If you're American or Canadian and living — or investing — in Colombia, you're filing in two systems at once. We handle the Colombian side directly, coordinate the home side with your CPA, and put both on one compliance calendar with a written fixed fee.
Most countries stop taxing you when you leave. The United States does not — and the treaty picture between your home country and Colombia decides how much room you have to work with.
The US taxes its citizens on worldwide income no matter where they live — citizenship-based taxation. And the United States has no income-tax treaty with Colombia. There is no treaty shield to fall back on; double taxation gets managed through the mechanics of US law itself: foreign tax credits on Form 1116, the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion on Form 2555, and timing your Colombian tax payments so the credits land in the right US tax year. That mechanical work only functions when the Colombian and US filings are built from the same numbers — which is exactly what this desk exists to do.
Canada taxes on the basis of residency rather than citizenship, and — unlike the US — Canada does have an income-tax treaty with Colombia, in force since 2012. The treaty includes tie-breaker rules for people who count as tax residents of both countries in the same year, which makes the transition year and dual-residency situations far more workable. The job on the Canadian side is establishing your residency position cleanly and making sure Colombian tax paid is properly recognized at home.
Moving to Colombia does not switch off home-country information reporting. These are the filings that most often get missed — and the penalties for missing them are out of proportion to the effort of filing them.
US persons whose non-US financial accounts — including Colombian bank and brokerage accounts — exceed USD $10,000 in aggregate at any point during the year file FinCEN Form 114. It's an information filing, not a tax bill, but the penalties for skipping it are severe.
Separate from the FBAR, FATCA's Form 8938 is filed with your US return when foreign financial assets cross its thresholds — which vary by filing status and by whether you live abroad. Many expats owe both filings for the same accounts.
Under the FATCA intergovernmental agreement, Colombian banks identify and report US account holders. Assume the IRS can see your Colombian accounts — the safe posture is filings that match what the bank reports.
Canadian residents holding specified foreign property with a total cost above CAD $100,000 file the T1135 foreign income verification statement. Colombian property and investment holdings can put you over that line faster than you'd expect.
An honest boundary: Maia does not prepare or file US or Canadian tax returns. We handle the Colombian side directly and coordinate with your home-country CPA — shared numbers, aligned deadlines, nothing declared twice and nothing missed. If you don't have a CPA who works with expats, we can point you to the ones our clients already use.
This is the half of your cross-border file we own outright — prepared, filed, and defended by licensed Colombian practitioners.
Everything starts with the residency question. Colombia treats you as a tax resident once you're present for more than 183 days within any rolling 365-day window — not the calendar year. Days from December and days from the following March can combine to cross the threshold, which is why people who "split the year" on purpose still get caught. We run the day count against your actual entry and exit stamps before anything else gets decided.
Once you're resident, you declare worldwide income to DIAN on Form 210, and if your foreign-held assets exceed 2,000 UVT (≈ COP 104.7 million in 2026), you also file Form 160, the foreign-asset declaration. We check every client against the wealth tax threshold too — 72,000 UVT (≈ COP 3,771 million) in net equity — because US and Canadian clients with home-country real estate and retirement accounts cross it more often than they think.
Immigration status and tax status move together, so the desk also runs visa strategy. For remote workers, the digital nomad visa requires proven foreign income of 3 SMLMV — roughly US$1,530 per month in 2026. We map the visa route against the residency clock so you know, before you commit, what each option does to your DIAN position.
Owner-operators ask this on the first call, and the honest answer is that the right structure follows from where your clients are, where you are, and what each country's rules do to the other's.
If your clients and billing stay in the US, keeping the LLC is often the simpler path — but once you're a Colombian tax resident, its income lands in your Form 210, and Colombia may look through the entity differently than the IRS does. The two treatments need to be reconciled deliberately, not discovered at filing time.
A Colombian S.A.S. can be 100% foreign-owned — no local partner required — and gives you local invoicing, hiring, and banking. If you capitalize it from abroad, the investment gets registered with Banco de la República on Form 11, which is what preserves your right to repatriate profits and capital later at the official exchange rate. Skipping that registration is the most expensive shortcut in Colombian company formation.
A Colombian company owned by a US person can trigger US anti-deferral regimes — the CFC and GILTI rules — that tax the company's profits on your personal US return even if you never distribute them. This is exactly the kind of decision we flag as "coordinate with your US CPA before you sign": we model the Colombian side, your CPA models the US side, and you choose with both numbers on the table.
You will know what we're doing, what it costs, and when each filing is due — before you pay anything.
Tell us your citizenship, how long you've been in Colombia (or plan to be), and what you own where. Fifteen minutes, free, with a licensed practitioner — not a sales call.
Within one business day you get a written scope of exactly which filings and analyses we'll handle, with a fixed fee for each. No hourly meters, no surprises at invoice time.
We put your Colombian deadlines and your home filing season on one calendar, file the Colombian side, and hand your CPA a clean package when their season opens.
Each one takes a few minutes and tells you whether you actually need the desk — or whether you're fine on your own.
Which V, M, or R visa route fits your situation, with processing times and document lists.
Open tool →End-to-end cost of a Colombian visa or residency: fees, apostilles, translations, set-up.
Open tool →183-day calculator, Form 160 vs 210 selector, and the wealth-tax threshold flag.
Open tool →The full set — including the S.A.S. cost calculator and the bilingual contract builder.
See all tools →No. The United States has no income-tax treaty with Colombia. Double taxation is managed through the mechanics of US law instead: foreign tax credits on Form 1116, the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion on Form 2555, and careful timing of Colombian tax payments so credits land in the right US tax year. That makes coordination between your Colombian accountant and your US CPA the whole game.
Yes. The Canada–Colombia income tax treaty has been in force since 2012. It includes tie-breaker rules for people who qualify as tax residents of both countries at once, which makes dual-residency years far more manageable for Canadians than for Americans.
Yes, if you are a US person and the combined value of your non-US financial accounts — including Colombian bank and brokerage accounts — exceeds USD $10,000 at any point in the year, you file FinCEN Form 114 (the FBAR). FATCA Form 8938 has its own separate thresholds and is filed with your US return. Colombian banks also report US account holders under the FATCA intergovernmental agreement, so these accounts are visible to the IRS either way.
No, and we are explicit about that boundary. We prepare and file the Colombian side — DIAN registrations, Form 210, Form 160, wealth tax — and we coordinate directly with your US or Canadian CPA so the two filings fit together: shared numbers, aligned timing, no duplicated or missed income. If you do not have a home-country CPA who works with expats, we can point you to ones our clients already use.
When you are present in Colombia for more than 183 days within any rolling 365-day window — not the calendar year. Days from two different calendar years can combine to cross the threshold, which is the single most common surprise for new arrivals. Once resident, you declare worldwide income to DIAN on Form 210.
Tell us your citizenship, your day count, and what you own on each side of the border. We'll send a written scope and a fixed fee within one business day.
Andrew & Luz Gallie — Founders
An expat-and-Colombian founding team who built the firm around the exact problem this desk solves: one household, two tax systems, and paperwork on both sides of the border. Every cross-border engagement is supervised by licensed Colombian practitioners and priced in writing before work begins.