Retiring to Colombia from the UK: 2026 Tax & Visa Guide

Retiring to Colombia from the UK is becoming a topic of serious consideration for high-net-worth individuals and expatriates. The question is being asked more often, and by a different kind of client. Within eighteen months, two things changed on the European side of the ledger. The United Kingdom abolished the non-domicile regime on 6 April 2025 and moved inheritance tax onto a residence basis, so families who had arranged their affairs around domicile found that the concept no longer carried them. In Spain, the solidarity tax on large fortunes has been extended well beyond its original two-year life, and the exit tax under article 95 bis of the Ley 35/2006, de 28 de noviembre, del Impuesto sobre la Renta de las Personas Físicas (LIRPF) continues to make emigration a costed decision rather than a lifestyle one.

Colombia, for its part, has become materially more attractive rather than merely more fashionable. Ley 2277 de 2022 extended the exemption for pension income in article 206 of the Estatuto Tributario to pensions obtained abroad, a change which the pension reform in Ley 2381 de 2024 would have carried forward at its article 84, although the entry into force of that law was suspended by the Constitutional Court in Auto 841 de 2025 and remains unresolved. The operative authority is therefore Ley 2277 de 2022 and article 206 of the Estatuto Tributario as it now stands.

There is also a narrower reason for looking at this in 2026 in particular. The Colombian minimum wage rose by 23 per cent in January and remains under challenge before the Consejo de Estado, and every visa threshold is expressed as a multiple of it. The peso has appreciated sharply against sterling and the euro, which alters the arithmetic of a retirement funded in a foreign currency. And because Colombian residence turns on 183 days within any rolling period of 365, the year in which a taxpayer crosses that line is very largely a matter of choice, provided the choice is made in advance.

What Forbes gets right, and for whom

Forbes has again placed Colombia among the best countries in which to retire abroad, and the ranking will surprise nobody who has followed the country over the past two decades. What deserves closer attention is a detail the magazine mentions almost in passing and treats, correctly for its own readership, as a drawback: the United States has no double taxation convention with Colombia.

For a reader in London or Madrid, that sentence does not apply. It is the single most important structural difference between an American retirement in Medellín and a British or Spanish one, and it is worth setting out precisely what follows from it.

For anyone considering retiring to Colombia from the UK, the country’s appeal itself is not in dispute. The cultural weight of Bogotá, the temperate climate of Medellín, the coffee region around Pereira and the Caribbean light of Cartagena are served by direct flights from Madrid to Bogotá and Medellín and from London to Bogotá. Healthcare is of a high standard and, by European measure, inexpensive. For Spanish residents there is no language barrier, and the Colombian community in Spain, among the largest of its national groups, means the route is well travelled in both directions. Cost of living remains well below Madrid and London, though that comparison deserves more caution than it usually receives, for the currency reason already noted. Currency risk is a planning matter, not a footnote.

The question is not the rate of tax, but the allocation of taxing rights

Prospective retirees tend to ask how much Colombia charges. That is the second question. The first is whether a convention exists to allocate taxing rights between Colombia and the jurisdiction being left behind, because where one does, source-State taxation on pension income falls away; where one does not, relief depends on whatever unilateral credit domestic law happens to provide.

Retiring to Colombia from the UK: How the British Convention Applies to Pensions

The Convention between the United Kingdom and Colombia was signed in London on 2 November 2016, entered into force on 13 December 2019 and took effect for United Kingdom income tax and capital gains tax from 6 April 2020. Its treatment of retirement income is unusually clean: Article 17(1) provides that pensions and other similar remuneration paid to a resident of a Contracting State are taxable only in that State. Anyone retiring to Colombia from the UK who becomes Colombian tax resident therefore takes UK-source private pension income out of the United Kingdom charge under the Convention, subject to securing the appropriate treatment from HM Revenue & Customs.

Two features of the drafting repay attention. The first concerns public service pensions. In most modern United Kingdom conventions these are carved out and left taxable in the paying State, which is why a retired police officer or local authority employee usually continues to pay United Kingdom tax wherever they live. The Colombian Convention contains no such carve-out within the pensions article, and the government service article is itself expressed to be subject to Article 17. The position of local government, NHS, armed forces and civil service pensions therefore has to be examined on its own terms rather than assumed to follow the pattern of the Spanish or French treaties.

The second is the principal purpose test, which permits treaty benefits to be refused where obtaining them was one of the principal purposes of an arrangement. A relocation for genuine reasons of retirement is not the mischief at which that provision is aimed, but the contemporaneous record of why the move was made is worth building at the time rather than reconstructing later.

A third point is practical rather than textual, and it is the one clients raise first. The Convention contains no lump sum provision. That matters less on the British side than it might appear, because a pension commencement lump sum is free of United Kingdom tax up to the lump sum allowance in any event. The exposure is Colombian. The exemption in article 206 is drafted by reference to pensions and old-age annuity income, and operates against a limit applied to each monthly payment; a single capital withdrawal is neither of those things. Drawn after Colombian residence has begun, it is difficult to see the exemption reaching it, and the sum would fall to be taxed as ordinary income at rates rising to 39 per cent. Drawn before, it is tax free and remains so. The same payment, six months apart, produces two entirely different results.

On capital gains the allocation follows the familiar pattern. Immovable property and property-rich shares remain taxable in the situs State, while gains on most other assets are taxable only in the State of residence. The Convention does not extend to taxes on capital, so Colombia’s net wealth tax sits outside it entirely.

One exception deserves naming. Under Article 13(5), gains on shares in a company resident in the other State may be taxed there, at a rate capped at 10 per cent, where the alienator held 10 per cent or more of the capital at any point in the preceding twelve months. A retiree with a meaningful stake in a United Kingdom company does not take that gain wholly out of charge by moving.

Related reading: the UK FIG regime and what replaced the non-dom rules; why the UK and Spain count days so differently; residence risks for FIG users spending time abroad.

The Spanish Convention is older but reaches further

Spain’s Convention with Colombia was signed in 31 March 2005, entered into force on 23 October 2008 and took effect for Spanish income taxes from 1 January 2009. Article 17 allocates pensions derived from past employment to the State of residence, subject to the reservation in Article 18(2) for pensions paid in respect of government service, which remain taxable in the paying State unless the recipient is both resident and a national of the other.

Its wider significance lies in its title. The Spanish Convention covers taxes on income and on capital, whereas the British one covers income and capital gains alone. For a Spanish resident of substantial means the difference is not academic. Such a person is moving between two jurisdictions that each levy a tax on net wealth, and Article 21(4) allocates that head of charge as well, reserving all wealth other than immovable property and permanent establishment assets to the State of residence. No equivalent protection exists for a British retiree, for the straightforward reason that the United Kingdom has no wealth tax to allocate.

But the reach of the Convention is also where its principal trap sits. Paragraph X of the Protocol, headed Ad. Artículo 17, disapplies Article 17 altogether where the recipient is not subject to tax, or is exempt, on that income under the domestic law of the State of residence; in that event the other State may tax. Read against the Colombian exemption in article 206 of the Estatuto Tributario, the consequence is uncomfortable: the very relief that makes Colombia attractive is what restores Spain’s taxing right. This is a subject-to-tax clause, and there is no equivalent in the British Convention.

Related reading: Spanish tax residency and the 183-day rule; moving to Spain: tax, legal and immigration.

For Americans there is no convention at all, and no substitute for one

Negotiations between Washington and Bogotá have been mooted periodically for more than two decades without producing a ratified instrument. What exists is an information exchange framework, together with FATCA reporting, and that is routinely mistaken for treaty protection. It is nothing of the kind: an information exchange agreement tells each revenue authority what the other knows, and says nothing about who may tax what.

The consequences run deeper than a higher effective rate. A United States citizen remains taxable on worldwide income wherever resident, so acquiring Colombian tax residence does not close the American filing position. Where both States assert residence there is no tie-breaker article to resolve it and no mutual agreement procedure to invoke. Relief depends on the domestic foreign tax credit, which is constrained by the source and basket rules, and United States-source pension and social security income remains United States-source, with no treaty re-sourcing provision available to convert it. The foreign earned income exclusion does not assist either, since it reaches earned income only and leaves pensions, annuities and investment income untouched. This last point is the most persistent misconception among prospective American retirees. Those still working face a further exposure, as there is no totalisation agreement and contributions may fall due to two social security systems on the same earnings with no offset.

There is a final irony which is rarely drawn out. Colombia’s domestic exemption for pension income is nationality-neutral and available to Americans on the same terms as to anyone else. But where Colombia exempts the income there is no Colombian tax to credit, and the United States retains the whole of the charge. In economic terms the Colombian relief accrues to the benefit of the United States Treasury rather than to the retiree. 

The pattern is not two-sided but three-sided. For a British retiree the Convention removes the source charge and the Colombian exemption is retained. For a Spanish one, the Protocol provision means the exemption itself hands the charge back to Spain. For an American there is no allocation to begin with, and the relief accrues to the United States Treasury. Same domestic exemption, three different owners of the benefit.

Colombia Pensioner Visa 2026: Requirements and Costs

Under Resolución 5477 de 2022 of the Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, the Visa M Pensionado at article 77 requires proof of a lifetime pension of at least three times the Colombian minimum monthly wage. For 2026 that wage stands at COP 1,750,905, putting the threshold at approximately COP 5,252,715 a month, in the region of €1,460, £1,235 or US$1,640 at rates prevailing at the beginning of August 2026. The visa is granted for up to three years and is renewable while the pension is maintained.

Two cautions attach to those figures. The threshold is expressed in minimum wages rather than pesos, so it moves every year. More unusually, the 2026 increase of 23 per cent was itself challenged before the Consejo de Estado, the figure having been fixed transitionally by Decreto 0159 de 2026 pending judgment. Applicants should verify the operative amount at the date of application rather than relying on a published conversion.

For those retiring on investment income rather than a pension, the Visa M Inversionista at article 79 is available on the acquisition of real estate to a value of at least 350 minimum wages, currently around COP 613 million or approximately €170,000, supported by registration of the foreign investment with the Banco de la República. Time accumulated under either category can count towards a Visa R.

Becoming resident in Colombia

Colombian residence arises on presence exceeding 183 days, continuous or otherwise, within any period of 365 days, and where that period straddles two calendar years residence arises in the second. The threshold is not aligned to the calendar year, which is a frequent source of error among those who assume the Spanish or British model applies.

Residence brings worldwide income within the Colombian charge at marginal rates rising to 39 per cent, together with an annual declaration of assets held abroad where these exceed 2,000 UVT, approximately COP 105 million. Net equity of 72,000 UVT or more at 1 January, in the region of COP 3,771 million or roughly €1.05 million, brings exposure to the wealth tax, from the base of which a substantial portion of the principal dwelling may be excluded.

Set against those obligations, the pension treatment is genuinely favourable. Since Ley 2277 de 2022 amended article 206 of the Estatuto Tributario, the exemption in paragraph 5 extends expressly to pensions and old-age annuity income obtained abroad. The limit is 1,000 UVT for each monthly payment, confirmed by the DIAN as a monthly and not an annual measure in its Concepto No. 772 of 2024, equivalent to some COP 52 million a month or COP 628 million a year. Two qualifications should be noted. The exemption is conditioned on the taxpayer meeting the requirements for access to the pension, a condition drafted by reference to Ley 100 de 1993 and not always straightforward in its application to foreign schemes, and it operates within the general limits applicable to the cédula general.

Leaving the UK: Tax Considerations when Retiring to Colombia

For those retiring to Colombia from the UK, departure engages the Statutory Residence Test, and most retirees will look to split-year treatment under Case 3, on ceasing to have a home in the United Kingdom, rather than the work-related cases. The temporary non-residence rules then sit behind the departure for five years, so a return within that period may bring income and gains realised in the interim back into charge.

The point most often overlooked is inheritance tax. Following the move to a residence-based system from 6 April 2025, an individual who has been resident in the United Kingdom for at least ten of the previous twenty tax years remains within the scope of inheritance tax on worldwide assets for a period after departure, the length of that tail depending on the years of prior residence. Emigration does not sever the exposure on the day the flight departs, and Colombian assets acquired during the tail fall within it.

Leaving Spain

Spanish law admits no split year. An individual is resident or non-resident for the entire calendar year, which makes the timing of departure around the 183-day mark decisive. It also makes the doctrine of sporadic absences decisive, since days spent outside Spain will ordinarily be counted towards the Spanish total unless tax residence elsewhere is established by certificate. Anyone dividing time between Madrid and Bogotá during a transitional period should assume that the Agencia Tributaria will apply that doctrine, and should be in a position to produce a Colombian certificate of fiscal residence when asked.

Long-standing residents must also address the exit tax under article 95 bis LIRPF, which reaches shares and participations only, and only where the individual has been resident in ten of the last fifteen periods and the market value exceeds €4 million, or €1 million where the holding exceeds 25 per cent of the company. Retained Spanish property and any residual wealth or solidarity tax exposure fall to be considered alongside it.

The gap neither convention fills

Neither the British nor the Spanish Convention extends to estates, inheritances or gifts. Colombia does not levy an estate tax as such but taxes inheritances and legacies as occasional gains in the hands of the recipient, so an estate straddling the United Kingdom or Spain and Colombia may face a charge in both jurisdictions with no treaty relief. To that must be added the conflict of laws questions raised by Colombian forced heirship and by the interaction of the EU Succession Regulation with a habitual residence outside the Union. Wills should be reviewed before the move rather than after it.

Related reading: wills and trusts between the UK and Spain; Spanish probate for UK nationals; wills and inheritance in Spain for UK residents after Brexit.

Sequencing is the whole of the planning

Relocating to Colombia is, above all, a change of tax residence, and the outcome turns on decisions taken before departure rather than after arrival. When pension drawdown begins, and whether any tax-free lump sum is taken before or after the move, when appreciated assets are disposed of, when the 183-day threshold is crossed on each side, whether the year of departure can be split and where the estate will eventually be administered are not separate questions. The order in which those events fall can alter the overall result materially, and most of the useful options close once the move has taken place. The window that matters is the twelve months before the ticket is booked.

Where to check the primary sources

Frequently asked questions

Is there a double taxation treaty between the United Kingdom and Colombia?

Yes. The Convention was signed on 2 November 2016 and entered into force on 13 December 2019, taking effect in Colombia from 1 January 2020 and in the United Kingdom from 6 April 2020 for income tax and capital gains tax.

Is there a double taxation treaty between Spain and Colombia?

Yes. The Convention was signed in Bogotá on 31 March 2005 and entered into force on 23 October 2008, taking effect for Spanish income taxes from 1 January 2009. It covers taxes on capital as well as on income.

Is there a double taxation treaty between the United States and Colombia?

No. There is no income tax convention in force. An information exchange framework exists, and there is no social security totalisation agreement.

Will my UK pension be taxed in Colombia or in the United Kingdom?

Under the Convention, pensions are taxable only in the State of residence. A Colombian tax resident is therefore ordinarily taxed on the pension in Colombia, where the domestic exemption may apply, subject to securing the correct treatment from HMRC.

How much pension income is exempt in Colombia?

Up to 1,000 UVT for each monthly payment, which for 2026 is approximately COP 52 million a month. The exemption extends to pensions obtained abroad and is subject to conditions.

How long can I spend in Colombia before becoming tax resident?

More than 183 days, continuous or otherwise, in any 365-day period. Where that period straddles two calendar years, residence arises in the second.

About Del Canto Chambers

Del Canto Chambers first opened offices in Bogotá in 2019 and is now expanding that presence to handle larger relocations involving the United Kingdom, the United States and Spain. The practice advises private clients, family offices and instructing solicitors on cross-border tax residence, pension planning, asset structuring, immigration and succession across the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, the Gulf and Latin America, under a single counsel relationship rather than a chain of unconnected local advisers.

If retirement or investment in Colombia is under consideration, we can review the position in both jurisdictions and set out the sequencing before any step is taken.

This article is provided for general information only. It does not constitute legal or tax advice and should not be relied upon as such. Specific advice should be sought in relation to any particular set of circumstances. Peso figures are those applicable for 2026 and currency equivalents are approximate, calculated at rates prevailing in early August 2026.