If you have been checking whether you need to file a Colombian income tax return this year, there is a decent chance you have read the wrong number.
Several mainstream Colombian outlets have published $73,323,600 as the income threshold for the return being filed right now. That figure is real, but it belongs to a different tax year. For the AG2025 return you are filing during 2026, the income threshold is $69,718,600.
The gap is about COP 3.6 million. It is enough to put someone on the wrong side of a filing obligation while believing they are safely under it.
This article gives the five thresholds that actually apply, explains why the UVT-year distinction trips up so many people (including professional publishers), sets out the filing calendar including a live earthquake-related extension, and covers what changes if you are a foreigner.
Why is everyone quoting the wrong threshold?
Colombia expresses almost every tax threshold in UVT — unidad de valor tributario — an indexed unit that DIAN resets each December for the following year. Thresholds are written in law as a number of UVT, and you convert them to pesos by multiplying.
| Year | UVT value |
|---|---|
| 2025 | $49,799 |
| 2026 | $52,374 |
The rule that matters: the return you file measures activity in a tax year, and it uses that tax year’s UVT.
The return being filed between August and November 2026 is the AG2025 return. It reports your income, assets and transactions during calendar year 2025. It therefore uses UVT 2025 = $49,799.
So the income threshold is:
1,400 UVT × $49,799 = $69,718,600
The figure circulating in the press, $73,323,600, is 1,400 × $52,374 — the 2026 UVT. That threshold is correct for the AG2026 return, which measures calendar year 2026 and will be filed during 2027. It has nothing to do with the return due now.
The confusion is understandable. DIAN publishes the new UVT in December, journalists write threshold stories in the new year, and the two years get collapsed. But the consequence is real: someone who earned COP 71,000,000 in 2025 and read the newspaper figure would conclude they do not need to file. They do.
Rule of thumb: match the UVT to the year the money moved, not the year you are filing in.
What are the five AG2025 filing thresholds?
Colombian law frames this negatively. Under Articles 592, 593 and 594-3 of the Estatuto Tributario, you are not required to file only if you satisfy all of the conditions. Breaching a single one triggers the obligation.
Here are the five, in UVT 2025:
| Trigger | UVT | COP (AG2025) |
|---|---|---|
| Gross income during 2025 | 1,400 | $69,718,600 |
| Gross assets (patrimonio bruto) at 31 December 2025 | 4,500 | $224,095,500 |
| Credit card consumption during 2025 | 1,400 | $69,718,600 |
| Total purchases and consumption during 2025 | 1,400 | $69,718,600 |
| Bank deposits, financial deposits or investments during 2025 | 1,400 | $69,718,600 |
Plus a sixth trigger with no threshold at all: anyone who was a responsable de IVA at the close of the period files automatically, regardless of every number above.
A few things about this table that people get wrong.
“Gross” means gross. Ingresos brutos is income before deductions, not net or taxable income. The 0% band in the income tax rate table starts at 1,090 UVT, which sits below the 1,400 UVT filing threshold — so it is entirely normal to be required to file and to owe nothing. Filing and paying are separate questions.
Consignaciones catch people who feel poor. The bank deposits trigger measures money that moved through your accounts during the year, not money you kept. Someone who received and passed on funds — reimbursed expenses, a property deposit held briefly, a loan received and repaid, money moved between their own accounts at different banks — can breach the threshold with no economic gain whatsoever. It is one of the most common surprise triggers.
Total purchases include everything, not just card spending. The credit card row and the total purchases row are separate tests. Buying a car for cash does not appear on a credit card statement, but it is a purchase.
Patrimonio bruto is gross, not net. Assets at 31 December 2025 before deducting the mortgage. An apartment worth COP 300,000,000 with COP 250,000,000 still owed on it puts you over the 4,500 UVT threshold — the debt does not net off for this test.
Rounding. Some publishers round these to $69,719,000 and $224,096,000. The exact products are $69,718,600 and $224,095,500. Use the exact figures.
I’m a foreigner. Do these rules apply to me?
If you are a Colombian tax resident, yes — you file on exactly the same terms as a Colombian national, using the same thresholds, and you are taxable on worldwide income and worldwide patrimony.
Colombian tax residency is set by Article 10 of the Estatuto Tributario and it is presence-based. The test is more than 183 days — so 184 — in any rolling 365-day window. Not a calendar year. Days of entry and departure both count, and non-consecutive days aggregate. Where the 365-day window straddles two calendar years, residency lands in the second year.
Nothing about Colombian tax residency depends on your visa type. This is the point that is most poorly covered in English-language content about Colombia, and it costs people real money. A digital nomad visa holder who stays past 183 days in a rolling year is a Colombian tax resident, taxable on worldwide income. The visa is an immigration status. Residency for tax is a day count.
There are other routes into residency too — family or centre of economic interests in Colombia, specified conditions for Colombian nationals abroad, and tax haven rules — but for most foreigners the day count is what decides it.
If you are not a Colombian tax resident, your position is narrower but not necessarily nil. Non-residents are taxed on Colombian-source income and Colombian-located assets. Where all of that income passed through the withholding regime, the withholding generally operates as a final tax and no return is needed. Where it did not — the classic case being rent from a Colombian property paid by an individual tenant who is not a withholding agent — a return is usually required, because nobody collected the tax.
One consequence of residency worth flagging separately: Colombian tax residents with assets abroad may have a declaración de activos en el exterior obligation, which has its own threshold and its own form and is entirely separate from the income tax return. Foreigners who become resident frequently miss it.
Residents file Formulario 210; non-residents file Formulario 110. Choosing the right one matters and is worth a moment’s care.
When is the AG2025 return due?
The standing calendar comes from Decreto 2229 de 2023. The general window is:
12 August to 26 October 2026, staggered by the last two digits of your NIT or cédula, excluding the verification digit.
Digits 01–02 open the window on 12 August; digits 99–00 close it on 26 October. The intermediate dates run in sequence across roughly fifty working days. Check your own date against DIAN’s published calendar — the day-by-day tables circulating on secondary sites are not all internally consistent.
The earthquake extension — check whether it applies to you
Following the 10 August 2026 earthquake, Decreto 1171 moved deadlines for taxpayers whose fiscal domicile falls in specified municipalities. For those taxpayers the window becomes:
27 October to 13 November 2026, again staggered by the last two NIT digits.
The listed municipalities are:
| Department | Municipalities |
|---|---|
| Valle del Cauca | Cali, Palmira, Tuluá, Buenaventura |
| Risaralda | Pereira |
| Quindío | Armenia |
| Caldas | Manizales |
| Chocó | Quibdó |
| Cauca | Popayán |
This supplements the national calendar; it does not replace it. Taxpayers domiciled anywhere else follow the ordinary 12 August – 26 October dates. If you live in one of the listed cities, verify that your fiscal domicile of record actually reflects that before relying on the later date — DIAN goes by your registered domicile, not by where you happen to be.
What if I file late, or don’t file at all?
Filing late triggers an extemporaneidad penalty calculated per month or fraction of a month of delay, plus late-payment interest running from the original due date. There is a statutory minimum penalty, so even a nil return filed late costs something.
Two points that matter more than the arithmetic.
First, filing voluntarily before DIAN contacts you is materially cheaper than filing after. The penalty structure escalates once DIAN issues an emplazamiento or a resolution. If you have discovered an unfiled year, the clock is working against you every month you think about it.
Second, filing when you were not obliged to is not a problem, and is sometimes useful. A voluntary return produces a documented tax history, which banks, visa processes and counterparties ask for. If you are genuinely on the line and cannot resolve it, filing is the conservative choice.
If you are unsure whether an old year was required, the honest answer is that the analysis is usually quick. It is far cheaper to have it done than to guess.
The numbers that decide it
For the AG2025 return being filed during 2026, use UVT 2025 = $49,799, not the 2026 value. The income, credit card, purchases and deposits thresholds are all $69,718,600. The gross assets threshold is $224,095,500. Breaching any one of them obliges you to file, and being a responsable de IVA obliges you regardless.
Foreigners who are Colombian tax residents file exactly like everyone else, on worldwide income, with residency determined by a rolling 365-day count and not by visa type.
The window is 12 August to 26 October 2026 by NIT digits, extended to 27 October – 13 November 2026 for the municipalities listed in Decreto 1171.
If you are somewhere between “probably fine” and “genuinely not sure” — particularly if you are a foreigner who has been in Colombia for a while, or you have deposits that look larger than your income — a short review will settle it. We do this work for foreign residents and Colombian filers alike, in English and in Spanish.
Frequently asked questions
Which threshold applies to me, $69,718,600 or $73,323,600? For the AG2025 return you file during 2026, it is $69,718,600 (1,400 × UVT 2025). The $73,323,600 figure is 1,400 × UVT 2026 and applies to the AG2026 return you will file in 2027. Media outlets have been publishing the second figure for the first return.
Do I have to file if I earned nothing but have a lot in the bank? Possibly. Gross assets over $224,095,500 at 31 December 2025 is an independent trigger, as are bank deposits and investments over $69,718,600 during the year. Income is only one of five tests, and you only need to breach one.
I’m on a digital nomad visa. Does that keep me out of the Colombian tax system? No. Tax residency is a day count under Article 10 ET — more than 183 days in any rolling 365-day period, entry and exit days included, non-consecutive days aggregated. The visa type is irrelevant to it. A nomad visa holder past that count is a Colombian tax resident taxable on worldwide income.
Does filing mean I will owe tax? Not necessarily. The 0% band in the rate table extends to 1,090 UVT of taxable income, and the filing threshold sits above that at 1,400 UVT of gross income, before any deductions. Plenty of people are obliged to file and owe nothing. The obligation is to declare, not automatically to pay.
I live in Cali. Do I get the later deadline? If your fiscal domicile of record was in one of the municipalities listed in Decreto 1171, the window moves to 27 October – 13 November 2026, again by your last two NIT digits. Confirm what domicile DIAN actually has on file for you rather than assuming.
I have not filed for several years. What should I do? Get the years assessed and file them, voluntarily, as soon as you reasonably can. Penalties accrue by month and escalate sharply once DIAN opens the matter itself. The position is almost always more recoverable than people expect at the point they finally ask.
General information, not tax or legal advice. Figures verified 9 September 2026 and cover the AG2025 return filed during 2026. Colombian tax law changed materially between December 2025 and September 2026, including a rejected tax reform, two economic emergency declarations, several Constitutional Court rulings and a bill still before Congress. Deadlines in particular have moved during 2026 — confirm your own date against DIAN’s published calendar before relying on any of the above.