Colombia’s Nomad Visa Now Needs $1,575 a Month. A Court May Undo It.
Visas
Key Facts
—The threshold. Three times the minimum wage, COP 5,252,715 a month, or about $1,575 at today’s rate.
—The rise. A December decree lifted the wage 23% to COP 1,750,905, adding COP 327,405 a month.
—The suspension. Colombia’s Council of State provisionally suspended the December 2025 wage decree on 12 February 2026.
—The patch. A transitional decree of 19 February kept the identical figure, pending a ruling on the merits.
—The extra. Applicants must now prove roughly $3,534 more income across a year than in 2025.
—The trap. Officials convert your income at the rate on the day they open your file, not the day you send it.
Almost every guide to the Colombia digital nomad visa states a monthly income requirement that is wrong. That includes two of our own city guides.
The real number is higher, and it moves with the exchange rate. The decree it rests on has also been suspended by a court.
Start with the arithmetic, because it is not complicated. Colombia does not set a dollar figure for its remote-work visa, it asks for three times the national minimum monthly wage.
A decree of 29 December 2025 raised that wage by twenty-three percent, to 1,750,905 pesos. Three times that is 5,252,715 pesos a month.
What the Colombia digital nomad visa actually costs now
Convert that at today’s rate, near 3,335 to the dollar, and the requirement is roughly one thousand five hundred and seventy-five dollars a month. The figure in most guides, including this newspaper’s own earlier coverage, is fourteen hundred.
The gap is about two hundred dollars a month, and it exists because the peso has strengthened since those numbers were written. Our own Medellín and Bogotá guides still say six hundred and eighty-four dollars, a figure from an earlier wage year, and we are correcting that here.
This is the peculiar cruelty of a wage-indexed threshold. A stronger local currency does not make the country cheaper to qualify for, it makes it dearer, because the bar is set in pesos and your salary is not.
Measure the change properly and it stings. Against the 2025 wage the monthly test was 4,270,500 pesos.
So an applicant must now prove almost twelve million pesos more across a year. That is something in the region of three and a half thousand dollars.
The decree a court has already suspended
Here is what nobody writing about this visa has told you. The wage rise was not agreed, it was imposed.
Colombia’s tripartite wage commission failed to reach a deal in December, with unions asking for sixteen percent and employers offering just over seven. The government then fixed the number by decree, as the law permits when talks collapse.
On 12 February 2026 the Council of State, Colombia’s highest administrative court, provisionally suspended that decree. It found the government may have failed to weigh the criteria in article eight of a 1996 statute, which governs how a wage may be fixed unilaterally.
The court gave the government eight calendar days to issue a replacement. It did so on 19 February, with a decree that fixes the 2026 minimum wage transitionally at exactly the same amount.
Read that slowly if you are planning a move. The income you must prove to live in Colombia as a remote worker now rests on a temporary decree, issued to comply with a suspension order, while the court decides the underlying question.
Nothing has changed in practice, and the figure stands. But a foreigner’s eligibility is now tied to a domestic argument about labour law that has nothing to do with immigration.
What this means if you are applying
The same peg drags every other route upward. An employer-sponsored work visa asks ten times the wage, now 17,509,050 pesos a month, and the pension and passive-income categories move in step.
Then there is the currency trap, which catches people mid-application. The foreign ministry converts your income to pesos at the official rate on the day an official opens your file, not the day you submit it.
A peso that firms by five percent while your paperwork sits in a queue can push a comfortable application below the line. Immigration lawyers therefore suggest showing ten to fifteen percent above the stated minimum, and that advice has rarely looked more sensible.
Two other details deserve a foreigner’s attention. Each of the three months must clear the threshold on its own, because the ministry does not average lumpy freelance income.
The health policy must also cover repatriation. Ordinary travel insurance is not enough.
Finally, remember what this visa is not. It is a visitor permit, so the years you spend on it count for nothing toward residency.
Crossing one hundred and eighty-three days in the country carries its own cost. It makes you a Colombian tax resident on your worldwide income.
Colombia remains among the cheapest serious bases in the region, and Medellín has not stopped being lovely. The paperwork has simply grown teeth, and the number on the form is no longer the number in the guidebooks.
How much income does the Colombia digital nomad visa require?
Three times the minimum wage, meaning 5,252,715 pesos a month in 2026. At current exchange rates that is roughly one thousand five hundred and seventy-five dollars.
Is the wage decree really suspended?
The Council of State suspended it provisionally in February. A transitional decree issued days later kept the same wage, so the visa threshold is unchanged for now.
Does time on this visa lead to residency?
No. It is a visitor category, so the years do not count toward a resident visa, though long stays can still make you a tax resident.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the current monthly income requirement for Colombia's digital nomad visa?
The requirement is three times Colombia's national minimum monthly wage, which equals 5,252,715 pesos per month. At today's rate of about 3,335 pesos to the dollar, this works out to roughly $1,575 per month.
Why did the income requirement increase compared to 2025?
A decree issued on 29 December 2025 raised Colombia's national minimum monthly wage by 23%, bringing it to 1,750,905 pesos. This added about 327,405 pesos per month, so applicants must now prove roughly $3,534 more income across a full year than in 2025.
What happened to the December 2025 wage decree and how does it affect visa applicants?
Colombia's Council of State provisionally suspended the December 2025 wage decree on 12 February 2026. A transitional decree of 19 February 2026 kept the identical income figure while a ruling on the merits is pending, so the requirement stays the same for now.
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