Most foreigners who end up filing this return had no idea it existed until an accountant mentioned it in passing. It is not the income tax return. It is a second, separate annual filing — the declaración anual de activos en el exterior — and it asks Colombian tax residents to list what they own outside Colombia. Your bank account back home. The condo you rent out in Florida. The brokerage account you have not touched since 2019. The pension pot you cannot even access yet.
The threshold that triggers it is low. Low enough that a lot of ordinary people — teachers, remote workers, retirees on a modest pension — cross it without ever thinking of themselves as wealthy.
Here is how it actually works, and why the trap is usually residency rather than the return itself.
Why does Colombia want to know about my assets abroad?
Because Colombian tax residents are taxed on worldwide income and worldwide patrimony, not just on what they earn and own inside the country. That single sentence is the whole logic of this return.
Once you are a Colombian tax resident, your foreign bank balance is part of your Colombian patrimonio. Your foreign rental income is part of your Colombian taxable income. The declaración de activos en el exterior is simply the mechanism DIAN uses to see the asset side of that picture — separately, in one place, so it can be cross-checked against your income tax return and against information Colombia receives from other tax authorities under international exchange arrangements.
It is an informational return. It does not, by itself, charge you tax. That is the part people find reassuring and the part that makes them careless.
Am I a Colombian tax resident? (This is the real question)
Nearly everyone who gets caught by this return was caught by residency first.
Article 10 of the Estatuto Tributario makes Colombian tax residency presence-based. You are a tax resident if you spend more than 183 days — so, 184 — in Colombia during any rolling 365-day period. Note each of these carefully:
- Rolling, not calendar. It is not “days in 2026.” It is any 365-day window, which can start in June and end the following June.
- Entry and exit days count. Both of them.
- Non-consecutive days aggregate. Four separate two-month stays add up exactly the same as one eight-month stay.
- Where the window straddles two years, residency lands in the second year.
There are other triggers as well — having your family or your centre of economic interests in Colombia, certain rules for Colombian nationals living abroad, and rules involving tax havens — but the day count is what catches foreigners.
And the point that costs people the most money: nothing about residency depends on your visa type. A digital nomad visa is an immigration status. It says nothing about tax. Holders of the V — Nómada Digital visa who stay past the day count are Colombian tax residents with worldwide income and worldwide asset reporting obligations, exactly like anyone else. We have written about that specific misunderstanding in more detail in our guide to the 183-day rule and in whether the digital nomad visa makes you a tax resident.
If you are not a Colombian tax resident, this return is not yours to file. Non-residents are taxed only on Colombian-source income and Colombian-located assets, so a return listing your assets abroad would serve no purpose.
How low is the threshold, really?
Low enough to matter. The obligation is set as a number of UVT (Unidad de Valor Tributario), Colombia’s inflation-indexed tax unit, measured against the value of your foreign assets at the year-end cut-off.
The commonly cited trigger sits in the low thousands of UVT, which at 2026 values puts it somewhere in the region of USD 26,000–33,000 equivalent, depending on the exchange rate you use and the UVT year that applies. Treat that as an order of magnitude, not a precise line. We are deliberately not printing a hard COP figure here: the exact UVT threshold for the declaración de activos en el exterior is not on our verified figures sheet, and Colombian tax parameters moved materially between December 2025 and September 2026. Ask your accountant to confirm the current UVT threshold and the UVT year that applies to your filing before you conclude you are under it.
What we can tell you with confidence is the shape of the rule, and the shape is what trips people:
- The threshold is measured in UVT of the taxable year, not the year you file. The AG2025 return you file during 2026 uses UVT 2025 ($49,799). UVT 2026 ($52,374) belongs to the AG2026 return you will file in 2027. Colombian media has been publishing this backwards all year — see our 2026 rates and thresholds reference for the correction.
- It is measured on the total value of your foreign assets, gross. Not net of the mortgage. Not net of anything.
- Above a second, higher UVT threshold, assets have to be itemised individually rather than reported as an aggregate by jurisdiction. Again, confirm the current figure — but plan for the possibility that you will be naming each account and each property.
A single mid-sized savings account can clear the first threshold on its own. A paid-off apartment anywhere in North America or Western Europe clears it several times over.
What counts as a foreign asset?
Broadly: anything of economic value that you own and that is located, held, issued or registered outside Colombia. In practice, for the people who read this site, that means:
- Bank accounts — checking, savings, term deposits. Including accounts you keep open “just for the direct debits.”
- Brokerage and investment accounts, including index funds and ETFs.
- Real property abroad, whether or not it produces income, and whether or not it is mortgaged.
- Shares in foreign companies, including a single-member LLC or a dormant holding entity.
- Cryptocurrency and digital assets held outside Colombia.
- Loans you have made to other people — a receivable is an asset.
- Vehicles, boats and other titled property held abroad.
- Retirement and pension accounts, which is where the argument usually starts. A 401(k), an IRA, a UK SIPP or a private pension plan is an asset you own even if you cannot draw on it yet. Whether and how a particular plan gets reported and valued is a genuinely technical question that depends on the plan’s structure — get it looked at rather than assuming it is invisible.
Two things that are not foreign assets for this purpose: assets located in Colombia (those belong on the renta return’s patrimonio section), and assets you do not own but merely use.
Valuation is a question in its own right. Foreign assets have to be brought into Colombian pesos, and the conversion date matters — assets are generally converted at the TRM at 31 December of the tax year, which is not the same convention that applies to foreign income. Our article on which TRM to use on a Colombian tax return covers that in detail, because getting it wrong is a common mechanical error on this filing.
How does it relate to my regular income tax return?
They are separate returns with separate forms, but they are meant to agree with each other.
The declaración de renta reports your income and your total patrimony, Colombian and foreign, and calculates the tax you owe. The declaración de activos en el exterior reports only the foreign asset side, in more detail, and calculates nothing. If your foreign assets appear on one and not the other, or appear at different values, you have created a discrepancy that DIAN’s systems are specifically built to notice.
Three practical points:
- The two obligations are independent. You can be required to file the foreign assets return without being required to file a renta return, and the reverse. Do not assume that being under the income threshold excuses you from the asset threshold. (Our guide to who has to file a Colombian tax return covers the renta triggers.)
- The deadline is set in the same annual tax calendar as the renta return, staggered by the last digits of your NIT. For AG2025 the personas naturales renta window runs 12 August – 26 October 2026 — with a live exception under Decreto 1171, which moved deadlines to 27 October – 13 November 2026 for taxpayers domiciled in Cali, Palmira, Tuluá, Buenaventura, Pereira, Armenia, Manizales, Quibdó and Popayán following the 10 August 2026 earthquake. Confirm your own date rather than assuming.
- You need a RUT and a NIT to file anything. If you have crossed into residency and never registered, that is the first task, not the last.
There is a penalty regime for filing this return late or not filing it at all. We are not quoting a figure, because the sanction rules are exactly the kind of parameter that has moved in the last year and we will not publish a number we cannot verify. Assume it is material, assume it scales with the value of the assets you failed to report, and ask before you decide a year is not worth filing.
Frequently asked questions
I already report these accounts to my home tax authority. Do I really have to report them to Colombia too? Yes. Reporting an account on a US FBAR, a UK return or anywhere else has no effect on the Colombian obligation. The two systems are unrelated, and Colombia is a participant in international information exchange, so the likelier outcome of reporting in one place and not the other is that the mismatch becomes visible.
My foreign account is empty / dormant / has $400 in it. Does it count? It counts toward the total. The threshold is tested on the aggregate value of all your foreign assets, so a near-empty account matters only in that it has to be included in the sum, and named if you land above the itemisation threshold.
Does this return make me pay Colombian tax on my foreign assets? Not by itself — it is informational. But the same residency that triggers it also brings your worldwide income into your Colombian renta return, and if your total patrimony is large enough you may separately fall into the impuesto al patrimonio. The asset return is the disclosure; the tax comes from the other rules.
I became a tax resident two years ago and never filed. What now? Voluntary correction is almost always cheaper than being found. Colombia has mechanisms for filing late and for correcting prior returns, and the arithmetic of doing it yourself, now, is usually far better than the arithmetic of DIAN doing it for you later. Get a professional to scope how many years are actually open before you file anything.
I’m leaving Colombia. Does the obligation stop? It stops when residency stops, which follows the same day-count logic in reverse — and the year you leave is usually the messiest one. Have someone look at the final year specifically.
The short version
If you have spent more than 183 days in Colombia in any rolling 365-day window, you are probably a Colombian tax resident, whatever your visa says. Colombian tax residents report worldwide assets, and the threshold for the separate foreign-assets return is low enough that a single ordinary savings account or a paid-off apartment abroad will clear it. It is a disclosure return, not a tax charge — but it has its own deadline, its own penalties, and it has to reconcile with your renta return.
If you are reading this and quietly recalculating your days, that is the right instinct. We can run your day count, tell you which returns you actually owe, and file them properly — including the years you may have already missed. That conversation is short and it is much better had in September than in November.
General information, not tax or legal advice. Figures verified as of 9 September 2026 for AG2025 / 2026 rules. Colombian tax law changed materially between December 2025 and September 2026 — a rejected reform, struck-down emergency decrees, and pending legislation — and thresholds expressed in UVT change every January. Confirm current figures and your own position with a qualified professional before acting.