Colombian visa extension rules

Hello Roy,

I hope you're fine. Every calendar year you can live up to 6 months or 180 days in Colombia on a tourist Visa,  regardless of how many times you exit Colombia. As you mentioned about recently extending your visa for another 90 days and had already spent another month, which leaves you in Colombia for 60 days. Feel free to go to Ecuador and you will be welcomed back to Colombia with no issues.

Cheers,

Sat

Roy84 wrote:

I spent 90 days in colombia, left for ecuador after that period, returned to colombia and recieved another 90 days in colombia. I have spent now 30 more days in colombia out of the additional 90 I recieved. My issue now is that I want to attend a wedding in ecuador thus leave colombia again and return after the event. I want to know how and if this will effect my colombian visa. Will this cause any immigration issue for me when I want to cross back to colombia? might I be denied access to the country? ... a deduction of a 180 days minus the number of days I spent in the country in total?

You're going to have to ask a Migración office if you want a reliable answer about that Ecuador trip and how it impacts your current tourist-permit extension.

I entered Colombia from Ecuador in December (2016).  Later, I obtained a 90-day tourist extension or "permiso temporal" in March, effective March 7 to June 4 (2017), at Migración in Quindío, Colombia.

The renewal was not stamped into my USA passport.  It is on a separate sheet of paper signed by a Migración officer that I was told to keep with my passport.

On that page, there is no indication that my time in Colombia would be extendable if I made a trip to Ecuador during the period of validity.

I would guess that Colombia will allow you to re-enter from Ecuador within your second 90 days.  However, you have absolutely no guarantee yet that your time in Colombia is extendable past any date already indicated as the válido hasta date.

cccmedia in Medellín

This post concerns extending a tourist permit by hopping across the border with Ecuador .. and hopping back.

I did some 'permiso' extensions at Rumichaca border crossing (Colombia-Ecuador) on Friday and found out how long I needed to wait in Ecuador before getting stamped back into Colombia.

A supervisor at Migración Ecuador told me I needed to stay in Ecuador for one hour so my 'entrada' could be fully put into the computer system of Migración.

About an hour later I came back to Migración Ecuador (not required to wait on the long 'Venezuela refugee line' a second time).

Migración Ecuador promptly gave me an exit stamp, enabling me to get right back to Colombia, where Migración Colombia stamped me back into that República with a tourist 'entrada'.

cccmedia in Ipiales, Nariño, Colombia, near the Ecuador border

My educated guess is that I had to do the border-hop because Migración Colombia did not have permiso-extension forms on hand.

According to the medellinguru.com site, I could have applied electronically online for more time in Colombia.

Visit that site to learn more about the several ways to get a tourist-permit extension.  Type tourist visa extension into the search box on the welcome page.

FYI, a original tourist permit -- widely and incorrectly called a "visa" and stamped into your passport -- is free to North Americans and folks from many countries going either way between Colombia and Ecuador.

cccmedia in Depto. de Nariño, Colombia

Here's my latest experience. I came into Colombia jan 13. In April I found it cheaper to pay the 96000 pesos thather than leave and return. I received a receipt after I payed at Occidente bank and sent a code to immigration and they sent me an electronic visa extension to download for my personal device and I was advised to keep this and the paper receipt on my person while here.

Anyways, I applied for a courtesy visa to teach english here. They asked for a copy of the download and the receipt along with the original stamp in my passporte for entry. Here is the interesting part....in my VISA, it read I must leave Colombia to apply for y next VISA. My Visa expires June 30 but i still have until July 13 to stay in Colombia.

1. 180 day rule includes VISA working time...so I am buring tourist days and visa days simultaneously
2. Others who entered the same program but hwo had not needed the extra 9o days prior to filing for VISA did not have the "leave country for VISA app" marking on their VISA.s
3. I am still not sure if I leave the country now prior to my VISA expiring if I can capture those days  I am out of the country or not, but i believe yes....since it is based upon actual days in the country in most other events.
4. I believe if I don't have another VISA for teaching, which I do not have yet, I will got to Cuenca for some time.

hope that helps..I did not get VISA stamp, but have download and receipt for temporal VISA and they told me that was enough.

Thanks for the insight. I recently read that the USA has an advisory out for its people to be very careful at the Ecuador / Colombia border and that they do not have people there to assist for anything. Is that accurate?

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel … isory.html

John

1.  No USA government personnel at that border "to assist people" -- I can't remember ever seeing any.

2.  USA people are warned to be careful at the border -- D'uh.

Excellent resource

Sehaz is right. As long as you spend less than 180 days in a calendar year, or 90 days continuously (assuming you have the 90 day stamp on your pasport), you are good to go.

Let{s keep it simple, people.

I obtained my personal 90-day permit extension on June 1st (2018) at the Rumichaca border by officially exiting Colombia, getting an official entrada into Ecuador .. waiting 60 minutes .. then getting an exit stamp from Ecuador .. and finally getting a new 'entrada' for Colombia.  I was told at the Ecuador Migración building that 60 minutes of waiting time was required to fully enter my 'salida' into the system.

It all went smoothly, except for the long line of mostly Venezuelans waiting to be processed to enter Ecuador.

Fortunately, I only had to wait on that line once (70 minutes) .. and received preferential no-waiting service at the same set of windows after the one-hour delay.  During the delay I went outside, got a snack, and discussed insurance with SOAT (Colombia car insurance) vendors.  They told me I was not required to buy SOAT since I was not planning to drive my car outside the Ipiales-Las Lajas area while in Colombia.  This information was told to me by one SOAT vendor and confirmed by two others.

cccmedia in Ipiales, Nariño, Colombia