Is crypto legal in Colombia? Rules & regulation (2026)

Colombia's tax authority (DIAN) issued Resolution 000240 requiring all domestic and foreign crypto asset service providers (PSCAs) to collect and submit user identification, transaction volumes, unit counts, and net balances to DIAN starting with the 2026 tax year, aligned with the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF). Penalties run 0.5%, 1% of unreported transaction values, with first large-scale reports due May 2027.

The Petro government submitted Tax Bill 283/2025C to Congress, including a dedicated chapter formally codifying the taxation of digital assets, the first time a Colombian legislative proposal has addressed crypto tax rates and mechanisms directly, complementing the parallel VASP regulation bill still in committee.

After years of theoretical research begun in 2018, Colombia's central bank published a comprehensive CBDC assessment concluding that a digital peso would have a 'null and insignificant' macroeconomic impact and that there are currently insufficient reasons to proceed, effectively shelving near-term issuance despite earlier Finance Ministry signals of interest.

A comprehensive 19-article draft law establishing supervision of Virtual Asset Service Providers (PSAVs) cleared its first committee debate in Congress, covering SFC oversight, AML/CTF obligations, consumer protection, and blockchain-sector support; the bill was renumbered 510/2025 for the following session and remained pending full passage as of November 2025.

Colombia's DIAN consolidated a decade of doctrinal opinions into a single binding unified concept, confirming that crypto assets are intangible assets subject to income tax and patrimony declarations, establishing valuation rules, and clarifying treatment of mining, staking, and exchange gains, the definitive tax framework prior to any specific law.

The national government issued Decree 1297, formally establishing the Registry of Virtual Asset Service Providers (PSAV) administered by the Superintendencia Financiera, setting minimum-capital requirements, mandatory AML compliance programs, and administrator background checks for all exchanges, custodians, and crypto payment firms, making registration a prerequisite for lawful operation.

Drawing on two years of sandbox data, the Superintendencia Financiera released a draft external circular for public consultation defining how supervised banks may form alliances with crypto exchanges, setting customer due-diligence standards, product-scope limits, and consumer-disclosure requirements, marking the first attempt to convert pilot learnings into binding supervisory rules.

Colombia's financial intelligence unit (UIAF) issued Resolution 314, requiring any individual or entity that exchanges, custodies, or intermediates virtual assets, for itself or third parties, to report transactions exceeding approximately USD 150 (individual) or USD 450 (aggregate) to UIAF; non-compliance carries fines of 100-400 minimum monthly wages, making this Colombia's first binding AML instrument specifically targeting crypto.

The Superintendencia Financiera approved nine partnerships between Colombian banks and crypto exchanges, including Bancolombia-Gemini, Davivienda-Binance, and Banco de Bogotá, Buda/Bitso, to test regulated fiat on/off-ramps inside its LaArenera regulatory sandbox; the two-year program generated the empirical basis for subsequent PSAV registry rules and SFC supervisory circulars.

In an official ruling, DIAN classified cryptocurrencies as 'bienes inmateriales' (intangible assets), not money, currency, or securities, and confirmed they must be declared in income tax and wealth tax returns, with capital gains rules applying to disposals; this opinion anchored Colombia's fiscal treatment for years before the 2023 unified concept.

The Superintendencia Financiera issued Circular 52, formally declaring that bitcoin does not constitute legal tender and reaffirming that all supervised institutions are expressly prohibited from protecting, investing in, brokering, or managing virtual-money operations, tightening the 2014 framework while renewing public risk warnings.

The Superintendencia Financiera issued Circular 29 prohibiting all supervised financial institutions from holding, investing in, or intermediating with digital currencies and warning the public about the unregulated risks of instruments such as Bitcoin; stopping short of an outright national ban, this measure set the tone for a decade of regulatory caution and is the starting point of Colombia's crypto policy framework.