You bought an apartment in Medellín or Cartagena, you rent it out, and the rent arrives every month without anyone deducting anything. That feels like good news. It usually is not.
The absence of a deduction almost always means nobody withheld — and when nobody withholds on a non-resident’s Colombian-source income, the filing obligation lands on the non-resident. Meanwhile the property itself generates a municipal tax bill every year, may pull you into Colombia’s wealth tax, and, if you are American, has to be reported on your US return under rules that half the internet gets wrong.
Here is the full picture as at 9 September 2026.
Does my tenant withhold tax on my Colombian rent?
Colombia’s withholding rate on rent for real property — retención en la fuente por arrendamiento de inmuebles — is 3.5% of the payment, with a minimum base of 10 UVT. At UVT 2025 that floor is $497,990; at UVT 2026 it is $523,740. Rent below the floor is not withheld on.
But the rate only matters if the payer is obliged to apply it. Withholding is done by the tenant, and only if the tenant is an agente de retención.
That single condition determines almost everything about your position:
| Who your tenant is | Withholding on rent | Practical result |
|---|---|---|
| A company, or an individual with withholding-agent status | 3.5% deducted at source, above the 10 UVT floor | Tax is being collected as you go |
| A private individual without withholding-agent status | None, whatever the rent | Nothing is collected; the obligation sits with you |
An apartment let to a corporate tenant on a company lease is usually being withheld on. One let to a family, directly or through a local agency, frequently is not.
A worked example. Suppose the property lets for COP 4,000,000 a month to a corporate tenant that is a withholding agent:
| Calculation | Amount (COP) | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly rent | — | 4,000,000 |
| Withholding at 3.5% | 4,000,000 × 3.5% | 140,000 |
| Net received per month | 4,000,000 − 140,000 | 3,860,000 |
| Withheld across the year | 140,000 × 12 | 1,680,000 |
That COP 1,680,000 is an advance payment, not a final settlement. It is credited against whatever your eventual Colombian tax turns out to be.
Now let the same apartment to a private individual who is not a withholding agent, and the withheld figure is zero. You receive COP 48,000,000 for the year with nothing deducted, and you are carrying the full liability yourself.
If the lease is VAT-able and the tenant is an IVA withholding agent, reteIVA of 15% of the IVA amount also applies — that is 15% of the VAT, not 15% of the rent, and it is a different mechanism from the 3.5%.
How is a non-resident taxed on Colombian rental income?
Rent from a property located in Colombia is Colombian-source income. That is true regardless of where you live, where the tenant pays from, or which bank account the money lands in.
Non-residents are taxed only on Colombian-source income and on Colombian-located assets — not on worldwide income, which is the position for Colombian tax residents. But within that narrower base, the rental income is fully taxable.
The rate structure differs from the resident one. Colombian tax residents are taxed under the progressive cédula general schedule, which for the AG2025 return runs as follows:
| Taxable income from (UVT) | To (UVT) | Marginal rate |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1,090 | 0% |
| 1,090 | 1,700 | 19% |
| 1,700 | 4,100 | 28% |
| 4,100 | 8,670 | 33% |
| 8,670 | 18,970 | 35% |
| 18,970 | 31,000 | 37% |
| 31,000 | + | 39% |
A non-resident does not use that table. Non-resident individuals are taxed at a single flat rate on Colombian-source taxable income under Article 247 of the Estatuto Tributario. We are deliberately not printing a percentage here: 2026 has been a bad year for published Colombian tax figures, and this is one we confirm per client against current law rather than repeat from secondary sources. Check it before you model a return, and do not assume it is the top resident bracket.
Deductions differ too. The resident cédula general allows exempt income plus deductions capped at 40% of net income, capped in absolute terms at 1,340 UVT ($66,730,660 for AG2025). Non-residents do not have the same relief package. Ask specifically which of your costs are deductible rather than assuming your home-country treatment carries over.
Do I have to file a Colombian tax return as a non-resident landlord?
Often, yes — and precisely because nobody withheld.
The general logic is that where a non-resident’s entire Colombian-source income has passed through the withholding regime, that withholding operates as a final tax and no return is needed. Where it has not, the return is how the tax gets collected.
Rent paid by an individual who is not a withholding agent is the textbook case of income that never touched the withholding regime. The foreign owner renting to a private tenant carries the filing obligation alone, and that is a common position to be in.
The AG2025 thresholds are worth knowing even though the non-resident test has its own statutory structure, because the numbers recur:
| Trigger | UVT | COP (AG2025, at UVT 2025 of $49,799) |
|---|---|---|
| Gross income | 1,400 | $69,718,600 |
| Gross assets (patrimonio bruto) | 4,500 | $224,095,500 |
| Credit card consumption | 1,400 | $69,718,600 |
| Total purchases | 1,400 | $69,718,600 |
| Bank deposits / investments | 1,400 | $69,718,600 |
Note the second row. A single Colombian apartment worth more than COP 224,095,500 is above the gross assets threshold on its own. Property values in the neighbourhoods foreigners actually buy in cross that line comfortably.
Anyone who is a responsable de IVA files automatically, with no threshold at all.
The AG2025 filing window runs 12 August to 26 October 2026, staggered by the last two digits of the NIT. A live exception applies: following the 10 August 2026 earthquake, Decreto 1171 moved deadlines to 27 October – 13 November 2026 for taxpayers domiciled in Cali, Palmira, Tuluá, Buenaventura, Pereira, Armenia, Manizales, Quibdó and Popayán.
If you own Colombian property and have never filed, that is a conversation to have now rather than after a DIAN notice. Colombia has both a FATCA information-sharing agreement with the United States and a tax information exchange agreement; the assumption that a foreign owner is invisible is not one to build a plan on.
What else does owning the property cost me every year?
Impuesto predial
Predial is the annual municipal property tax, assessed on the avalúo catastral — the official cadastral value — with each municipal council setting its own rates within a statutory band. The rate genuinely differs between Bogotá, Medellín, Cali and Cartagena, and between property categories and strata within each city.
We are not publishing a rate table, because any single national figure would be wrong everywhere. Get the current rate from the municipal hacienda for your city, and check whether an early-payment discount is available — most large cities offer one and it is meaningful money on a larger property.
Two practical points. Predial is a charge on the property, so unpaid bills follow the asset and become a problem at sale. And there is a statutory cap on year-on-year increases, which became relevant after recent cadastral updates pushed assessed values up sharply.
Impuesto al patrimonio
This is the one that surprises people. Non-residents are liable to Colombian wealth tax on directly held Colombian assets.
The threshold for 2026 is 72,000 UVT = $3,770,928,000. Rates are 0.5%, 1.0% and 1.5% on a marginal basis, with the top rate transitional through 2026 and then reverting to 1.0%.
For most single-apartment owners the threshold is comfortably out of reach. For someone holding several properties, or one substantial one, it is not — and the exposure arises precisely because the assets are held directly by a non-resident individual.
Two corrections, because this area is badly reported:
- Decreto 240 de 2026’s emergency wealth tax at a 200,000 UVT threshold applies only to personas jurídicas. It is a corporate charge. Several sources describe it as if it hit individuals. It does not.
- Several tax blogs still publish a 40,000 UVT wealth tax table as current. That table came from a decree that was struck down. It is not the law.
How do Americans report Colombian rental income to the IRS?
The same rent is reportable twice — in Colombia because the property is there, and in the United States because US citizens and green card holders are taxed on worldwide income wherever they live.
It goes on Schedule E, like any other rental property: gross rents, then operating expenses, then depreciation.
The depreciation point everyone gets wrong
Foreign residential rental property is depreciated over 30 years under the alternative depreciation system, not 40. Section 168(g)(2)(C) as currently enacted gives residential rental property a 30-year ADS recovery period. Forty years applies only to properties placed in service before 2018, and to nonresidential foreign real property.
A great deal of published expat-tax content, including from firms that should know better, still says 40. Using 40 on a Colombian apartment placed in service after 2017 understates your annual deduction by a quarter, every year, for the life of the property.
The rest of the US picture
- Foreign tax credit. Colombian tax on the rental income generates a credit claimed on Form 1116. Rental income normally sits in the passive basket, and Form 1116 has seven baskets in total, with a one-year carryback and ten-year carryforward. A de minimis election exists at $300 for single filers and $600 for joint filers.
- The FEIE does not help here. The foreign earned income exclusion applies to earned income. Rent is not earned income. Passive rental income is outside it entirely.
- Net investment income tax. NIIT is Chapter 2A tax and the §901 foreign tax credit does not offset it. The treaty route that has been litigated in Christensen and Bruyea is unavailable to Colombia, because there is no US–Colombia income tax treaty. That is verified from both sides: Colombia is absent from the IRS treaty list, and the US is absent from Colombia’s registers. What exists is a tax information exchange agreement, which shares data and reduces no rates.
- FBAR. If your Colombian bank accounts — including the one the rent lands in — aggregate over $10,000 at any point in the year, you have an FBAR filing. Penalties as of 17 January 2025 run to $16,536 non-willful and the greater of $165,353 or 50% of the balance for willful violations.
- Deadlines. Americans abroad get an automatic 15 June filing date, extendable to 15 October via Form 4868.
- Funding Colombian expenses. IRC §4475 imposes a 1% remittance excise tax on transfers funded by cash, money order or cashier’s check, effective for transfers after 31 December 2025. Transfers funded from a US bank account or a US-issued card are exempt. If you send money to Colombia for renovations or condominium fees, fund it from a bank account.
Which branch of the fork you are on
If your Colombian tenant is a withholding agent, 3.5% is coming off the rent and going to DIAN as an advance. If your tenant is a private individual, nothing is being collected and the filing obligation is yours. That is the fork in the road, and most foreign owners are on the second branch without realising it.
On top of the income tax there is predial every year, and if your Colombian holdings are substantial, wealth tax exposure on directly held assets. When you eventually sell, whether you can take the proceeds out of the country depends on whether the original purchase was registered as foreign investment — which it was required to be, because buying Colombian real estate is itself foreign direct investment.
For Americans, add Schedule E, a 30-year depreciation schedule that a lot of preparers get wrong, an FBAR, and a foreign tax credit that cannot reach the NIIT.
None of this is unmanageable. It is just more moving parts than a rental property looks like it should have. If you own Colombian property and want a straight answer on where you stand — including whether you have unfiled years — we handle the Colombian return and the US side together.
Frequently asked questions
My tenant does not withhold anything. Does that mean the rent is untaxed? No. It means nobody is collecting the tax as you go. The income is taxable and the obligation to declare and pay it sits with you. This is the most common misunderstanding among foreign landlords in Colombia and it typically surfaces several years’ worth of unfiled returns at once.
Should I hold the property through a Colombian company instead? It changes several things at once — the applicable rate, the deductibility of expenses, the wealth tax analysis (since the exposure described above is on directly held assets), the exit tax profile, and, for Americans, the entire controlled foreign corporation reporting regime including Form 5471. It is a real question with a real answer, but the answer depends on your numbers and your citizenship. It is not a default.
Do I pay Colombian tax on rent if I am not a resident and never visit? Yes. Colombian-source income is taxable in Colombia regardless of where the owner lives. Residency determines whether Colombia taxes your worldwide income; it does not determine whether Colombia taxes income from a Colombian property.
What happens when I sell? Gain on a property held as a fixed asset for two years or more is ganancia ocasional at 15%, with a retención en la fuente of typically 1% applied on the sale. The casa de habitación exemption of 5,000 UVT is a resident’s relief and is not available to a non-resident. And separately from the tax, getting the proceeds out of Colombia depends on the purchase having been registered as foreign investment.
General information, not tax or legal advice. Figures verified 9 September 2026 and cover the AG2025 return and the rules in force during 2026. Colombian tax law changed materially between December 2025 and September 2026, including a rejected reform, two economic emergencies and several Constitutional Court rulings. Municipal predial rates and the non-resident income tax rate must be confirmed for your specific situation before you act.