Colombia · Residency by investment
M Visa — Real Estate Investor
Open
Last verified July 2026
Resolución 5477 of 2022 is still the rule in force. There was no 2025 visa reform replacing it, despite what many claim. Resolución 5488, also from 2022, deals with visa exemptions.
Put under USD 190,000 into property in Medellín or Bogotá, and you get a three-year renewable visa plus the start of a five-year clock. It is one of the cheapest property-backed residencies in the region. But the wealth tax means a UHNW family should probably never become tax resident here.
Qualifying routes
612.8M COP
Registered real estate purchase of 350 SMMLV
350 × SMMLV 1,750,905 works out to COP 612,816,750, or roughly USD 188,437 at TRM 3,252.11 on 15 July 2026. Because the threshold is a wage multiple, it moves every January.
The facts
- Minimum investment
- 612.8M COP
- Total landed cost
- About USD 190k in property, plus USD 3–8k in legal and visa fees.
- Route type
- Residency by investment
- Timeline
- 1–3 months (Once the investment is registered with the Banco de la República, Cancillería visa processing moves fast by regional standards.)
- Physical presence
- M visas lapse if you are continuously absent for more than six months.
- Family
- Spouse or permanent partnerChildren under 25Dependent parents
- Permanent residency
- An R visa becomes available after 5 accumulated years on M status. A mandatory 5-year traspaso applies.
- Citizenship
- Citizenship requires 5 years on an R visa, or just 2 years if you are married to, or the parent of, a Colombian.
- Language test
- The citizenship exam covers the Constitution, historia patria, geografía and castellano, plus a culture module added on 25 September 2023. Applicants over 60 are exempt.
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- Real estate worth at least 350 SMMLV, held in the applicant's own nameInvestment registered with the Banco de la RepúblicaA clean criminal recordHealth insurance valid in Colombia
What can go wrong
- THE TRAP: Ley 2277 art. 292-3 has exactly two parágrafos. Neither one contains the 5-year foreigner exclusion that existed under the old Ley 1943/2010. A foreign tax resident pays Colombian wealth tax on worldwide net assets from day one of residency, above roughly USD 1.16M. For an eight-figure family, that is 1.5% of everything, every year, starting in year one. This single fact disqualifies Colombia as a tax base for most UHNW clients. Visa agents almost never disclose it.
- Tax residency attaches after 183 days, whether continuous or not, within any 365-day window. If that window straddles two calendar years, you become resident from the second year (art. 10 ET). It is easy to trip into this without meaning to.
- All thresholds are denominated in SMMLV, and that figure is under active litigation. Decreto 1469/2025 was provisionally suspended by the Consejo de Estado on 12 February 2026 for violating art. 8 of Ley 278/1996. The government then re-fixed the same value by Decreto Transitorio 0159 of 19 February 2026, pending final judgment. Every figure here inherits that instability, and all of them reset each January.
- The investment must be registered as foreign investment with the Banco de la República. Purchases that are not registered do not qualify.
- 2025-26 was a turbulent stretch. The Ley de Financiamiento was archived on 9 December 2025, the government declared an economic emergency, and Decreto 1474/2025 cut the wealth tax threshold to 40,000 UVT with rates rising to 5%. The Constitutional Court then struck it down in Sentencia C-079/2026, retroactively, with DIAN refunds. The permanent Ley 2277 regime governs individuals in 2026, but the political appetite for taxing wealth is clear, and it keeps coming back.
- Colombia has no expatriation or deemed-disposal exit tax. It does, however, levy an impuesto de timbre por salida del país, a per-trip departure charge (Decreto 0625 of 19 June 2026). Do not confuse the two.