Do Americans Have to Pay Taxes in Colombia?
The 183-day rule in Colombia decides it, and you become a tax resident on day 184. Stop at 183 and Colombia taxes none of your foreign income. Reach 184 in any rolling 365-day window and Colombia can tax everything you earn anywhere, at rates up to 39 percent — the top bracket of the Estatuto Tributario, and it sounds worse than it usually is, which is what the rest of this page is about. Your visa has nothing to do with it. The day count is the whole tax residency rule.
My own passport. Every one of those stamps is a date Migración logged, and the 183-day rule is counted from exactly these.
DIAN has written to me. Not about the 183-day rule — in August 2025 a notice arrived because my bank had reported deposits over a reporting threshold. I hired a Colombian contador and resolved it. Most people have never seen that process from the inside, and the part that surprises everyone is that the threshold has nothing to do with income. This is what I learned.
How is the 183-day rule in Colombia counted?
Article 10 of the Estatuto Tributario is short about it. Four things decide the 183-day rule, and only one of them is the number.
The window is the part people get backward. The 183-day rule runs on any period of 365 consecutive days, so it is not anchored to your arrival or to the calendar. Pick a date, count back 365 days from it, and total the days you were in Colombia inside that stretch. Past 183 and you were a tax resident. As time passes old days fall off the back of the window, which is the only thing that ever brings your number down.
How do you track your days against the 183-day rule?
- Work backward from what you already have. Passport stamps and flight confirmations in your email give you every date in and out.
- Once a month, count back 365 days from that day and total your days inside Colombia. Not January to December.
- Check yourself against the official record once a year. Your Certificado de Movimientos Migratorios from Migración Colombia lists every logged entry and exit, and it is what settles the question if your count is ever challenged. Requested online, and not free: COP 89,000, roughly $29 where the exchange rate sat at 3,048.12 COP/USD on August 22, 2026.
The calendar app on your phone is enough. Planning to remember is not. At 150 days, start planning your next exit on purpose.
What happens if you stay more than 183 days in Colombia?
The 183-day rule in Colombia sorts you into one of two completely different situations.
| Where you stand | What gets taxed | Rate | Do you file? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Non-resident, 183 days or fewer | Colombian-source income only | 35 percent, or 20 on dividends and 15 on capital gains | Often not at all, if withholding already covered it |
| Tax resident, 184 days or more | Worldwide income | 0 to 39 percent, plus a flat 15 on capital gains | Yes, and worldwide assets come into view |
| The US, either way | Worldwide income, because it taxes citizens rather than residents | Ordinary US rates, cut by the foreign income exclusion if you claim it | Yes, every year |
Rates from Articles 241, 247, 245, 314 and 316 of the Estatuto Tributario, under Ley 2277 de 2022, which is still the law — the 2025 reform bill was archived by the Senate and never took effect. The 39 percent bracket does not start until income passes roughly $533,000, so most people land far lower down it.
The two countries have no income tax treaty. A treaty is normally what decides which country taxes what, and there is nothing here to decide it. There is a tax information exchange agreement, and a FATCA agreement under which Colombian banks report American account holders. So no automatic relief, and no invisibility either.
The two asset reports nobody warns you about
Crossing the line exposes more than income, and the two things it exposes have very different thresholds.
The wealth tax is the famous one and the one most people never reach. Under Ley 2277 de 2022, which added Articles 292-3 to 298-8 to the Estatuto Tributario, Colombian tax residents owe an annual tax on worldwide net assets, measured on January 1, once those assets pass 72,000 UVT. The UVT for 2026 is COP 52,374, so that is COP 3,770,928,000, which converts at the August 22, 2026 rate of 3,048.12 COP/USD to about $1.24 million, and the tax runs 0.5 to 1.5 percent. Your home is excluded up to 12,000 UVT, roughly $206,000 at that same rate, if you live in it. A non-resident is only assessed on what they hold here.
The report that catches people, and it is not the wealth tax
The foreign-asset report is the one that will actually catch you, because the bar is 36 times lower. A Colombian tax resident holding assets abroad worth more than 2,000 UVT — COP 104,748,000, or about $34,400 where 3,048.12 COP/USD was the rate on August 22, 2026 — has to file a Declaración de Activos en el Exterior. It is an information return with no tax attached, and it carries penalties if you skip it. A US brokerage account and a paid-off car can put you over.
Two things about this to be careful with. Most pages you will find quote a 40,000 UVT threshold with rates up to 5 percent. Those came from an emergency decree issued at the end of 2025 that the Constitutional Court struck down in April 2026, retroactively, with refunds ordered — the figures above are what is actually in force. And there is no settling-in period: Colombia repealed the old rule that gave foreign nationals five years before their overseas assets counted, back in 2012. Year one is year one. A reform bill filed in July 2026 proposes the lower threshold again, so this is worth rechecking rather than assuming.
It is a tax on what you own rather than what you earn, so there is no US tax to credit it against. If your net worth is anywhere near $1.24 million, take that to your accountant before you take it anywhere else.
Can you legally stay under Colombian tax residency?
Yes, and there is no trick to it. The 183-day rule is arithmetic, so managing the arithmetic is the entire method: stay at 183 or fewer in any rolling 365, which in practice means a long stretch here followed by a real stretch somewhere else. That is not a loophole. It is reading the rule and living by it.
If you would rather be a Colombian tax resident, because you are earning here or building a life here, do that on purpose too — with a contador engaged before day 184 rather than after.
Your visa is a separate system that neither triggers the 183-day rule in Colombia nor protects you from it. Someone on a tourist stamp who overstays the count is a tax resident with no visa at all. Someone holding a two-year visa who spends half the year abroad is not. The Colombia visa guide covers how each visa type interacts with time in the country.
What if you have already crossed 183 days?
It is fixable, not a crisis. Being a tax resident means you have to declare worldwide income. It does not mean a big bill is coming, and plenty of people in this position owe little or nothing once it is worked through.
- Get the real number. Pull your Certificado de Movimientos Migratorios instead of estimating.
- Take it to a contador. What you owe depends on income type and amounts and on what can be offset. That is their work.
- File. DIAN gets deposit data from banks directly, so a missing declaration is what turns into penalties. A late or corrected one, handled properly, is routine.
The Colombian filing window for the 2025 year runs from August 12 to October 26, 2026, staggered by the last two digits of your NIT, under Decreto 2229 de 2023.
One thing specific to this year. After the August 10 earthquake, Decreto 1226 de 2026 — issued August 18, 2026 — pushed those deadlines to between October 27 and November 13 for people whose tax home is in nine affected municipalities, among them Cali, Pereira, Armenia, Manizales, Palmira, Tuluá, Buenaventura, Quibdó and Popayán. If that is you, confirm your date rather than working from the standard calendar. The rest of what I have written down is on the guides page, and the calculators and quizzes are free and need no email.
What a DIAN notice looks like
Mine came by email in August 2025. It said financial institutions had reported deposits over that year's threshold, that this potentially made me a declarant, and it asked me to register for a RUT and file. It did not say I owed anything, and that distinction is the whole point of this section.
What I did: hired a contador. He documented where the money had come from and what it was for, and dealt with DIAN directly. That is the entire method, and it costs a great deal less than guessing.
Three things that letter does not tell you
It is not about income. The trigger is deposits, and deposits means every transfer in, including money you move between your own accounts. For 2026 the line is COP 73,323,600, near $24,100 once converted at an exchange rate of 3,048.12 COP/USD, where it sat on August 22, 2026. Anyone bringing money in for a large purchase can pass it while earning nothing at all in Colombia.
It asks you to file, not to pay. Two different things, and reading the first as the second is what turns a form into a panic.
Do not answer it alone, and do not ignore it. A contador can usually tell you in one consultation whether you have an obligation at all.
Where your own count stands is the part this page cannot see. The Colombia Ready Call is sixty minutes on video, one to one: we go through your actual dates, where that puts you against day 184, and what your income type means on both sides before you commit to a longer stay or start moving money. It costs $197, no accountant, attorney or bank pays me to send you anywhere, and it ends with the questions to put to a contador rather than with me pretending to be one.
What about your US taxes?
You keep filing at home no matter where you live, because the US taxes citizens rather than residents. Three things are worth knowing here, and the rest belongs with a preparer who does expat returns.
- The Foreign Earned Income Exclusion can take $132,900 of earned income off your 2026 US return if you spend 330 full days abroad. It does nothing for pensions, Social Security or self-employment tax.
- The Foreign Tax Credit is often the better tool once you actually are a Colombian resident, because Colombian rates run above US ones. Which of the two fits is a real decision, not a default.
- An FBAR is due once all your foreign accounts together pass $10,000 at any moment in the year. It goes to the Treasury, separately from your tax return, by April 15.
That is the summary a non-accountant can act on. The full US side — how the two reliefs compare, the housing exclusion, the states that keep taxing you after you leave, and what FATCA adds on top of the FBAR — needs its own page, and it is the next one I am writing.
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The Colombia Field Guide
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Questions Americans ask me about Colombian taxes
Do I owe Colombian tax on my US income?
Only if you stay long enough. At 183 days or fewer in a rolling year, Colombia reaches nothing but money earned in Colombia, which most Americans on US income do not have. At 184 days it reaches everything you earn anywhere, up to a 39 percent top rate, and adds an annual levy on net assets above roughly $1.24 million.
Is the 183-day rule 183 days or 184?
184. Article 10 reads más de 183 days, so 183 leaves you outside and 184 puts you inside. Almost every English-language guide rounds it off and says 183, which quietly moves the line a day early. Arrival and departure days both count, and a stay straddling New Year lands you in the later tax year.
Does a trip home reset the 183-day rule?
No. The days do not have to be consecutive, so leaving and coming back pauses the accumulation without erasing any of it. What matters is the total inside the last 365 days, which means an old stretch drops off the back of the window as time passes rather than being wiped by a flight.
What triggers a DIAN notice on a foreigner's bank account?
Deposits, not income. Colombian banks report accounts whose total deposits for the year pass a threshold set in UVT, which for 2026 is COP 73,323,600, roughly $24,100 once the August 22, 2026 rate of 3,048.12 COP/USD is applied. Moving your own savings in to buy property crosses it easily. The letter asks you to confirm whether you are a declarant; it is not a bill.
Does my visa change any of this?
No. The 183-day rule ignores visas entirely, because immigration status and tax status are separate systems. A tourist who overstays the count is a Colombian tax resident holding no visa, and someone with a two-year visa who spends most of the year elsewhere is not a tax resident. Only the days decide.
Know where you stand on the 183-day rule before it decides for you
An hour, one to one, on your real dates rather than a worked example. You leave knowing where the count puts you, what your income type means on each side, and what to hand a contador. $197, notes afterward.
Book the Colombia Ready Call Or take the free Field GuideClose to the 183-day rule? Count first.
Book a callWho wrote this
Shep is an American who moved from Los Angeles to Colombia in 2020 and has lived in five cities here — Medellín, Cali, Cartagena, Barranquilla and Pereira. He applied for and received a Colombian visa, has managed the day count deliberately for six years, and received and resolved a DIAN notice in August 2025 with a Colombian contador. Every photograph here is his own. GeoGringo takes no commission from any accountant, attorney, bank, agency or developer. More about him.
Information from lived experience, not legal, tax or immigration advice, and not financial or investment advice. I am not a lawyer, an accountant or a licensed tax preparer, and I hold no license to practice any of those. For your own filing you need a Colombian contador, and a US preparer who handles expat returns, and you should consult them before acting on anything here. Thresholds and rates are indexed to inflation and change every January, so confirm them at the source. Sources: Estatuto Tributario Articles 10, 241, 245, 247, 314, 316 and 592; Ley 2277 de 2022; DIAN Resolución 000238 de 2025, which sets the 2026 UVT; Decreto 1226 de 2026; Migración Colombia Resolución 0599 de 2026; IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32; and the Banco de la República rate of 3,048.12 COP/USD on August 22, 2026. Last checked August 31, 2026.
GeoGringo · Taxes in Colombia: the 183-Day Rule · v2.6 · last checked August 31, 2026 · not legal, tax, or financial advice · GeoGringo takes no commission
