Navigating administrative procedures in Colombia

Difficulty of geting a Visa: Most visas require a background ck. If you have any kind of legal infraction, even a misdemeanor offense from more than 10 years ago, it could jeopardize a visa being granted. You may want to select an alternate choice if possible.

A marriage visa: make sure your documents are complete and up to date. If you are in Colombia, it can  take an extra amount of time to get a document from the US

If you  do a Marraige Visa you better do a  thorough " background check" on your partner LOL.

Also, Cancilleria is also.looking for.a lot of backround and relationship historical information in granting "marraige visas" now. They are trying to avoid scam marraige visa applicants.

Anecdotally, there is an abundance of reports

by Expats and would-be Expats that dealing

with Colombia immigration has gotten more

difficult in recent years.

Those not nerdy or experienced enough to

deal with Spanish-language trámites

or who have a questionable incident from

the past are usually best advised to utilize the

experience of a Colombia visa advisor or

go the more expensive route of hiring

an attorney to get the best results.

I recently had a positive experience with

Expat Group which successfully obtained

a 90-day extension of my visitor permit

at a low, low cost.

FYI, I do not receive any compensation for

mentioning or recommending Expat Group.

cccmedia

If you live in Colombia for more than 183 days

out of 365 in one year or overlapping two years,

Colombia wants you to file a tax return.  It has

been widely reported on Expat forums that

Colombia considers such Expats to be

tax residents and could, at least in theory,

order you to pay taxes on your worldwide income.

For some Expats, this would have little impact.

In my case, the impact would be great enough that I

would not consider moving to Colombia fulltime.

In two of the past three years, I spent between

155 and 178 days in Colombia, making sure

not to 'overstay' into tax resident status.

La DIAN, as contended by many Expat posters,

is little concerned about Expats who attempt to

skirt the purported 183-day rule.  These posters

believe the DIAN agency is more interested in

the profits large corporations are supposed

to be paying taxes on.

Also, in many years perusing tax-related posts

on Expat forums, I have read only one poster

who claimed La DIAN was pursuing him over taxes.

However, Colombia changes presidents every

four years by law ,, and one of them might

push La DIAN to crack down on Expats who

may be ignorant of the 183-day limitation ..

or who hide non-Colombian income and

figure on deploying a Plan B if La DIAN starts

to come after them.

My personal recommendation is not owning

assets such as real estate, a car, or a

certificate of deposit in Colombia

if an Expat feels vulnerable to a potential DIAN audit.

cccmedia

OP Cheryl suggested posting "tips and tricks"

in dealing with the Colombian bureaucracy.

---

When it comes to taxes...

(1) Keep a low profile.

(2) Hire an attorney in the unlikely

scenario that the bureaucracy

comes after you.

(3) Do not overstay as a tourist or

as a potentially tax-vulnerable Expat.

Another agency, Inmigración, keeps

records of your international comings

and goings 'vis a vis' Colombia .. and

has the power to slap you with a

stiff fine and a prohibition on when

you are permitted to return ..

if you overstay the 90 days a tourist

permit allows .. or 180 days if that

permit is extended for a prórroga.

cccmedia

Can anyone help with informing my sons of the best way to trace their late father's bank account. The law firm acting for them has said that they can find no trace of one. This is very odd as he had bought property in Colombia and had an significant inheritance from his parents. All suggestions gratefully received.

Do you know which bank he had his account in and how far back in time?

Could be the " lawyers" are hiding something to their benefit

If you cant find out yourself  hire a competent PI.

First thing is to find out what bank he used and when.

If you dont know  check with all the major banks.

How do you know he had all this money and property?

Do a google search with his cedula and name.

Talk to the notary where he registered his escritura

    Can anyone help with informing my sons of the best way to trace their late father's bank account. The law firm acting for them has said that they can find no trace of one. This is very odd as he had bought property in Colombia and had an significant inheritance from his parents. All suggestions gratefully received.          -@

It will not be easy.  But (unsurprisingly) in Colombia this happens a lot, so there is a good deal of information on what to do - all in Spanish, of course.

You can do a search for something like,

colombia cuenta bancaria de fallecido

...and you will get many hits, among them these which I hope will help.  The first two deal with how to find the bank accounts of the deceased:

https://www.65ymas.com/economia/economi … 5_102.html

https://lopezdepabloabogados.com/averig … -fallecido

https://www.gerencie.com/cuentas-de-aho … ecida.html

https://caracol.com.co/2023/09/21/que-h … y-fallece/

https://www.pulzo.com/economia/que-pasa … PP3845160A

https://www.eltiempo.com/economia/finan … ido-804115

The government has a page on this, which unfortunately will not load for me:

https://www.minjusticia.gov.co/programa … murio.aspx

Good luck!

@cccmedia

Hi, I need to apply for an extension of my tourist days, I entered 31th of July for the  2nd time in Colombia (the first time was just a couple of weeks).

They will ask for a flight ticket, right? When I apply to extend my tourist days to another 90 days, will I need to send the original ticket out of the country I bought when coming in, even though what I want is to stay longer, or a ticket out of the country for after / during this extension I want to request?

Any additional tips? I should do it like 10 days before expiration of my initial 90 days of tourist days, right?

I am posting this here on your threat but will post the same as a general post, as I dont know if you still check the forum...

I dont remember them asking for a return ticket.

Just passport stamp and bio page.

Go online and follow the steps, it stateds requirements.

Its quite easy

Do it no later than 2 weeks before your due date.

The only tricky part used to be paying the fee with a credit card.

The cc method didnt workabnd you had to go to their selected bank  with a QR code and pay.

Maybe they fixed this up now.  Worse comes to worse go to local migraciones office and pay and  fix it up.

Thats what I didolas time, but for a different reason. I could have easily paid at th bank and recieved my extension certificate online.

@nico peligro

Thank you Nico, I will be attentive to the bank issue!