Before you start

A passport valid at least six months with two blank pages, from a country that does not need a short-stay visa for Colombia (mandatory for the digital-nomad visa)
Proof of means for your class: three months of bank statements (digital nomad), a pension certificate (pensionado), an employer letter (work), or registered investment documentation (investor)
Foreign civil and criminal documents apostilled in the issuing country, then translated by a Colombian traductor oficial
All-risk health insurance valid in Colombia for the whole visa period, expressly including medical repatriation

Step-by-step

1
Choose the class with the end state in mind
V covers short-to-medium stays including the Visa V de Nómadas Digitales — up to two years, renewable, no Colombian-source work and no residency accrual whatsoever. M covers work, marriage, pensionado and investment and is the only class whose time counts toward permanent residency. R is the permanent tier. In Cartagena the two most common routes are pensionado and property investment; the digital-nomad visa is the convenient one and the one that leads nowhere.
OnlineWho: ApplicantBefore travelling, or in the first weeks on a tourist stamp
2
Apostille first, translate second
Police certificates and civil documents must be apostilled in the issuing country before a Colombian traductor oficial touches them — doing it the other way round means paying twice. Cartagena has a modest pool of official translators, so start early and confirm the translator is on the Cancillería's recognised list. Budget one to three weeks.
In personWho: Applicant, with an apostille authority and a traductor oficial1–3 weeksRoughly US$100–300 for apostilles and translation
3
Apply and pay through the Cancillería visa portal
Create an account, complete the form, upload documents and pay the non-refundable study fee. The published decision window is thirty days, and officers routinely request further documents mid-review, which resets the practical clock. Approval arrives as a PDF; you then pay the issuance fee. The whole process is done from Cartagena without travelling to Bogotá.
OnlineWho: ApplicantDecision within a published 30-day windowStudy fee ~US$55; digital-nomad issuance ~US$180; M and R issuance roughly US$230–400
4
Register with Migración Colombia within fifteen calendar days
Any visa valid more than three months must be registered within fifteen calendar days of issuance, or of entry if issued abroad. Complete the online form, pay, book an appointment and attend Cartagena's Centro Facilitador de Servicios Migratorios for fingerprints and photograph. You leave with a paper contraseña and the polymer cédula follows. Book the moment the visa lands — Cartagena's slots thin out sharply in high season.
Mobile appWho: Applicant, with Migración ColombiaWithin 15 calendar days; card in roughly 3–10 business daysAround COP 294,000 (~US$70–80); confirm the current figure, it is re-set annually
5
If you are buying property, do the currency paperwork before the visa paperwork
The investment route to an M visa requires the investment to be real, documented and made through Colombia's formal exchange market, with the inbound foreign currency declared and registered with the Banco de la República by the intermediary bank. The investment thresholds are expressed in multiples of the monthly minimum wage, which is re-decreed every January, so confirm the current multiple with the Cancillería rather than relying on a figure from an older guide.
In personWho: Applicant, with a Colombian bank as exchange-market intermediary and a notaryAlongside the purchase; before the visa application
6
Carry the cédula and keep it in step with the visa
The cédula's validity follows the visa behind it, so a lapsed visa silently breaks your bank account, EPS affiliation and phone contract. Carry the card rather than the passport — it is the document Colombian institutions expect at a bank counter, a notary or a police check, and in a tourist city the police do check.
In personWho: ApplicantOngoing; renew with each visa

Documents you’ll need

Passport (6+ months, two blank pages) and a 3×4 cm white-background photograph
Three months of bank statements, a pension certificate, an employer letter or registered investment documents, depending on class
Apostilled and officially translated criminal record, plus marriage or birth certificates for family routes
All-risk health insurance covering Colombia for the visa period, including repatriation
For an investor visa: the escritura pública, the certificado de tradición y libertad and the Banco de la República foreign-investment registration

Things most newcomers don’t know

If you buy property here, the foreign currency must come in through the formal exchange market and be registered as foreign investment with the Banco de la República — otherwise repatriating the proceeds later is a genuine problem.

Cartagena attracts buyers who wire money informally or bring it through a friend's account because it is faster. Colombia's exchange regime treats registered foreign investment as the basis for lawfully sending capital and gains back out, and it is also the evidence an investor visa rests on. Unwinding an unregistered purchase years later is expensive and sometimes impossible.

Source: Banco de la República foreign-exchange regime; Colombian investment-visa requirements

The digital-nomad income bar is three times the Colombian minimum wage, and the minimum wage rose 23% for 2026 to COP 1,750,905 a month — pushing the requirement to roughly COP 5.25M (about US$1,300–1,400) monthly.

The threshold is pegged to the decreed minimum wage rather than fixed in pesos, so it moves every January and the 2026 increase was unusually large — three times COP 1,750,905 is COP 5,252,715. It is also unsettled: the Consejo de Estado provisionally suspended the original decree in February 2026 and the figure now rests on a transitional decree pending a final ruling. Check the current SMMLV before assembling statements rather than trusting any printed figure.

Source: Decreto 1469 de 2025 (suspended February 2026) and the transitional Decreto 0159 de 2026; Cancillería, Visa V Nómadas Digitales

Each of the last three months must clear the income bar on its own — the Cancillería reads statements month by month rather than averaging them.

Consultants with lumpy billing fail on a perfectly healthy annual income because one thin month sits inside the window. Invoices and contracts are supporting evidence; what counts is money actually landing every month. If your billing is irregular, smooth deposits for a quarter before applying.

Source: Cancillería visa portal guidance (2026)

Time on the digital-nomad visa builds nothing toward residency. Only continuous years on M (Migrante) visas count toward the R visa.

Cartagena is easy to drift in, and a comfortable stretch of renewed V visas leaves you exactly where you started. Five continuous years on M qualifies for R, about three via a Colombian spouse, and a parent of a Colombian by birth can often apply directly. If permanence is possible, start the M route early because the clock does not run retroactively.

Source: Cancillería — classes and categories of visas

Common mistakes to avoid

Living long-term on the tourist stamp without realising the 180 days are cumulative across the calendar year rather than per entry.
Missing the fifteen-calendar-day Migración Colombia registration window, which exposes you to a fine measured in monthly minimum wages.
Buying property with money wired outside the formal exchange market, which breaks both the investor visa and later repatriation.
Choosing the digital-nomad visa for convenience and only later discovering that none of that time counts toward residency.
Having documents translated before they are apostilled, which means paying for both a second time.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.