Stablecoin regulation in Colombia, as of November 1, 2026, is a set of crypto-asset rules, not a stablecoin law. Crypto-assets, the category that covers stablecoins, are not legal tender, foreign currency or a security. Businesses answer to anti-money-laundering reporting to the UIAF (the financial intelligence unit), crypto reporting to the DIAN (the tax authority) and the limits of the peso rails.
Brazil has a dedicated framework and Mexico reaches the activity through the CNBV regime. Argentina is closer to Colombia in method, regulating the service provider through an anti-money-laundering statute.
Is there a stablecoin law in Colombia?
No. No statute in the texts read defines, licenses or supervises stablecoins or the businesses that handle them. A bill to create one reached a second-debate report in the House in June 2025 and, as far as the texts show, never became law. What exists instead is a set of positions and reporting rules, each from a different authority.
What each layer of Colombian rules says about stablecoins, as checked on November 1, 2026.
Layer | Status | Source |
Stablecoin or crypto statute | None in force found. Bill 510 of 2025 (House) did not become law | Gaceta del Congreso 1070 of June 18, 2025 |
Legal tender | The peso only. Crypto-assets are not money for legal purposes and nobody has to accept them | Banco de la República concept C21-61341, June 16, 2021 |
Foreign currency | Not a divisa for the exchange regime | Banco de la República concept C21-61341 |
Security | Not a valor under Law 964 of 2005 | Banco de la República concept C21-61341 |
Prudential supervision | Entities the Superintendencia Financiera supervises were not authorized to custody, invest in, intermediate or operate with virtual currencies | Superintendencia Financiera Carta Circular 78 of 2016 |
Anti-money-laundering | Reporting duty on providers of virtual asset services, any amount | UIAF Resolution 314 of 2021 |
Tax reporting | Crypto-asset reporting by providers under the OECD standard (CARF) | DIAN Resolution 000240 of December 24, 2025 |
None of these texts singles out stablecoins. They speak of crypto-assets and virtual assets, and the archived bill's explanatory text lists stablecoins among the tokens that the term groups together.
Lumx runs the Colombian peso leg through the sponsored program of a banking partner, so the account that holds pesos sits under that partner's licence. A customer based in Colombia goes through Enhanced Due Diligence, per the supported countries tiers in the docs.
How Colombia classifies a stablecoin
Colombian authorities classify crypto-assets by listing what they are not. The clearest statement is a Banco de la República concept of June 16, 2021, which summarizes a working group of the Banco, the Superintendencia Financiera, the Superintendencia de Sociedades, the URF (the financial regulation unit), the DIAN and the UIAF. Crypto-assets are not currency, because the only legal tender is the peso. They are not money for legal purposes, not a foreign currency, not cash or a cash equivalent, and not a security under Law 964 of 2005. Nobody has to accept them as payment.
The DIAN took a similar line in Concept 5146, dated March 31, 2026 and published on April 10, 2026. There is no legal definition of crypto-asset for tax purposes, so the general rules of the Estatuto Tributario apply and the asset is an intangible.
What UIAF Resolution 314 of 2021 requires
The anti-money-laundering rule is the one that reaches most businesses in this space. UIAF Resolution 314, signed on December 15, 2021 and published in the Diario Oficial 51.898 on December 24, 2021, imposes a reporting duty on companies and individuals that provide virtual asset services in Colombia. Its preamble says these operations are not illegal in themselves.
The duty attaches to the activity, whatever the amount. Article 1 covers anyone who does, for or on behalf of another person, one or more of these: exchanging virtual assets for fiat currency, exchanging one virtual asset for another, transferring them, holding or administering them, financial services tied to an issuer's offer or sale, and services related to virtual assets in general. The category is the VASP (virtual asset service provider, the FATF term), and what it covers is worth reading before deciding whether a business is inside it.
A covered provider files four kinds of report through the UIAF's online system, SIREL. The thresholds below are those in Resolution 314 as published in the Diario Oficial; Resolution 84 of 2022 may amend them, so check the UIAF's reporting utilities before relying on them.
Suspicious transaction reports, sent as soon as detected.
A monthly statement that none were found, within the first 20 calendar days of the next month.
A monthly report of transactions: individual ones of USD 150 or more, and multiple ones that together reach USD 450.
A monthly report of every customer, active or not.
Reporting started on April 1, 2022, and article 11 sends sanctions to the Superintendencia de Sociedades or the relevant supervisor.
A company that only pays its own suppliers with a stablecoin is not doing these things for others. One that moves, converts or holds stablecoins for its own customers is.
On Lumx, KYB (know your business, the verification of a company and its owners) collects the company's documents, its owners and a representative before a customer can transact, and the business questionnaire asks whether the company carries out a regulated activity. Companies that are themselves virtual asset providers are accepted with disclosure, Enhanced Due Diligence and ongoing monitoring. In Lumx's Colombian peso flows, the UIAF reports are filed by the banking partner. A transaction that Lumx's monitoring flags is held until the customer answers an RFI (request for information, a compliance hold that asks for a document before a transaction clears), and with no answer within 24 hours it may be refunded to the sender.
What the exchange regime says about crypto flows
The Banco de la República runs the exchange regime, and its position has held for a decade. In a 2014 press release that the Superintendencia Financiera quoted in 2016, it said bitcoin is not a currency in Colombia and cannot pay the operations the regime covers, because it is not a divisa backed by a central bank. The 2021 concept repeats that crypto-assets are not recognized as divisas, and adds that the entities authorized to deal in foreign exchange were not authorized to issue or sell them.
That does not make holding or sending stablecoins illegal. It means a stablecoin transfer is not itself an exchange operation under the regime. The texts read contain no exchange-declaration rule aimed at stablecoins, so the general regime applies, and whether a particular cross-border arrangement needs a declaration is a question for counsel admitted in Colombia. They do not mention the FATF travel rule, and no dedicated authorization regime for crypto exchanges appears in them: exchanges fall under the Resolution 314 reporting duty.
The first rail's cap is set separately, and it binds every provider alike.
The two Colombian peso rails a stablecoin payout can end on.
Rail | What it does | Limit on one payment | Set by |
Bre-B | Pays to a registered key | 1,000 UVB, about COP 12.1 million in 2026 | Banco de la República, Circular Reglamentaria Externa DSP-465, Asunto 18, numeral 3.2 |
ACH Colombia | Pays to account details | No Banco de la República per-payment cap found; banks and providers set their own limits | Banks and providers |
The cap comes from the sheet of March 31, 2026 of that circular. It is a rule of the network, so no provider can offer a way around it, and an invoice above it goes over ACH Colombia. The mechanics are in the guide to sending USDC to Colombia.
On Lumx, a COP destination is registered with its rail already chosen, Bre-B (Colombia's instant payment system) with the recipient's key or ACH Colombia with bank account details, and every payout to it goes out on that rail. On Lumx, ACH Colombia has no per-payment limit. A Bre-B payout above the cap is rejected, never split and never moved to another rail (the Bre-B cap in context). PSE (Colombia's online bank-transfer network) only collects, because the payer authorizes a debit. A COP account can also collect by Bre-B key.
How stablecoin holdings are taxed and reported
Two DIAN instruments do different jobs. Concept 5146 says what the tax rules are: the general Estatuto Tributario applies, an intangible is valued under article 267, an invoice is required for an economic operation involving crypto-assets under articles 615 and following, and article 651 sanctions anyone who fails to report, or reports wrongly or late.
Resolution 000240, issued on December 24, 2025, says who reports. It adds Chapter 11, on exchange of information by crypto-asset service providers, to the single DIAN resolution 227 of September 23, 2025. It rests on article 631-4 of the Estatuto Tributario and on the multilateral agreement for automatic exchange under the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), which Colombia signed on October 31, 2024. The DIAN's training notice of May 6, 2026 confirms that providers must report user information under that standard. The operative articles were not read, so the reporting dates are not given here; the DIAN notice says the providers' training covered the technical specifications and deadlines.
No stablecoin-specific rate or income rule was found in the texts read, so the general Estatuto Tributario rules apply to gains and income. What a company should do: keep an invoice for each crypto-asset operation, value holdings as intangibles, and ask its provider whether it reports under CARF.
What is pending in Congress
The bill that mattered was Bill 510 of 2025 of the House, regulating virtual asset service providers. It was filed on February 25, 2025 and published in Gaceta 206 of 2025. It passed first debate in the Sixth Commission on May 14, 2025, and its second-debate report of June 12, 2025 is in Gaceta 1070 of June 18, 2025. It aimed at user protection and alignment with the international anti-money-laundering standard, and it did not make crypto-assets legal tender.
No text read shows it becoming law, and press reports say it was archived under article 190 of Law 5 of 1992, which the House's own tracking page should confirm before anyone relies on it. Treat claims that a new framework is about to be adopted with caution.
I would ask every provider two questions before looking at price: which entity holds the pesos in Colombia, and which entity files the reports for the stablecoin leg. A provider that can answer only one has told you something about its structure, and the other half is where a payment gets held or returned. I would also keep the answers in writing, because in a market with no stablecoin statute the paper trail is the only regime a company can show to its own bank.
When a stablecoin leg is the wrong tool for Colombia
It is the wrong tool when the counterparty has to receive a regulated instrument. Nobody in Colombia must accept a stablecoin, so a supplier or employee who has not agreed to one should be paid in pesos.
It is also the wrong tool when a balance has to sit under a custody or insolvency regime. The texts read set no custody, reserve or insolvency rule for a stablecoin balance, and Carta Circular 78 of 2016 kept supervised entities away from virtual currencies. A company that needs one should hold the money in a bank until the moment of payment.
And it is the wrong tool for a one-off small payment, because verifying a sender and a destination has a setup cost that a bank wire can beat.
What this looks like on a Colombian payment with Lumx
Lumx is stablecoin payments infrastructure for businesses that move money between Latin America and the rest of the world: one API to collect, hold, convert, and pay out in BRL, MXN, COP, USD, EUR, and GBP or in USDC and USDT, over local rails such as PIX, SPEI, PSE, Bre-B, ACH, FEDWIRE, SEPA, and Faster Payments, with SWIFT and on-behalf-of payments and collections (POBO and COBO) in USD, EUR, and GBP, plus named virtual accounts, custodial wallets, and KYB/KYC built in.
For Colombia, that comes down to facts a legal team can check. COP collection runs by Bre-B or PSE, and payout by Bre-B or ACH Colombia, chosen per destination. A COP account is available to any customer and is active once the customer is approved. It is named in the customer's own name when the customer is Colombian, and for others the holder shown is the banking partner, because the peso leg runs under that partner's sponsored program and licence. A COP deposit converts to a stablecoin on arrival, and a withdrawal larger than the wallet balance fails with an insufficient balance error. The Bre-B cap is the Banco de la República's and binds every provider, and Lumx sets no per-payment limit on ACH Colombia.
Every on-ramp and off-ramp request carries a purpose code, the end-use category of the funds, which Lumx uses for AML monitoring and regulatory reporting, and a mismatch can hold a transaction or trigger an RFI. The dollar leg and the peso leg are explained in what a stablecoin corridor is. Live rates are on the USDC to COP and USDT to COP pages, rails are on the coverage page, and the legs of a cross-border flow are in the operator map. Where onboarding is possible is on the supported countries page.
Methodology and sources
Read in full on November 1, 2026, in copies that serve the text: UIAF Resolution 314 (Diario Oficial edition), Banco de la República concept C21-61341, DIAN Concept 5146, Carta Circular 78 of 2016 and Gaceta 1070 of 2025. Read in part: DIAN Resolution 000240, only to its preamble, because the PDF is an image; its effect comes from the DIAN notice of May 6, 2026.
Not read: UIAF Resolution 84 of 2022 (an image-only PDF), the Bre-B circular DSP-465 (the Banco de la República site blocks automated requests, so it is cited by name, number and date, without a link), and the House's tracking page for Bill 510, whose status rests on press reports.
Product behavior was read on docs.lumx.io on November 1, 2026, and the COP rails were confirmed by Lumx.
Verified on November 1, 2026. Operational context, not legal, tax, or investment advice. UIAF Resolution 314 of 2021 checked against uiaf.gov.co on November 1, 2026. Banco de la República concept C21-61341 of June 16, 2021 checked against normograma.dian.gov.co on November 1, 2026. DIAN Concept 5146 of 2026 checked against normograma.dian.gov.co on November 1, 2026. DIAN Resolution 000240 of 2025 checked against cijuf.org.co and the DIAN notice of May 6, 2026 on November 1, 2026. Superintendencia Financiera Carta Circular 78 of 2016 checked against normograma.com on November 1, 2026. Bill 510 of 2025 (House), Gaceta del Congreso 1070 of June 18, 2025, checked against apicongresovisible.uniandes.edu.co on November 1, 2026. Circular Reglamentaria Externa DSP-465 of the Banco de la República (Asunto 18, numeral 3.2) cited by name, number and date; the banrep.gov.co site blocks automated requests.
What is the stablecoin regulation in Colombia?
Colombia has no stablecoin law. Stablecoins are treated as crypto-assets, which the Banco de la República's 2021 concept says are not legal tender, not foreign currency and not a security. What applies is UIAF Resolution 314 of 2021 on anti-money-laundering reporting and DIAN Resolution 000240 of 2025 on crypto reporting. Lumx runs KYB on every business customer and applies Enhanced Due Diligence to customers based in Colombia.
Are stablecoins legal in Colombia?
Holding and using them is not prohibited, and the UIAF's own preamble says these operations are not illegal in themselves. They are not legal tender, so nobody has to accept them. Lumx pays the recipient in Colombian pesos over Bre-B or ACH Colombia, so the person receiving never has to take a stablecoin.
Does a company need a license to pay people in Colombia with stablecoins?
No Colombian licensing regime for the activity was found in the texts read, and a company that pays its own suppliers is not providing a service for others. A company that moves or converts stablecoins for its own customers falls under the UIAF's reporting duty, and crypto exchanges fall under it too. Lumx asks every business customer whether it carries out a regulated activity, and accepts customers that are themselves virtual asset providers with disclosure and Enhanced Due Diligence.
How are stablecoins taxed and reported in Colombia?
The DIAN says there is no tax definition of crypto-asset, so the general Estatuto Tributario rules apply and the asset is an intangible; no stablecoin-specific rate was found. Providers must also report user information under the OECD standard, per the DIAN's notice of May 6, 2026. Every Lumx on-ramp and off-ramp request takes a purpose code that Lumx uses for AML monitoring and regulatory reporting. It is not a tax filing and does not discharge any DIAN duty.
Is a stablecoin law coming to Colombia?
Not yet. Bill 510 of 2025 passed first debate in May 2025 and did not become law; press reports say it was archived, so a new bill would have to start again. Lumx's COP payouts do not wait on it: the rails and the Bre-B cap are set by the Banco de la República and the banks.
