure what's in your ceiling? Send us a photo of the tube and its label, and we'll help you match it.
Don't forget disposal and rebates
Old tubes contain mercury, so don't toss them in the dumpster. That mercury is the reason the ban exists. Commercial buildings usually need to recycle fluorescent lamps through a proper lamp recycler.
Rebates can cut the cost of switching. Xcel Energy offers rebates on qualifying LED lighting upgrades for Colorado businesses, and we help customers find the ones they qualify for.
Get ahead of it
The fluorescent era in Colorado is over. The only question is whether you switch on your own schedule or one dead tube at a time.
Denver LED Direct stocks Type A&B hybrid LED tubes that are used in base commercial buildings, plus full LED fixtures when a retrofit makes more sense. Contact us for help planning your upgrade and finding the rebates that apply to your project.