Cancellaria is deliberly delaying visas aplications in order for you to break the time continuity in Colombia so they don't give out residency visas!!!
There are tons of stories on expat groups recently of massive delays of visas taking up 75 days to approve.
Andy Lee administrator of expat group for Pereira and Manizales:
Wrote this story: and by the way this is also happenning with spousal visas delay delay so you have to get a salvaconducto and salvaconductos no longer count towards your time for residency, presently Langon Law has a class action lawsuit against the MRE because this very thing happenned to alot of their clients beware Colombia is becoming less friendly towards expats seeking residency.
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Andy Lee Outtdoors:
I just heard a rather distressing story about an expat couple who have been turned down for visas for buying property in Colombia.
It seems this American couple bought a house in Colombia in 2019 for 400,000,000 pesos. At that time they qualified for the inversionista visa as having invested in property here. Now, nearly four years later, the property is worth 600,000,000 because of inflation and because of improvements they made to the property. However, they have been turned down for a visa renewal because their original purchase price is now below the new threshold for the inversionista visa. The threshold amount increases each year because the minimum wage increases to keep pace with inflation.
Ministry of Foreign Relations will not take into account the increase in value caused by inflation and by the improvements. They only go by the amount of the original purchase price.
So, the American couple has been turned down, after two applications, for a visa renewal. Their only recourse now is to sell the property and leave Colombia.
Apparently this is happening to other expats all over Colombia. Appeals to the Ministry of Foreign Relations to let the property value increase with inflation so the property will continue to qualify for the inversionista visa have fallen on deaf ears. So, the point of this story is to alert current property owners, who are relying on their property value to renew their inversionista visa, that there is a problem with the inflation and they need to be aware they may get caught in this squeeze.
This is a complex problem and I have only explained it superficially. If you are holding an inversionista visa you will probably want to investigate further and make sure you qualify for the renewal when your visa is about to expire. Good luck.