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Looking to extend your 90-day tourist visa in Colombia? Here’s some information on how to do it.
Tourists from most countries are typically given a 90-day tourist visa upon entering Colombia. There ‘s a maximum stay of 180 days in the country per calendar year for those wishing to extend their original visa. Tourists also cannot stay more than 180 consecutive days in the country even if the years overlap.
How to Extend Your Colombia Tourist Visa
There are three ways to get a Colombian tourist visa extension.
- Leave the country for at least 48 hours and reenter.
- Visit a regional office of Migración Colombia. A list of offices is on the website.
- Apply online through the Migración Colombia website.
The visa extension fee costs COP$125,000 (as of April 2025), but is free for Ecuadorian and EU citizens of Schengen member states.
Visiting a Migración Office
I visited the Migración office in Pereira for an extension of my Colombian tourist visa. First, I went to the office in person a month before my visa expired to ask exactly what I needed for the extension:
- 1 passport photo
- A copy of my main passport page
- A copy of my entry stamp into Colombia
- My passport
- A printout of a plane or bus reservation out of Colombia before the additional 90 days expire
- A credit or debit card to pay the visa extension fee (if applicable) OR the same amount in cash to pay at a bank before the appointment (the office can give you the bank information on how to pay).
- Schedule an appointment online with Migración Colombia within a week of the visa’s expiration (they left out this step and we found out the hard way).
Fast forward one month later. We showed up a few days before my original visa expired. The same man behind the desk who saw us just a month before remembered us but asked if we had an appointment. We told him we didn’t and he was ready to shoo us away. I looked around sarcastically because the entire office was empty. He told us to make an appointment and come back. That wasn’t an option, especially since we had to travel over two hours to get there in the first place. With a little pleading he agreed to take care of it anyway.
I handed over all of the items I was asked to bring. I paid with my credit card to avoid a side trip to the bank. At the end, the man put a new stamp in my passport and showed me the new expiration date. The entire process took all of 10 minutes and was relatively painless.
Applying Online
Since 2018, it’s possible to apply for a visa extension online without having to visit Migración Colombia and deal with miserable government employees. The website is horrible and the answer can be “no” for the most ridiculous reasons, but keep trying and you’ll eventually get approved. Chris at The Unconventional Route has written a detailed post on his experiences applying online.
