How to move to Colombia · Shep · GeoGringo
How to Move to Colombia as an American
Five cities in six years, on purpose. Here is how to move to Colombia, and how to choose your city.
The short answer
Can an American move to Colombia? Yes — with the right visa.
Any US citizen can apply to move to Colombia, and entry itself is always Migración Colombia's call at the border. How to move to Colombia comes down to four decisions — city, visa, budget, timing — and it is the order that matters. You are stamped in for 90 days at the airport, extendable to 180 within a calendar year, no visa involved. Use them. Visit, live somewhere for a few weeks, then apply: the visa application is filed online, and you can file it from here while you are standing in the country you are deciding about. What you do need before you fly is to know which visa fits you and what it asks for, because the income floors reset every January. Nearly every expensive surprise I have watched Americans hit came from taking these four out of order.
Written by Shep, an American who left Los Angeles in 2020 and has spent six years living in five Colombian cities and traveling more than 26. Last checked September 5, 2026. I hold no license to practice law, accounting or immigration here, and there is no relocation package for sale.
What is on this page
- The four decisions, in order
- Which Colombian city is best for Americans?
- The visa question
- How much money do you need?
- What the call is
- Does Medicare work in Colombia?
- Is Colombia safe for American expats?
- Your first 90 days after the visa
- Mistakes to avoid
- Pros, cons, and who should not come
- How I know this
- Questions Americans ask
How to move to Colombia: the four decisions, in order
Everything else in how to move to Colombia is detail underneath these four. Taken in sequence the move stays calm, and taken out of sequence it gets expensive. The two dark steps below are the ones people commonly take early.
City
Scout it first
Colombia is not one place. A coastal city and a mountain town differ in everything but the flag.
Visa
Know it before you fly
Time on the airport stamp counts toward nothing. You can file the application online from inside Colombia — but know which visa fits, and what it asks for, before you book.
Budget
Two numbers
Monthly cost of living, and a separate one-time setup cushion. People plan one and forget the other.
Timing
Scout, choose, file, commit
Rushing the sequence is the root of most regret I have heard.
Steps 2 and 3 are the ones that get taken backwards. People pick a city they love, move, and then discover the visa they need or the money the month actually costs.
The single most useful thing you can do: visit before you commit. Weeks, not days, and in more than one city. Almost every costly misstep further down this page traces back to skipping that.
Which Colombian city is best for Americans?
There is no single best city here, and anyone who names one without asking about your life is selling something. Climate, cost and pace vary more between Colombian regions than they do between US states. Here is how the four that Americans choose between differ.
| Region | Climate and pace | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Medellín and its valley | Spring-like all year, modern, fast, a real metro system | Remote workers, and anyone who wants city amenities without heat |
| The Caribbean coast Cartagena, Barranquilla, Santa Marta | Hot and humid all year, social, slower outside Cartagena's tourist core | People who want heat, sea and a looser rhythm |
| The coffee region Pereira and around | Mild green hills, quieter, cheaper, far fewer foreigners | People who want calm and value over big-city life |
| Bogotá | Cool and high-altitude, the largest and most career-driven city | People who want a real metropolis and do not mind grey weather |
How to actually choose
I have lived in three of these four — everywhere but Bogotá — plus Cali, and I am writing this from Santa Marta. I still will not tell you which to pick, because it depends on what you cannot live without: heat or the absence of it, a big city or a small one, a thick expat scene or an ordinary Colombian street. What I will say flatly is do not choose from a blog post. These cities feel nothing like their write-ups. Spend real time in at least two before you sign anything, and if you want a structured way to narrow it down, the city quiz does it in a minute. For the five I recommend most and why, including two nobody writes about, see my five favorite Colombian cities — one of the guides I have written.
Do you need a visa to move to Colombia?
Not to enter. The airport stamp gives you three months, pushable to six inside one calendar year, at no cost. Living here is the other question, and that does need a visa — which one depends on where your income comes from: a pension, remote work, an investment, a marriage, or study.
What the tourist permit is, and what it is not. It is the right way to try a city before committing to one. What it is not is a clock that counts toward residency — time on a tourist stamp accumulates into nothing. The visa is a separate application, filed online through the Cancillería, and you can file it while you are here on that permit as long as your status is still valid. Let the permit lapse first and you are dealing with Migración before you can deal with the visa.
Which path, and what it takes
The income floors are multiples of the Colombian minimum wage, so they move every year, and everything is processed through the Cancillería. Each path, the current thresholds and the errors that get applications refused are in the Colombia visa guide for Americans; the visa income calculator tells you in a minute whether your income clears the line. Fees are modest and not where the money goes: $56 to study any application, $138 to issue a digital nomad visa or $204 for an M-11 pensioner visa, and about $96 for the cédula afterward. Call it $290 to $356 all in, before apostilles and translations. A refusal is what costs you, because the study fee does not come back.Fees converted at 3,048.12 COP/USD on August 22, 2026.
Colombia visa income requirements for 2026
They reset every January, and this year by more than usual. The 2026 minimum wage was decreed at COP 1,750,905 a month, about $574, an increase of roughly 23 percent (El Colombiano). Pensioner and digital nomad both ask for three times that. Set it beside the exchange rate:
| Pensioner or digital nomad visa | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Colombian minimum wage, monthly | COP 1,423,500 | COP 1,750,905 |
| Income floor required (3× the minimum wage) | COP 4,270,500 | COP 5,252,715 |
| Exchange rate at the time | about 3,950 COP/USD August 2025 | 3,048.12 COP/USD August 22, 2026 |
| What you have to show, in dollars | about $1,081 a month | about $1,723 a month |
The peso requirement rose 23 percent, the dollar fell, and together they lifted the bar for an American from roughly $1,081 a month to roughly $1,723 — about 59 percent higher in a year, for a rule that did not change at all. It resets again on January 1, 2027. If your income sits near the line, an application filed this autumn is judged against this year's threshold and one filed in February is judged against next year's.
What is the 183-day rule in Colombia?
Spend more than 183 days inside Colombia in any rolling 365-day window and DIAN treats you as a tax resident, taxed on worldwide income including what you earn in the US. It counts days present, not what your visa says, so people cross it without noticing.
Do you still pay US taxes if you live in Colombia?
Yes — the US taxes citizens on worldwide income wherever they live, so you keep filing. Three things worth knowing: the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion covers up to $132,900 of earned income in 2026 but not a pension, Social Security, dividends or rent, which is most of what a retiree lives on. FBAR is due separately if your foreign accounts together top $10,000 at any point in the year. And there is no US–Colombia tax treaty in force — one was signed and never ratified — so relief runs through the Foreign Tax Credit, which generally leaves you paying whichever country's rate is higher rather than both. Past 183 days you are filing in two countries, which is the point to hire an accountant who works both sides. I am not that accountant.
The number everyone asks about
How much money do you need to move to Colombia?
A single person lives in most of Colombia on roughly $1,300 to $3,500 a month: lean around $1,300 to $1,500, comfortable $1,500 to $2,000, premium $2,000 to $3,500. A furnished one-bedroom runs about $650 to $850 outside the expat neighborhoods and $950 to $1,250 inside them, which is most of what separates the lean tier from the premium one. Costs fall noticeably as you move away from the expat neighborhoods and climb sharply inside them.Dollar figures at the official TRM of 3,048.12 COP/USD, August 22, 2026. Colombian rents and bills are set in pesos, so every dollar number on this page is a conversion, not a fixed price.
Treat those tiers as a moving target, moving in one direction. Two separate things are pushing them up at the same time. Colombian prices themselves are rising: inflation closed 2025 at 5.10 percent (DANE), which under Ley 820 is the legal ceiling for a rent increase in 2026, and the 23 percent minimum-wage decree in January is expected to push 2026 inflation higher again. Separately, the dollar has fallen against the peso all year — roughly 3,760 in January, 3,476 in June, 3,132 at the end of July, 3,048.12 on August 22. So this is not only a currency story. Colombia got more expensive in its own currency too, and in the neighborhoods Americans concentrate in it got more expensive faster than the national average, because more Americans arriving is itself part of what lifts the rents there.
Why your dollar budget is not what a 2022 blog post says
This is the part almost nobody flags. In 2022 I paid about $850 a month for a place in Sabaneta, in the Medellín valley. The 2022 average was 4,255.44 COP/USD, so that rent was around COP 3,617,000. Today, at 3,048.12, an identical peso rent converts to about $1,187.
Same apartment. Same rent in pesos. Forty percent more in dollars. The quickest way to feel it: two or three years ago you worked out a Colombian price in dollars by dividing the peso figure by four. Today you divide by three. An apartment at COP 4,000,000 a month cost $940 at the 2022 average and costs about $1,312 today. That forty percent is the exchange rate on its own, before you add the local price rises above. Both are running at once, which is why every US-dollar budget for Colombia written before about 2025 now reads low. If a figure you are relying on does not say what rate it used and what year it is from, treat it as unreliable.
Where it bites hardest
El Poblado — local reporting describes Provenza and Parque Lleras as partially dollarized, with some vendors pricing in US dollars (El Colombiano). People are happy there. You just pay a premium to live in the foreign core, which is why I point people at Laureles, Envigado, or another city.
The second number people forget
Budget a one-time setup cushion of $3,000 to $5,000 on top of the monthly figure: flights, a furnished deposit, apostilles, and living for the first weeks while nothing is arranged. Arriving without it turns a manageable move into a stressful one.
Colombia is still cheaper than the United States, commonly half or less. It is not the near-free country old posts promise. To put your own numbers in rather than trust mine, the cost-of-living calculator runs eight cities at today's rate, and the full 2026 cost-of-living breakdown shows where each figure comes from.
The only thing I sell
What the call is, before you ask what it costs
One hour, on video, one to one. Not a discovery call, and there is nothing behind it to upsell you into.
What you bring
Your income and where it comes from, a rough timeline, and the two or three cities you are weighing. If you have a budget written down, bring it. If not, we build one.
What you leave with
The visa path your income clears, a realistic monthly number for the cities you named at the current rate, and the order to do things in. I send notes afterward so you are not taking dictation for an hour.
What it is not
Not legal, tax or medical advice. I hold no license here and file nothing for you. When your case needs a Colombian attorney or a cross-border accountant, I say so and hand you the questions to ask.
Why it is not free
An hour is the only thing I sell. No landlord, clinic, developer or agency pays me anything, so nothing in that hour steers you toward someone else's commission.
What it costs, next to the alternatives. A relocation agency quotes four figures to manage a move. A Colombian immigration attorney charges by the visa and will file it properly, but will not tell you whether to come at all, or where to live, or what the month really costs. This is $197 for an hour — and it is allowed to end with me telling you not to come.
Not ready to talk to anybody? Five tools here do the arithmetic for you and none of them asks for an email: the visa income calculator, the cost-of-living calculator, the city matcher, the safety quiz and the Spanish trainer. All five are here.
The question every retiree asks second
Does Medicare work in Colombia?
No. Medicare does not travel. It "usually doesn't cover health care while you're traveling outside the U.S.", and every exception is about being in or beside the United States. Plan as though it does not exist.
What the visa itself requires
Not a Colombian plan — an international one. The rule asks for global coverage, valid for the full period of the visa you are applying for, including medical repatriation. A Colombian EPS does not satisfy it, because an EPS only covers you inside Colombia. Budget roughly $500 to $600 a year, rising with age, though it can be a good deal less.
I filed my own application on a policy from Auras, which underwrites its own cover, includes medical repatriation and repatriation of remains, and sells explicitly for visa applications — considerably cheaper than Assist Card, the name most Americans here reach for first. Worth saying plainly, since I take nothing from either: satisfying Migración and paying out on a large claim are two different tests, and the cheaper policies rate worse on the second. Buy on the visa requirement, read the claims reviews before you lean on it, and buy it before you file rather than after.
And once you have the visa?
Less settled than most guides make it sound. Joining an EPS is tied to working or holding declared income in Colombia rather than to simply having a cédula, so a retiree living on a US pension with a private policy sits in a gray area rather than under a clear obligation. The system is also under real strain right now: on July 13, 2026 the health superintendent issued emergency orders covering Nueva EPS, Salud Total, Sanitas and EPS Sura — the four largest, between them responsible for 55% of all complaints about simply getting an appointment. Sura asked to leave the business and was refused. Most Americans I know keep private cover for exactly that reason. If you do want Colombian private cover, prepagada runs about $200 a month for someone in their sixties, less on a basic plan and more on a top tier one.
The healthcare guide for Americans works through the options properly. Coming for a procedure rather than a move is a different decision, and that is medical and dental travel.
Is Colombia safe for American expats?
For most Americans, daily life in the neighborhoods people move to is calmer than the news suggests. But safety here is local rather than national. It comes down to the city, the block, and habits — not luck.
Specific neighborhoods in every Colombian city carry real risk and are avoided, the way they are in any large city anywhere. The rule locals live by is no dar papaya: do not hand anyone an easy opportunity. Phone on the cafe table, new laptop bag on the Metro, watch at the bus terminal. Petty theft and phone snatching are the realistic risks, not the dramatic ones.
Read the State Department advisory for the current region-by-region picture — it rates areas, not the country. The riskier situations Americans meet here are social rather than street-level, especially on dating apps; the guide to dating safety covers that plainly, and the readiness quiz will tell you where your own habits stand. Nobody can promise safety anywhere. The people who get this right treat it as a set of habits, not a gamble.
Earthquakes are the other thing people ask about, and Colombia sits on an active margin. I was in Santa Marta on August 10, 2026 for the strongest earthquake Colombia has recorded this century — what that day was like, and what it says about how buildings here are built, is worth reading before you sign for an apartment in an older building.
Your first 90 days after the visa comes through
Two different 90-day windows get confused. The first is the scouting trip on a tourist stamp, where the only job is to look. This is the other one: visa issued, you are back, and you are building a life. Almost everything below needs the cédula, which comes after the visa — which is why none of it can happen on your first trip.
What do you need to set up first in Colombia?
- Take a short furnished rental before you sign anything long. A month or two to learn the street on foot — the noise, the walk to the shop, the morning sun — then sign a lease knowing what you are getting.
- Get a prepaid SIM the day you land. Claro, Tigo or Movistar take a passport and work the same afternoon. A postpaid contract needs the cédula, no exceptions, so start prepaid and switch later.
- Start the cédula de extranjería. Register at Migración Colombia within the deadline once your visa is issued. Most accounts and contracts need it.
- Open the bank account, patiently. Banks want the cédula, proof of address, and sometimes several visits. Bring more paper than you think you need.
- Learn what things cost before you buy them. The first month is when the gringo price does the most damage. Ask two locals before you agree to anything.
What is a fiador, and will you need one?
Most Colombian landlords ask foreigners for a fiador, a local guarantor who owns property here, or an insurance policy in place of one. It surprises nearly every newcomer, and it is the reason the short furnished rental comes first. The full arrival walkthrough is in moving to Colombia from the US.
Mistakes to avoid when moving to Colombia
Ranked by what they cost. Every one of them is common, and every one is avoidable if you know it is coming.
Committing to a city you have never visited
The most expensive one by a wide margin. A place that looks perfect online can be wrong for you inside a week, and by then the deposit is gone.
Signing a long lease too early
Lock into a year before you know the block and you are either overpaying or paying twice to move. Start furnished and short.
Arriving with no visa plan
The airport stamp is a dead end, not a first step. People burn months and an unplanned flight discovering that after they have already moved.
Not asking the estrato
Utilities are priced against a socioeconomic band from 1 to 6 tied to the address. A higher band means permanently higher bills on the same apartment. Ask the landlord before you sign.
Paying the gringo price
Not knowing local rates means overpaying for rent, furniture and services. It fades as you learn, but the first months are where it costs real money.
Budgeting monthly and forgetting setup
The move itself is a separate one-time number of $3,000 to $5,000. Plan it apart from the monthly figure or it ambushes you in week two.
Start here
The free Colombia Field Guide
Every one of those mistakes is preventable with information you can have before you book a flight. The Field Guide is where I put it: what a month costs in each city at today's rate, which visa path fits which situation, which cities are worth your time, and what to check before you sign a lease.
Budget · Visas · Cities · Safety
Free. No spam, no sales call, and I do not sell or share your address.
Pros and cons of living in Colombia as an American
A guide to how to move to Colombia that only lists upsides is a brochure. Here is the balance as I have lived it.
What works
- Living costs that typically run at half a comparable US city, or under
- You choose your climate: spring-like valley, warm coast, or mild coffee hills
- Modern private healthcare at a fraction of US prices, seen within the week
- Up to 180 days a year visa-free while you decide
- Foreigners own property on the same terms as Colombians
- Warm culture, and real expat communities in the major cities
What is hard
- Daily life runs in Spanish. Without it you can get by, but you cannot handle a lease, a doctor or a landlord dispute on your own
- Bureaucracy is slow and paper-heavy — apostilles, appointments, second visits
- Past 183 days you are a tax resident on worldwide income
- A long flight from family, on a different rhythm, missing things
- Infrastructure is excellent in the big cities, patchier in small towns
- You pay the gringo price until you learn what things cost
Colombia is the wrong move if
- US-level predictability is what you need, and a three-visit government process would ruin your week.
- You are unwilling to learn any Spanish. Inside the expat bubble you get by, but you will need somebody else for every appointment and every problem, and that gets old fast.
- Being a long flight from family and missing birthdays is a cost you cannot carry.
- Cost is the only thing pulling you here. Lower costs are a real reason to come — most people who move here well are partly moving for the money — but if nothing else about the country interests you, the friction outweighs the savings by about month four.
None of that makes Colombia a bad place. It makes it a real one, and working out which of those you are, before the flights and the deposits, is worth more than anything else here.
Most of the hard things fade. Spanish does not fade on its own, and it is the one people postpone longest — the free trainer is the cheapest way to stop postponing it.
Why me and not a relocation agency
How I know this — five cities, on purpose
I moved here from Los Angeles in 2020 and have lived in five Colombian cities since, because seeing the whole country was the point — five lived in, more than 26 traveled through. That is why I can give you a read on Colombia rather than a read on one city.
Medellín, Cali, the coast, and now the coffee region
Medellín and its valley first, then Cali, then several years on the Caribbean coast — mostly Barranquilla, with time in Cartagena. Then Pereira and the coffee region, and now the coast again. Living in each is how I learned which differences matter day to day and which only matter in a brochure.
I have signed the leases myself
The 2022 rent figure in the cost section is one of mine, off my own lease in the Medellín valley rather than a listing site. Landlords have asked me for a fiador. The estrato system I learned off an electricity bill, and the furniture got negotiated in Spanish.
I know the process because I have been through it
Migración, the Cancillería, the cédula queue — I have done my own. So I can tell you what each step looks like, how long it really takes, and where a professional is worth paying rather than a shortcut worth taking.
One thing for sale: an hour of my time
No relocation package, no apartment inventory, no commission from a landlord, an agent or an attorney. If Colombia is wrong for you, I would rather say so on the call than sell you a move you regret.
Same approach across the rest of it: the Colombia guides, the property and investment work, medical and dental travel. From living here, not from a press kit.
Questions Americans ask about moving to Colombia
Which Colombian visa do Americans usually apply for?
Most Americans use one of three. The M-11 pensioner visa if you draw a pension, the digital nomad visa if you work remotely for a company outside Colombia, or an investor visa if you buy property. Marriage and student visas cover the rest. All of them go through the Cancillería's online system, and you can lodge one from inside Colombia while your tourist permit is still valid — that permit just does not accumulate into anything on its own.
Is it cheaper to live in Colombia than the US?
For most Americans yes. Housing is the biggest single saving, and a comparable US city will usually cost you at least double. Two caveats. Inside the expat-heavy neighborhoods that difference shrinks fast, because prices there have climbed hard. And the peso has strengthened, so the dollar gap is smaller than it was three years ago even where nothing local changed. Any comparison that does not name its exchange rate is not worth much.
Can you live in Colombia without speaking Spanish?
You can survive without it, and you cannot settle without it. In Poblado or Chapinero there is English in the cafes and coworking spaces. Then the lease needs signing, the doctor asks where the pain is, Migración wants a document nobody mentioned, and the plumber calls at eight in the morning. All of that happens in Spanish. EF's index puts Colombia in its low band for English proficiency, below the global average, so assume Spanish and be pleasantly surprised.
Which parts of Colombia are safest for Americans?
In the neighborhoods Americans settle in, daily life is calmer than the headlines imply. Safety here is a neighborhood question rather than a national one, and the realistic risks are phone snatching and petty theft rather than anything dramatic. Colombians call the governing rule no dar papaya: never be the easiest target on the street. The State Department advisory rates regions individually and is worth reading before you choose where to live.
How long does it take to move to Colombia?
Plan on six months from serious decision to settled, and treat anything faster as a warning. A scouting trip of a few weeks, then the visa paperwork, which needs apostilled documents from the US and takes as long as your slowest county clerk. Then the flight, a furnished rental, the cédula, and the bank account. People who compress this into six weeks are the ones who end up moving twice.
Can you bring pets, or ship your furniture?
Pets, yes, with a vet health certificate and the paperwork done in advance. Furniture is a different question: most people who ship a container regret it. Colombian apartments are commonly rented furnished, freight and customs are expensive, and your American appliances may not suit the wiring or the space. Almost everyone I know who moved here twice brought less the second time.
Before you sign a lease, book a flight, or wire a deposit
Americans land here for one of three reasons: they are moving, they are coming for medical or dental work, or they are looking at property. All three turn on the same questions — which city, what it really costs, and what your status here lets you do. If you want a straight read on yours, from an American who has lived in five Colombian cities and has no relocation package, no clinic and no listing to sell you, that is what the call is for.
Retiring on a pension
The pensioner visa, M‑11, is usually the path. It has an income floor tied to the Colombian minimum wage.
The Colombia visa guide →Working remotely
The digital nomad visa likely fits if you clear the income line. Check the 2026 threshold before you plan around it.
Check the 2026 income thresholds →Buying property
A qualifying purchase can support an investor visa, and that is a separate decision from where you want to live.
Investing in Colombia →Still working out whether to go
Nothing to commit to. The free Field Guide covers cities, costs and visas in one place.
Get the free Field Guide →One hour, one to one, on your actual plan. No law license, no accounting license, no immigration practice, and nobody on this end is paid a referral fee for pointing you anywhere. This is help with the questions to ask and the order to ask them in. When your case needs a licensed Colombian professional, I will say so and tell you what to ask them.
Who wrote this
I am Shep. Los Angeles to Colombia in 2020, and it has been home for six years across five cities — Medellín, Cali, Cartagena, Barranquilla and Pereira — with more than 26 others traveled through, and Santa Marta on the coast for the last two months. Renting across the country, signing Colombian leases, learning the estrato system from the bills, and handling my own paperwork in person at Migración: that is where this comes from. I am not a lawyer, an accountant or an immigration agent, and I have never claimed to be. What I have is the ground-level view of how a move works. More about who you would be talking to →
This page is information, not legal, tax, immigration, medical or financial advice. Nothing here replaces a conversation with your own doctors, and health coverage decisions belong with them and a licensed adviser. Colombian visa requirements, income thresholds, taxes and costs change and vary by case — always verify current requirements at official sources including cancilleria.gov.co, migracioncolombia.gov.co and dian.gov.co, and consult qualified professionals about your own situation. Cost figures are approximate 2026 ranges that shift with city, season and the exchange rate. Dollar amounts on this page are conversions at the Banco de la República rate of 3,048.12 COP/USD on August 22, 2026 and will differ on the day you read this.
GeoGringo · Moving to Colombia · reviewed September 5, 2026 · dollar figures at 3,048.12 COP/USD
GeoGringo · Relocation · v44 · last reviewed September 5, 2026 · no commissions
