🇨🇴Colombia

The permission you get at the desk

Colombia gives most visitors 90 days on arrival, and the officer decides the number. It is written into your passport as a Permiso de Turismo, and the limit behind it is annual rather than per-trip.

• 90 days is the usual grant, but it is discretionary. Ask for the full 90 if you want it, because officers sometimes write less.
• 180 calendar days in one calendar year is the hard ceiling, continuous or not. Two 90-day trips in the same year use it up completely, and the clock resets on 1 January rather than 12 months after your first entry.
• Extending costs COP 150,000 under the 2026 tariff schedule, and is free for EU nationals and Ecuadorians. File it online through the FUT at least 5 working days before your current permission expires; approval takes about three working days and arrives by email.
• Get the entry stamp. Crossing a land border without one is the classic way to be fined on the way out, and the officer at the airport will not take "nobody stamped it" as an answer.

Check-Mig: free, optional, and heavily counterfeited

Migración Colombia describes Check-Mig in its own words as a free service of non-obligatory use. Almost every guide on the internet calls it mandatory. It is not.

• File it anyway. Airlines still ask for it at check-in, it takes two minutes, and arguing the point at a counter is worse than filling in a form.
• The window is 72 hours to 1 hour before departure, for entry and for exit, at https://apps.migracioncolombia.gov.co/pre-registro.
• That URL is the only official one, and it never asks for money. Paid lookalikes charging for a free government form are a standing problem here and Migración has issued alerts about them. If a site wants a card number for Check-Mig, close the tab.

Who needs a visa

• The US or Schengen visa route has a trap in it: the visa you are relying on must be valid for at least 180 days from the day you arrive in Colombia. A US visa with four months left on it does not work, even though it is still valid.
• Malaysia lost its exemption in December 2018 and Taiwan lost its in June 2023. Older guides still list both as visa-free.
• Officially you need an onward ticket and proof of funds. Enforcement is patchy at airports and firmer on the land borders, but it is a stated legal requirement rather than a rumour, and budget airlines do check.
• Your passport must be valid, and Colombia recommends 6 months beyond your departure. There is no hard 6-month rule in the regulations, but airlines apply one anyway.

Two things at the border that are not about visas

• Cash above USD 10,000 or the equivalent must be declared, on the way in and on the way out, on Formulario 530. That includes traveller's cheques and bearer instruments, not just notes.
• San Andrés charges its own tourist card, COP 153,000 in 2026, bought before you board. It is a domestic flight from the mainland and it still has its own entry fee, which surprises people at the gate.

• Departing luggage is searched and often sealed. Bogota and Medellin screen bags for narcotics thoroughly; arrive early and never carry a package for someone else.
• Coca products may not be taken out. Coca tea is sold openly and is illegal to import almost everywhere else, including the United States and the EU.
• San Andres is a separate customs zone. The flight from the mainland is checked like an international one and the island has its own duty-free status.
• Cash equivalent to USD 10,000 or more must be declared on entry and exit.
• Pre-Columbian gold and archaeological objects are national property and may not be exported.
• The allowance is a carton of cigarettes and a couple of litres of spirits per adult.

Yellow fever, which is now a real gate check

Colombia declared a yellow fever health emergency in April 2025 and the rules that came with it are still running.

• To enter the country, a certificate is required only if you are arriving from or transiting a small list of high-risk countries - Angola, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. Most visitors are not affected.
• To enter a national park, it is compulsory. Parques Nacionales made the vaccination card mandatory in April 2025 for parks including Tayrona and the Sierra Nevada. People are turned away at the gate for not having it.
• The vaccine must have been given at least 10 days before you enter a risk area. That is the number that ruins itineraries: a jab the week you fly does not count.
• Get it before you leave home and carry the yellow card, not a photo of it.

Everything else medical

• Insurance is not a condition of entry for tourists and you should still treat it as compulsory. Private care is good and it is billed privately.
• Private clinics in Bogotá and Medellín are genuinely excellent - the country has a serious medical-tourism industry. Public hospitals and anything in a small town are poorly equipped, and rural ambulance cover is unreliable.
• 123 is the ambulance number, and it works nationally.
• Only Bogotá's tap water is reliably safe. Elsewhere, and certainly on the coast, drink bottled and skip the ice in the smaller places.
• Dengue, Zika, chikungunya and malaria are all present below about 1,700 m - the coast, the Amazon and the Llanos. Repellent, long sleeves at dusk, and antimalarials worth discussing with a travel clinic if you are going to the jungle.
• Altitude affects more people than they expect. Bogotá at 2,640 m, and higher in the páramo. Take the first two days gently.

Pharmacies and medicines

• Droguerías are on every corner in the cities and thin on the ground rurally. Pharmacists are helpful and many drugs sold on prescription elsewhere are over the counter here.
• Bring your own medication in its original packaging with a copy of the prescription, and have the prescription written with generic names in Spanish if you might need a refill.

Prices and where they bite

Colombia is cheap to sleep in apart from two places: Cartagena's walled city and the nicer half of El Poblado.

• Hostels are excellent and everywhere, and the country has one of the better hostel scenes in South America. Salento, Minca, Guatapé and Santa Marta all run on them.
• Cartagena inside the walls is a different market entirely from the rest of the country, priced for cruise passengers and weddings. Getsemaní, a ten-minute walk away, costs a fraction and is more fun.
• Medellín splits between El Poblado, which is where the money and the nightlife and the foreigners are, and Laureles, which is quieter, cheaper and where more locals actually live. Laureles is the better stay for most people.
• Book ahead around the puentes. Colombia has 18 public holidays and most are shifted to Mondays, so long weekends are constant and they empty the good places in Salento and Guatapé.

Claim the tax exemption

• A non-resident foreigner does not pay the 19% IVA on a hotel room. Say so at check-in, hand over your passport and evidence of your entry to Colombia, and the hotel applies it.
• It is the hotel's job to do the paperwork, and the larger ones do it automatically. A small guesthouse may never have been asked; it is worth asking anyway.

Short-term rentals are being squeezed

• Medellín is inspecting apartment buildings in El Poblado, having moved from responding to complaints to going out and looking. Residential blocks are pushing for a municipal decree that operators say would end Airbnb in the city.
• Nationally, accommodation must hold a Registro Nacional de Turismo entry, and a 2026 ministry decree tightened how that registration is verified.
• The practical risk to a visitor is a cancelled booking, not a fine. If you are relying on a private apartment in Medellín, have a second option and prefer hosts with a long history.

Four networks, all cheap by European standards, and one piece of local bureaucracy that catches people who stay more than a couple of weeks.

• Claro is the biggest and has the coverage nobody else matches once you leave the main corridor - the coffee region, the Guajira, the smaller Caribbean towns.
• Movistar and Tigo are both perfectly good in Bogotá, Medellín, Cali and Cartagena and noticeably thinner outside them.
• WOM is the price fighter, with prepaid packages starting at a few thousand pesos. Coverage is city-only in practice.
• Expect a small five-figure sum in pesos for a tourist data package, and very little for the SIM itself. Mobile data is one of the few things in Colombia that is cheap for a visitor rather than expensive.

The IMEI rule

Colombia keeps a national registry of handset IMEIs, and a phone that is not on it can be cut off. This is the thing that goes wrong for people who buy a local SIM.

• You have 20 days from activating the line to register the handset's IMEI. Registration is free and the shop that sells you the SIM will normally do it on the spot if you ask.
• A handset the network reads as having an invalid IMEI can be blocked in 48 hours, and a non-homologated one in 45 days.
• Ask the assistant explicitly to register the IMEI when you buy. It is a two-minute job at the counter and an unfixable problem from a hostel in Salento.
• Roaming on your own foreign SIM is not affected - the rule bites only when a Colombian line is in the phone.

eSIM and buying

• Claro and WOM both sell prepaid eSIM, which is the least painful route for a short trip. Saily covers Colombia too, at USD 4.99 for 1 GB over 7 days or USD 16.99 for 5 GB over 30 days, and for two weeks that difference is not worth the errand.
• Bring your passport. Registering the line to a document is routine here.
• Buy in an official shop, not from a street stall. Claro, Movistar and Tigo all have branches in every mall, and the airport counters at Bogotá and Medellín sell tourist packages.

Sockets in Colombia are Type A and B at 120 V, 60 Hz - the American standard, with earthed Type B in newer buildings.

• American and Canadian plugs fit straight in. European, British and Australian ones need an adapter.
• 120 V is the constraint. European 230 V-only appliances will not run properly here, adapter or not.
• Unearthed two-slot sockets are common in older housing and cheaper hotels.
• Neighbouring countries differ sharply: Ecuador is also 120 V, but Peru and Venezuela are not the same pairing, and Brazil changes voltage by region.
• Chargers marked 100-240 V are fine everywhere, which covers phones, laptops and cameras.

• Power: Type A and B sockets at 120V, 60Hz - the same as the United States. You will see it written as 110V as often as 120V; it is the same supply and nothing you plug in can tell the difference. European and UK devices need an adapter and, for anything without a universal power supply, a converter.
• Time: UTC-5 all year. Colombia has never used daylight saving, so the gap to Europe changes twice a year and the gap to New York does not.
• There are no seasons, only altitude. Bogotá at 2,640 m sits around 8 to 19 degrees every month of the year; Cartagena at sea level sits near 31 every month. A single trip can need a fleece and swimwear on the same day.
• Wet and dry matter more than warm and cold. April to May and October to November are the rainier stretches in the Andes.
• Language: Spanish, and much less English than you would expect for a country this used to visitors. Outside hotel receptions and Medellín's expat bars, assume none. Colombian Spanish is famously clear and slow, which makes it a good place to try.
• Tap water is safe in Bogotá and unreliable elsewhere.
• Shops generally open 09:00 or 10:00 to 19:00 or 20:00, and malls run later and open on Sundays.
• WhatsApp is how the country communicates. A restaurant, a guide or a landlord will answer it instantly and ignore an email.

Holidays, and why they matter

• Colombia has 18 public holidays, among the most in the world, and a new one was added on 13 July in 2026.
• Most are moved to the following Monday under the Ley Emiliani, which manufactures long weekends called puentes. On a puente the roads out of Bogotá and Medellín jam, the coffee towns fill and prices rise.
• Check the calendar before booking anything in Salento, Guatapé or Villa de Leyva.

The dry law

• Colombia bans alcohol sales around elections - the ley seca - typically from the evening before until the day after. All three of the 2026 national votes have already passed (March, May and June), so no further national dry period is expected this year.
• Municipalities can still declare one locally for their own reasons. If the shop refuses to sell you a beer for no apparent reason, that is why.

Small things that help

• Greet people before you ask for anything. A "buenos días" before the question is not optional politeness here; going straight to the request reads as rude.
• Colombians are direct about warmth and indirect about refusal. "Maybe later" usually means no.
• Carry small notes. Breaking a 50,000 for a COP 3,000 purchase is a genuine problem for a street vendor.

The peso, and the missing thousands

Colombia uses the peso (COP), and the numbers are large enough that people drop the thousands in speech. "Veinte" for a taxi means 20,000, not 20. A menu that says 25 means COP 25,000.

• Cards work in cities and not much beyond them. Bogotá, Medellín, Cartagena and Cali are fine. Small towns, street food, route buses and the coffee-farm economy are cash.
• Use ATMs inside a bank, a supermarket or a mall, during opening hours. That is the FCDO's wording, not a nervous suggestion, and it is aimed at both skimming and the walk away from the machine.
• Decline dynamic currency conversion. If the screen offers to bill you in your own currency, say no and take pesos; the markup is several per cent and it is pure loss.
• Change money in a casa de cambio or a bank, never on the street. Street changers in Cartagena and on the Venezuelan border are running a short-change routine, not a business.

The taxes, which are worth understanding

• Foreign tourists do not pay the 19% IVA on hotel accommodation. This is real, it is in article 481 of the tax code, and DIAN reconfirmed it in 2025. Show your passport and your proof of entry at check-in and the hotel zero-rates the room. Not every small guesthouse knows how; the chains all do.
• Restaurants charge either 8% consumption tax or 19% IVA, never both. The 8% applies to ordinary restaurants above the turnover threshold; franchises charge 19% instead. Small independent places charge neither.
• The 10% propina is a cap and it is optional. Under Ley 1935 de 2018 the restaurant must ask you before adding it, and you may decline it, reduce it or have it removed. It goes to the staff who served you, so tipping when the service was good is the decent thing - but being told it is compulsory is a well-worn trick with foreigners.

What things cost

• This is an inexpensive country by European or North American standards, and the gap widens the further you get from Cartagena's walled city, which is priced like a resort.
• A city bus or metro ride is COP 3,550 to COP 3,900, the same order everywhere.
• The menú del día - soup, a main, a juice - is the cheapest good lunch in Latin America and the thing to eat at midday.
• Cartagena's old town is the outlier, where a coffee and a plate can cost several times what the same thing costs in Bogotá four hours away.
• Cash above USD 10,000 must be declared at customs on the way in and out.

In the cities

• All three need a card. Bogotá uses Tullave, Medellín uses Cívica, and drivers do not take cash. Buy the card at any station on your first day.
• Medellín's occasional card costs more per ride, COP 4,400, so if you are staying more than two days get the personalised Cívica.
• The Arví cable is priced separately and foreigners pay far more: about COP 26,700 on the general and visitor tariff against COP 11,900 with a personalised card. It is worth knowing before you assume it is another metro ride.
• Bogotá's metro is being built, not open. Line 1 was about 80% complete in mid-2026 with commercial service projected for 2028. Until then the city runs on buses.
• TransMilenio at rush hour is genuinely crushing, and it is where pickpocketing happens. Travel outside 06:30 to 08:30 and 17:00 to 19:00 if you can, and keep your phone in a pocket you can feel.

Between cities

• Flying is usually the right answer. Bogotá to Medellín is roughly 11 hours by road and an hour in the air, and the buses are not that cheap: a good Bogotá to Medellín coach runs COP 77,000 to COP 85,000. Avianca, LATAM, Wingo and Satena cover the network between them.
• The coaches are comfortable and the terminals are organised. Expreso Bolivariano, Copetran and Expreso Brasilia are the operators you will meet most. Book at the terminal or online.
• Overnight buses on mountain roads are a poor trade. You do not see the country, the road is the interesting part, and the seat is not worth the saving.

Taxis and ride-hailing

• Uber, DiDi, Cabify and inDrive all operate, and none of them is legally regulated. They have run in a grey zone for years; a restrictive bill was going through Congress in 2026 that would fine platforms per trip. In practice they work and Colombians use them constantly.
• Do not hail a taxi in the street. The FCDO advice is to book by phone, by app or through your hotel. A licensed Colombian taxi is yellow with white plates.
• Sitting in the front is the local convention in a ride-hailing car, because the driver is pretending you are a friend rather than a fare. Follow it.
• Renting a car is for the coffee region and not much else. City driving is aggressive, parking is scarce and Bogotá's pico y placa restricts which plates may drive on which days.

• Check-Mig - https://apps.migracioncolombia.gov.co/pre-registro - The official entry and exit form. Free, and the only URL worth trusting.
• Google Maps and Moovit - Both have Bogotá and Medellín transit built in, and Moovit is better at the SITP bus routes that Maps sometimes misses.
• WhatsApp - Not optional. Hotels, tour operators, drivers and restaurants all run on it. A Colombian business will answer WhatsApp in minutes and email in days.
• Rappi - The Colombian delivery app, for food, pharmacy and groceries. It was born here and it is everywhere.
• Uber, DiDi, Cabify, inDrive - Ride-hailing in every large city. Compare two, the prices differ more than you would expect.
• Tullave and Cívica - Balance and top-ups for the Bogotá and Medellín fare cards.
• Maps offline - Download the city before you land. You will want the map more than you will want to unlock an expensive phone on a street corner.

Frequent tolls, slow mountain roads, and a plate-based driving ban in the big cities.

• Pico y Placa restricts cars by the last digit of the plate on weekday mornings and evenings in Bogota, Medellin and Cali. It applies to hire cars, and the rules change from city to city.
• Peajes are frequent and not cheap; the drive from Bogota to Medellin passes through several.
• Mountain roads are the norm. Bogota to Medellin is 420 km and eight to nine hours behind lorries on switchbacks.
• The alcohol limit is effectively zero, with the toughest penalties in the region including licence suspension for a first offence.
• Night driving between cities is discouraged by official advice, and some rural routes are avoided entirely.

The rule Colombians actually teach

"No dar papaya" - do not hand anyone the opportunity. Phone out on a street corner, laptop visible in a café window, a good watch on a bus: that is papaya. The country is not waiting to rob you, but it will not ignore an invitation.

The one that is genuinely killing people

• Criminals use dating apps to find foreigners travelling alone. The FCDO's language is that they "identify and lure foreign nationals who are travelling alone and looking to meet local people". This is the single most dangerous thing a visitor can do in Colombia right now.
• The method is sedation, not force. Victims are drugged in a bar, a club or an apartment and wake up robbed, and some do not wake up. The US Embassy in Bogotá has an alert page devoted to it and the pattern is concentrated in Medellín, Bogotá and Cartagena.
• If you do meet someone, meet in daylight in a public place, tell someone where you are, and do not go back to an apartment. Do not let a drink out of your sight.

Scopolamine and spiked drinks

• Scopolamine (burundanga) temporarily incapacitates you and leaves you compliant and amnesiac. The FCDO lists the vectors as food, drinks, cigarettes, aerosols and even paper flyers.
• Accept nothing from a stranger - not a drink, not a sweet, not a cigarette, not a leaflet pushed into your hand.
• If you think you have been dosed, get to a hospital. It is a medical emergency and the effects are treatable.

Robbery, taxis and express kidnapping

• Pickpocketing, mugging and armed robbery are a problem in Bogotá, Medellín, Cali and along the Caribbean coast. British nationals have been robbed at gunpoint in La Candelaria, the Bogotá old town everyone visits.
• Express kidnapping is common, and the FCDO notes that criminals often pose as taxi drivers and select victims near ATMs, then drive them between machines. People have been killed for resisting - hand over the phone and the cash.
• Never hail a cab off the street. Book by app or through your hotel. A licensed taxi is yellow with white plates.
• Carry a decoy. A small amount of cash in an accessible pocket ends most street robberies quickly.

Where not to go at all

Large parts of Colombia are off-limits and the tourist parts are not among them. The FCDO advises against all but essential travel to, among others, Catatumbo, most of Arauca, Chocó outside Quibdó, Nuquí, Bahía Solano and Capurganá, western Valle del Cauca including Buenaventura, western Cauca, the Pacific regions of Nariño, Urabá and Bajo Cauca in Antioquia, southern Bolívar, most of Guaviare, and within 5 km of the Venezuelan and Ecuadorian borders.

• Do not cross into Venezuela by land anywhere.
• The famous sites are explicitly carved out: Caño Cristales is fine flown in from La Macarena, Capurganá is fine, and the Lost City trek is fine on an organised tour. Read the carve-outs rather than the headline.

Weather, ground and altitude

• Bogotá is at 2,640 m. Give the first 24 to 48 hours to it: less alcohol, less exertion, more water. People blame the food for what is actually altitude.
• Volcanoes are monitored and occasionally active. Nevado del Ruiz has sat on a yellow alert for years and Puracé, near Popayán, went to orange in August 2026. Check the Servicio Geológico Colombiano before planning anything in those parks.
• Protests start at short notice and can turn violent. Roadblocks are a normal protest tactic here and can strand you for a day. Do not try to drive through one.

The number

• 123 is the only number you need to remember. It is the Número Único de Seguridad y Emergencias and it covers the whole country from any phone.
• Do not count on a fast ambulance outside a city. In the mountains and the smaller towns, the practical answer is often a car to the nearest clinic.
• An operator may not speak English. Have your address written down, or hand the phone to someone at the hotel.

If you are robbed

• File a denuncia, and file it online. The Policía Nacional runs A Denunciar and CAI Virtual, both of which take a report from a foreigner without a station visit.
• Your insurer will require it, and getting one after you have left the country is very difficult. Do it the same day.
• Block your cards through your own bank's app first. That is faster than any hotline.

If you lose your passport

Three steps, in this order, and the third one is the one people forget:

1. File the police report.
2. Get an emergency travel document from your embassy. Most are in Bogotá.
3. Apply to Migración Colombia for a salvoconducto de salida - an exit safe-conduct, COP 88,000 in 2026. Without it you cannot legally leave, because your entry record is attached to a document you no longer have.

Before anything goes wrong

• Photograph your passport, your entry stamp and your Check-Mig confirmation and keep them somewhere that is not your phone.
• Write down your insurer's emergency number rather than relying on finding it in an inbox.
• Tell someone your plan if you are going anywhere remote, and check the FCDO regional list before you go.