Moving to Medellin ASAP

Hello Joe,

Welcome to Expat.com 😀

Please note that your thread is now on the Medellin forum, where you are more likely to get the information that you need.

Cheers,

Cheryl

Expat.com team

Hi Joe, welcome and congratulations on your marriage!

It’s great that you’re planning to settle in Medellín. It’s a beautiful city with a growing community of professionals from abroad. For your job search, you might want to check platforms like LinkedIn, Elempleo.com, and Computrabajo, where some local and remote opportunities are listed. You can also join expat or business networking groups in Medellín; they’re quite active and often share openings that don’t make it to public listings. I know some local WhatsApp groups thatay share friendly and there you can find employee opportunities as well as other issues like plans or solutions.

Regarding your M visa, make sure the process aligns with your long-term residency goals — there are a few details in Colombian immigration law that can influence future renewals or residency options. If you ever want a bit of guidance to make sure everything’s set up properly, I’d be happy to share some insights and help you with your procedure. Just tell me if you need help.

Best of luck with your move — you’re going to love Medellín and Colombia in general.

@Josephdstultz

Welcome Joe - your best bet is to work remotely for a US, Canadian or EU company or else you will receive Colombia wages which are a lot less than what you are accustomed to receiving.  Don't have any job leads but hope this comment is helpful. 

Just don't be in such as rush, just my take - I'm originally from Los Angeles, California and after traveling everywhere in Colombia (my first extended stay was in Bogota in November of 1990) I have now been in Medellin for 15 years (my arrival anniversary is next month) so all told 35 years of travel and living in Colombia.

Ditto what stealtannest3t in the above post outlines and only to add is to have managed expectations as to what your work and salary will be.

Case in point is my best Colombian/Paisa friend. A 36 yo male who loves his job rebuilding/replacing the roof structures on the Medellin metro, he gets all strapped/harnessed in hanging from heights and so he gets "hazard pay".......................

................get this he earns about 60.000 pesos per day or roughly $17. USD and he loves his job and glad he has work.

..............I have so much respect for him that I can't tell him of my excited video call I got from my 16 yo niece in Los Angeles on her first job in a cafe serving coffee.............her starting pay is $17.25 an hour.

Another side comment - If your married and in the US then why not by virtue of your marriage to a US citizen get documented and spend enough time to have your husband become a US citizen, no one knows what the future will bring.

Keep your expectations low to live in Colombia.  Any work you find locally will be at Colombian rates...around $300-400US/month.  Even engineers are only getting $1000 month, if lucky.

Find a job in the US that will allow you to work overseas.  Then move.  Or, decide now not to work.

I think many expats and wanna-be expats simply do not understand the job market and pay in Colombia.  The foreign-sourced income of most expats is far above most Colombians.

Do an internet search for

average salary per month in colombia

...and you'll get plenty of hits suggesting it's somewhere between 3 and 4 million pesos a month.  Barely $1000/month in USD, and that's optimistic, many professionals are at that level and unskilled and trades labor is even less, ranging down to the minimum wage of a little over 1.4 million COP per month.

And realize that only about half of working Colombians have "formal" employment with a company, that is tracked by the statistic gathering government agency, DANE, the Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística.  The other half are on their own with "informal" employment and no one really knows how much or how little they make.

Only about 28% of all Colombian workers make enough money to be subject to filing an income tax return, the declaración de renta.  In 2024 only about 6 million Colombian workers filed.  Anyone earning less than about 54 million COP per year (about $14K USD) is not subject to paying income tax.

@OsageArcher

There are a lot of rich people though. A large underground  economy.Dont think any expats want to get involved  in that.

To be honest I see more of these naive questions about working in Colombia  coming   from new  green naive posters on this site than on any other Colombian expect site.

This seems a bit strange to me.

@nico peligro

I think many people who read about Colombia, see videos, who visit once or twice on vacations, whose Spanish is minimal, are (rightfully) impressed by how happy many Colombians are or at least seem to be - perhaps they don't see, or overlook, the less pleasant aspects of life in Colombia for a majority of people who are definitely not rich, who may never be able to live as extravagantly as a rich gringo on vacation, or even an expat with what the developed world would consider a modest foreign-based monthly income.  They don't know about the long history of Colombia's violence, kidnappings, guerillas, narcotraficantes, assassinations for political and other reasons, the corruption everywhere, the real poverty which is basically unknown in the developed world, and on and on.

And the nomad visa which allows remote work, that's got to be a big attraction.  If you can get paid developed world wages and live in Colombia, move around, no worries about money (relatively speaking) what a great way to live!

It has always astonished me how happy many Colombians are in the face of so many problems the country has.  I saw similar traits when I lived and worked in Puerto Rico - the people are always ready to party at the drop of a hat, who cares about tomorrow.  It may be a stereotype and a generalization but I think many Latin countries are like that, especially in comparison to more uptight, hard-work oriented, sacrifice now for long-term goals types of countries many of us were born into.