Colombia: crypto and stablecoin regulation (as of 1 November 2026)

As of 2026-11-01

Status: not regulated, and no licensing regime for crypto-asset services was found in the sources this page uses; no statute or circular of the Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia (SFC) regulating virtual asset service providers or stablecoins was found in force in those sources, and in its concept of 18 December 2020 the SFC says the rules give it no function to oversee operations or transactions carried out with crypto-assets (SFC). The same concept says the special financial, insurance and securities rules do not authorise SFC-supervised entities to invest in, custody, intermediate or operate with crypto-assets, and that the laArenera pilot cannot be read as an authorisation. For tax purposes, the tax authority (Dirección de Impuestos y Aduanas Nacionales, DIAN) says in its unified concept of 17 October 2023 that cryptocurrencies are treated as assets, by nature intangible assets; this is tax doctrine, not a law (DIAN). In a concept of 11 May 2022 answering one query, the Board secretariat of the central bank (Banco de la República, BanRep) said that Colombia then had no regulatory classification or legal framework for crypto-assets (BanRep). No stablecoin-specific rule for Colombia was found in the sources this page uses.

This page states what the official sources say. It is not legal advice.

Status as of 1 November 2026

Key rules

• No SFC oversight of crypto-asset transactions. The SFC says the rules give it no function to oversee operations or transactions carried out with crypto-assets. (SFC)
• Supervised entities. The SFC states that the special rules regulating financial, insurance and securities activities do not authorise SFC-supervised entities to invest in, custody, intermediate or operate with crypto-assets. (SFC)
• Legal nature. The SFC concept records that Colombian authorities concluded that crypto-assets are not money, since the only legal tender is the peso issued by the Banco de la República; that they are not money for legal purposes, not a foreign currency, and not cash or cash equivalents; and that nobody is obliged to accept them as payment. (SFC)
• Authorities, per the central bank (2022): not money. BanRep reports that analyses by BanRep, the SFC, the Superintendencia de Sociedades, the Unidad de Regulación Financiera (URF), DIAN, the Unidad de Información y Análisis Financiero (UIAF) and the Consejo Técnico de la Contaduría Pública (CTCP) concluded that crypto-assets are not money, because the only legal-tender unit in Colombia is the peso issued by BanRep, and that there is no obligation to accept them as payment. (BanRep)
• Central bank (2022): not foreign currency. BanRep says crypto-assets have not been recognised as foreign currency (divisas) by the Colombian exchange regime, because they lack the backing or participation of central banks, and that financial and securities-market entities acting as exchange-market intermediaries have not been authorised, in that capacity, to issue or sell Bitcoin. (BanRep)
• The pilot is not an authorisation. The SFC says the pilot does not change the regulatory framework or the allocation of responsibilities for information and risk management in crypto-asset transactions, and cannot be read as an authorisation for the financial system to use public savings for such operations. (SFC)
• Tax: cryptocurrencies are intangible assets. For tax purposes, DIAN says cryptocurrencies are not legally recognised money in Colombia and lack unlimited legal-tender power, so they are treated as assets, by nature intangible assets. (DIAN)
• Tax: holdings go in the income-tax return. DIAN says Colombian tax residents must report the crypto-assets they hold on 31 December of each tax year in their income-tax return, under the applicable asset valuation rules. (DIAN)
• Tax: no income until disposal. DIAN says a rise in the market price of crypto-assets is not taxable income until they are disposed of (enajenación). (DIAN)
• Tax: transfers between own wallets. DIAN says moving crypto-assets between wallets of the same holder is, as a rule, not subject to income tax, unless the transaction changes the type of crypto-asset and produces income. (DIAN)
• Tax: no VAT on sale. DIAN says the sale (enajenación) of crypto-assets is not subject to VAT, provided the asset is not associated with industrial property. (DIAN)
• No register. No SFC register of virtual asset service providers was found on superfinanciera.gov.co. (SFC)

Timeline

Not covered here

The BanRep rows rest on one Board secretariat concept of 11 May 2022, an answer to one query, not a rule; it was read from an archived copy of 10 February 2026, because the live BanRep website could not be read for this page. The DIAN rows are tax doctrine: they do not make crypto-assets legal tender or a regulated activity. No draft rule or bill on crypto-assets is described here: none could be confirmed from an official page. No stablecoin-specific rule was found in the sources this page uses.

Sources

• https://www.superfinanciera.gov.co/publicaciones/10106486/
• https://www.superfinanciera.gov.co/publicaciones/10115974/circulares-externas-2026/
• https://www.superfinanciera.gov.co/publicaciones/10082380/normativaproyectos-de-normatividadproyectos-de-norma-10082380/
• https://normograma.dian.gov.co/dian/compilacion/docs/oficio_dian_18075_2023.htm
• https://www.banrep.gov.co/es/banco/junta-directiva/conceptos/c22-73868q22-5117

Updated: 2026-11-05 · Markdown version

Cite as: Colombia: crypto and stablecoin regulation, achivx.org, https://achivx.org/regulation/colombia/, as of 2026-11-01, CC BY 4.0