Steps are being taken towards enacting legal regulations on the tax treatment of crypto assets in Colombia. Tax Bill 283/2025C, which was filed before Congress on September 1 st.2025, includes a chapter on the Taxation of Digital Assets.
Simultaneously, Draft Bill 510, 2025 on the regulation of Virtual Asset Services Suppliers is pending discussion in Congress.
Currently, the basic guidelines regarding crypto assets are defined by a Unified Statement issued by the National Tax and Customs Directorate on October 26th. 2023
Although Statements by the tax authorities can be revised at any time, are only compulsory for tax officers while taxpayers are not required to support their practices on the official doctrine, these provide guidelines on how the tax authorities will treat the respective issues.
The Colombian Tax Code, ¹ on the other hand, qualifies, earnings arising from the exploitation of intangible assets within the country and those deriving from the transfer at any title, of intangible assets held within the country on the date of transfer, as Colombian source income.
Under the mentioned Statement, crypto assets are treated as intangible or incorporate assets which can be valued, which are part of the taxpayers´ s equity and which may generate income.’²
Doctrine holds that that even though intangible or digital assets do not have a specific geographic location, the economic exploitation within the country determines that these are deemed to be located withing in Colombia.³
The exploitation or economic use of crypto assets in Colombia is evidenced (i) when the crypto assets are exchanged for local or foreign currency, or (ii) when these are used as means of payment in kind for goods or services.
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¹ Section 24 of the Colombian Tax Code.
²Unified Statement October 26th.2023, Legal Management Division in the National Tax and Customs Directorate
³ Section 265 of the Colombian Tax Code establishes that intangible assets are deemed to be located within Colombia when these are located or exploited within the country.
To date, non-resident individuals and foreign companies or other foreign entities are required to pay Colombian taxes on any transactions of crypto assets involving exchanges of crypto assets or payments in kind for goods and services within the country.
The new Tax Bill defines digital assets as ´ Digital and intangible representations of – rights susceptible of being valued, which may be created, transferred and filed electronically on the basis of similar or equivalent Distributed Ledger technologies.´
This Bill includes a major change with regards to the tax treatment of Crypto Assets in Colombia as it determines that Crypto Assets are not deemed to be located within the country and that these do not generate Colombian source income, except when these represent an underlying asset that is located in the country.
This change implies that, should the Tax Bill be enacted, non-resident individuals and foreign companies or other foreign entities, would not be required to pay taxes on any transactions of crypto assets within the country.
The proposal by the new Tax Bill is confusing, as the purpose of the new tax reform is specifically defined as the need to fund the General Budget, to reduce tax expense and to balance the public finances.
On the other hand, treating income from the transference of digital assets as foreign source income contradicts the regulations on taxation of enterprises with Significant Presence in Colombia which are regulated in the same Tax Bill, and the adoption by our Government of the measures proposed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD regarding the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework ,CARF, to which our Government has recently adhered.
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