How to obtain Residency in Colombia

Why obtain residency in Colombia?

There are many reasons to obtain residency in beautiful Colombia:

• An absolutely gorgeous country with mountains, beaches, beautiful churches, a rich history and delicious food.
• Relatively affordable cost of living.
• Affordable, quality real estate. I wrote an article on real estate in Medellin for example.
• Geographic location – close to North America
• Many residency options
• Many international schools.
• Business friendly; Colombia ranks in the top Latin American countries in the Ease of Doing Business ranking by the World Bank.

What are the Residency options in Colombia?

It’s important to understand that there is a lot of wrong information online as the immigration laws were changed in a heavy way in September 2022.

Migrant visas are granted for 3 years. You must show up at least once every 6 months in Colombia to keep the visa active. At year 3 you can renew your visa if you still fit the original criteria. After 5 years, you can apply for “(Permanent) Residency”.

The most common 3-year Migrant Visas

1. Retirement migrant visa

If you can demonstrate 3 minimum wages (about $1500) per month, then you are eligible for a retirement migrant visa. The regular pension payments must come from a government source or from widely recognized private pension providers.

2. Real estate migrant visa

If you purchase Colombian real estate for at least 350 minimum wages (about $150,000), then you quality for a real estate migrant visa. It’s known as the cheap real estate option.

3. Other migrant visas

Starting a small business, marriage to a local, getting a job, etc. There are many options.

Colombia Digital Nomad Visa

Colombia offers a Digital Nomad Visa for citizens of countries that do not require entry or tourist visas for Colombia.

Validity is for up to 2 years. This visa does not confer the ability to work for a Colombian employer. 

The requirements are as follows:

•  You must work in tech. No other industry is accepted since mid 2025.
• A letter from your employer describing your work and confirming that you are able to perform it remotely, as well as details concerning your compensation. If you work for your own company, you can also provide evidence of your ability to perform your responsiblities while abroad.
•  A recent bank statement showing minimum monthly income of at least 3 minimum wages, or around $1500 USD.
• Valid health insurance for the duration of your stay

The government seems to increasingly be adding administrative hurdles in the way of acquiring this visa, but this pathway is still functional at the time of writing.

The most common 5-year (permanent) Residency option

Investing in a business or in real estate can help you obtain (permanent) residency in Colombia

You must invest about 350 minimum wages (about $150,000) in Colombian real estate. This will grant you and your family a 3 year migrant visa which is renewable as long as you keep the property. At year 5 you apply to change your migrant visa into (permanent) Residency.

After 5 years of (permanent) residency you can apply Colombian citizenship (a total timeline of 10 years).

It’s very important to note that to keep your migrant visa active, you need to go to Colombia every 6 months even if just for a day, or else you lose the migrant visa. Once a (permanent) resident, this requirement changes to once every 2 years.

Meet my lawyer Alan

My lawyer Alan and his team will take good care of you. He is a US-based attorney that has a law firm in both New York and in Colombia. His team is used to working with foreigners and helping them obtain residency in Colombia. His prices are surprisingly affordable as he has made the process as efficient as possible.

His team will help you apply, help you choose the proper documents to gather, fill out the paperwork, get your documents translated, and help you get the Cedula (ID card)

Watch the Youtube video below that I recorded with him in which we discuss the various immigration options to Colombia, and some little-known facts on the topic.

Video: How to obtain residency in Colombia

Get Residency in Colombia

Services in Colombia:

• Real Estate Lawyer in Colombia
• How to obtain residency in Colombia
• How to open a company in Colombia
• My favourite real estate agent in Medellin
• My favourite real estate agent in Bogota

Articles on Colombia:

• Medellin, Colombia, Real Estate Market: 2026 Investor Guide
• Penthouse Investing with High Yields in Medellin
• Actual Capitalization Rates / Rental yields in Medellin
• Double-digit yields in Bogota for Airbnb multifamily units
• Afternoon trip to a Finca for sale near Medellin – with ROI numbers
• I bought a Penthouse in Medellin, Colombia
• Cap rate analysis of condo in Medellin - decent real estate rental yields in El Poblado

Transcript of “How to obtain residency in Colombia”

LADISLAS MAURICE: Hello everyone from beautiful Colombia. Today we’ll be discussing how to obtain residency in Colombia together with my lawyer, Alan. Alan, how are you? 

ALAN: How are you? 

LADISLAS MAURICE: Good. Look, you’ve helped thousands of people over the years get residency here in Colombia. 

ALAN: Yeah, at this point, we don’t have firm numbers but definitely in the thousands for sure. 

What are the options to obtain Colombian Residency? 

LADISLAS MAURICE: So, tell us, what are the different ways to obtain residence? 

ALAN: I think I’m just going to go down the standard list based on our client profiles. The most popular way usually is to invest in real estate, and that should be no surprise. I think a lot of people who are looking for residency are also people who are looking to live in Colombia. It makes no sense to rent. That’s the reason it’s very popular. And that’s one of our most popular services, kind of assisting with that. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: What’s the minimum investment, roughly? 

ALAN: You’re looking at 350 times the local minimum wage. Everything in Colombia is based on the local minimum wage. It’s a multiple of that usually. And that’s around 612 million pesos, which is around $140, $150,000 right now. I mean, the dollar goes up and down, but it’s around there. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: So, real estate. 

ALAN: Real estate. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: And that gets you technically a migrant visa, not residency. 

ALAN: That’s right. So, there used to be a time where you could invest a certain amount of money and then get immediate residency. And that went out the window a couple of years ago.  

Colombian Migrant Visa for foreigners 

ALAN: So, the go-to now is to get what’s called a migrant visa first. It’s almost the same thing as a residency visa. It doesn’t have all the benefits, but it’s got maybe 90% of them. And most of these visas are issued for up to three years, not every single time, but you usually get three years. And then if you keep that visa for a total of five years, you can then apply for residency at that point. So for the real estate visa, which is called the investor visa, you buy the property, you get title, you apply, you get a three-year visa, and then three years later, you apply again, and then in year number five, that’s when you apply for residency. And that residency you keep as long as you maintain the requirements at that point. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: Taking a step back, what are the requirements to maintain a migrant visa? How often do I have to be here? 

ALAN: Right. So, number one, the basis for your visa can’t change. If I buy a property year one, get a three-year migrant visa, and then sell that property year two, the date that you sell that property, the title transfers, that visa technically on paper is canceled. Right? So you have to keep that property. You have to maintain the company that you invested in. You have to be married. I mean, all these things that we’ll talk about in a second, you have to maintain it through the duration of that visa. The other thing is there are stay requirements. You can’t be outside of Colombia more than six consecutive months with migrant visas. And that sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t. I think people who live in the Western Hemisphere, this is much easier for them, but if you can come to Colombia a couple of days every six months, you maintain that migrant visa. So it’s not like you have to be here months. You just have to come back regularly every six months. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: It’s not a punishment, just come back to Colombia, you know, every six months. It’s fine. From the US, from Canada, easy, from Europe, a little bit more complicated. All right, so real estate, great. This qualifies. What are the other ways? 

Company Owner Visa for residency in Colombia 

ALAN: So, you’re looking at the company owner visa. This is also really popular because if you’re coming to Colombia to live, you’d like to make some money, or kind of expand an existing business into Colombia. And here it’s a little bit less stressful. Number one, you want to ensure that you invest around 100 times the local minimum salary, which is the equivalent of maybe $45,000. So, we start off with $150,000 investment for the real estate, investor visa. Now we’re going down to 45,000. A lot of people, their focus is primarily just expanding their business. Some are just looking for a residency, but obviously, it’s much more manageable at that level. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: Or you can just hire people, you can have a staffing agency here. If you have operations in the US and Canada, you just hire a few people here like a mini call center or service center to help your operations. Essentially, you lower your cost of doing business by hiring here, which is a lot more affordable, and you get the visa as a free bonus. All right, third way? 

Colombia Spouse and Partner Visa 

ALAN: A very popular way is just getting married. If you do get married, I mentioned earlier it was a five-year process to get residency, with the marriage visa, you’re only waiting three years. Right? So if that’s in the cards, then I would absolutely think about doing something like that. It’s definitely in the cards. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: And you can help with the prenups and all that. 

ALAN: Oh yeah, yeah. So, real quick on the prenups. I’m an attorney for obvious reasons, so I 100%, 1,000% recommend a prenuptial agreement. And the way this works is two main points. One, in Colombia, there are usually two flavors. There’s those super basic what you really want to have, which is a very basic, comprehensive restriction on creating marital property. Very simple document, it’s actually cheaper and it’s the one that we recommend because it’s very simple. Whatever is mine is mine, whatever is that person is their person, and that’s it. And then the other flavor is if something goes down in the future, that person gets this, I get that. We don’t recommend that, it exists in Colombia, but it’s more apt to be attacked. Second main point, don’t just think about Colombia. You’re getting married in Colombia, fine. But you also would like to get a prenuptial agreement wherever else you have assets. So if, you know, if you have assets in London, you have assets in Germany, you have assets in New York, you want to have a prenuptial agreement under those jurisdictions as well because the Colombian versions of the prenuptial agreements can be very clunky to enforce in these jurisdictions. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: Fourth way? 

The Migrant Visa for retirees in Colombia 

ALAN: You can retire in Colombia. If you can show a regular payment from some kind of pension, social security, if you’re American, that kind of thing, and if it’s above $1400, $1,500 USD, you can definitely retire in Colombia. And that’s a migrant visa. Again, same analysis. Five years, you can apply for residency. 

Requirements to maintain Residency in Colombia 

LADISLAS MAURICE: Once you have residency, what are the terms to maintain that residency? 

ALAN: I mentioned earlier that there’s this stay requirement for the migrant visa, which is you can’t be outside of Colombia more than six consecutive months. It is expanded now. Now instead of having to come back every six months, you can come back every two years, which is much more favorable. That’s the number one requirement. I don’t want to get too into the weeds, so definitely reach out to us if you’re looking to get residency because it can get a little tricky. Basically, when you have a migrant visa, disallow, you can’t terminate the basis for your visa. I mentioned, for example, buying property, not being able to sell it. When you have residency, depending on the basis for the residency, you can’t terminate that basis as well, but maybe not. Like it just depends, is the answer. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: And after how many years of residency may one apply for citizenship? 

When can you apply for Colombian Citizenship as a resident? 

ALAN: The usual route is you get a migrant visa for five years, unless you get married, in which case it’s only three. You apply for a residency visa, which is five years. And after your first five years, you can then apply for citizenship. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: After five years of residency? 

ALAN: That’s right. By that point, applying for citizenship could take another year or two. Like it varies quite a bit depending on where you’re located, but the typical trajectory, you’re probably looking at 10 to 12 years before you get citizenship. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: So, it’s not an easy citizenship play here at all. 

ALAN: No. People are looking for a Colombian passport. I get that. But the residency, and even the migrant visa strategy, you get most of these benefits that I think people are looking for. You don’t necessarily get a passport, which is obviously something that’s important for some people, but most of the benefits that people are looking for, you can get without getting official citizenship. 

Colombian Tax Residency 

LADISLAS MAURICE: Does having residency or a migrant visa result in automatic tax residency? 

ALAN: No. People confuse this all the time. By far, the most important threshold is how long you’re physically in Colombia. I can have a residency visa and have absolutely no tax obligations whatsoever because I am outside of Colombia more than six consecutive months. Let me back up. Six months within a 12-month period. If I come to Colombia every six months for a month or two, not a problem. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: Cool. Very important. 

ALAN: Now, there are situations, for example, if you’re investing in Colombia, have a business, there are other kind of business or investment-related sort of activities, even though you’re not a tax resident, you might have tax filing obligations. It doesn’t mean you have to file taxes worldwide or anything like that, but you still should check with our office or anyone who else that’s competent to ensure that you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. 

What documents do I need to apply for Colombian residency visa? 

LADISLAS MAURICE: So, let’s say I want to apply for a migrant visa, what are typically the documents that I must bring from back home? 

ALAN: Well, there’s two key ones that you have to kind of contend with. The first one is a criminal background check. And every country manages it differently, but what the Colombian government is looking for is something issued by the competent authority that handles background checks and criminal background that shows that you don’t have any criminal background. It varies quite a bit. You know, we’re very comfortable with Canada, the US, the UK, Germany. We’ve been doing this for many, many years, but there’s over 160 jurisdictions and everyone does this a little bit different. Like we have to kind of figure out exactly how to handle that if you’re coming from like Nepal, for example, it’s actually pretty challenging. The second one is the requirement to show that you have sufficient health insurance in case something happens. If you have international health insurance that goes up to a certain level for the period of your visa. It’s got to cover the entire time you’re in Colombia. Many of our clients, they can’t get those types of policies, so they actually purchase local Colombian policies in connection with these applications. That also works. It’s always a cost-benefit analysis. It literally is how much is it to get coverage in Colombia? It’s usually cheaper. Then versus how much I get with like my Mastercard or something. 

Where to download guides for residency and real estate in Colombia? 

LADISLAS MAURICE: Alan, can you tell us about your brochures? 

ALAN: We publish the best materials in the market for everything. If you’re looking for visas, property purchases, investment. The materials we publish are by far the most comprehensive, the most objective, and the ones that most people rely on. Everyone’s using AI right now, right? Well, guess where most of this content that AI relies on to generate the answers you guys are looking for when you’re typing stuff in, a lot of that comes from our materials. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: All the brochures in the link below. You can reach out to Alan and get everything. 

ALAN: Real estate. People are saying things they shouldn’t be saying. There’s a lot of misinformation online. On the property investor side, I’m going to give you two considerations. The first is, and I mentioned earlier that the threshold right now is around $140, $150,000, right? That threshold is going to go up every year based on inflation. So if I buy property this year, if I invest 150 US, I get my visa. The question comes up, well, I have to apply again in three years. And the question becomes, what if the threshold suddenly turns into 180? I have to apply again, is that going to be an issue? And for some reason, I’m seeing online that people think that you won’t get a visa. The answer is, we’ve never had a problem in situations like that. Right this second, this could change, but right this second, Colombia law allows you to buy property above the threshold, apply in the future where the threshold is above what you invested in, and you still get your visa. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: You’re grandfathered. 

ALAN: Exactly. You have no issue with this whatsoever, but as you’re looking and investigating online, etcetera, you might come across people saying something different. Right this second, it’s not an issue. Second thing, to get this visa, the property cannot be encumbered and you can’t have any quote-unquote limitations on it. So for example, if I buy property and I get a mortgage on it, bye-bye visa. Do I put the property in a trust? Bye-bye visa. And people do that because if I if I buy this property, I might have a asset protection strategy that requires creating a trust. I put the property in the trust, suddenly your visa is gone. So if you have any scenario where anyone can claim that what you’re doing could create a limitation on your direct ownership free and clear on the property, you could have a problem. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: And that’s why you want to get in touch with Alan before making the property purchase. 

Opening and expanding a business in Colombia 

ALAN: Big one. Second point on the company stuff, you mentioned it earlier, it’s a very good point. If you have an existing business in the US, as I mentioned earlier, if you can figure out a way to start a business in Colombia that could decrease your overall expenses, that’s the export of services format that I mentioned earlier. What tends to happen is people come to Colombia, they want to get a visa, but they don’t know the Colombian market, they don’t know what to do in Colombia, they don’t have any experience selling into the into a place like Colombia. But they’re an architect or they run a logistics company or something. Well, you extend your business in Colombia, you establish the company, and if you structure it correctly, you can get your visa. Right? It’s a really good workaround. Second big point with the company owner visa, you want to have business activity. What tends to happen is the investor comes in and they’re like, okay, let’s start this company. Okay, let’s apply. No. You’d want to structure something for the medium to long term where, you know, every single month you’re invoicing, every single month you’re booking legitimate business profits or expenses. And after six months or so, when you can show all that activity, you apply. Because if you don’t, you can only get a one-year visa. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: Okay, so in some countries you can just create a shell company that doesn’t really do anything, doesn’t work here in Colombia. 

ALAN: That, not at all. Very good point. 

The Colombian Nomad Visa 

LADISLAS MAURICE: And then there’s also you can do a digital nomad visa and all that, but that those are not migrant visas, they’re just one-off visas really. 

ALAN: So, the nomad, very good point. Several years ago, when they introduced the nomad visa, it became by far the most popular visa because you could as a foreigner, especially someone who’s a professional, et cetera, you could see yourself getting that visa. All the requirements at that point were very amenable to that kind of application. Since then, as of middle of last year, they’ve turned the screws a little bit. So many people applied and so many people got that type of visa that they limited it specifically to people who are working in a tech industry. If you’re not in tech, you’re not developing tech, you’re not providing services to tech clients, you’re not a tech bro, so to speak, you’re not going to get this visa. 

How to get in touch with Alan 

LADISLAS MAURICE: Good deals don’t last forever in immigration. So if you want to get all of the brochures or get in touch with Alan with regards to residency here in Colombia, there’s a link below with a lot more information and a contact form. Alan, thank you very much. 

ALAN: Good seeing you again. 

LADISLAS MAURICE: Make sure to download my free e-book 12 Mistakes to Avoid when Investing in International Real Estate, which you can find on my website, link below, and feel free to follow me on Instagram @thewanderinginvestor. I look forward to hearing from you.