Colombia opens talks on 19% VAT for online gambling deposits under Bill 477/2026C

Colombia’s government and Congress have started technical talks on a tax bill that would apply 19% VAT to online gambling deposits. For operators and PSPs serving the market, the key point is simple: this is not a vague policy signal, but a draft with a fast-moving legislative timeline and a defined tax base.

1. Working groups began on 10 November after a meeting in Barranquilla on 7 November between the government and members of Congress’s economic committees. The talks cover Bill 477/2026C, the Economic Rescue Bill, which Finance Minister Miguel Gómez Martínez submitted to the Chamber of Representatives on 29 October.
2. The bill is moving under an urgency message, so the economic committees of both chambers will debate it together. On 10 November, the Senate committees appointed rapporteurs for the first debate: Conservative senator David Barguil for the Third Committee and Carlos Mario Farelo of Cambio Radical for the Fourth.
3. The government is targeting approval in the current session by 16 December. The joint committees are expected to debate the bill in the last week of November, which leaves a short runway for amendments, lobbying, and whatever last-minute compromise the market can extract.
4. Article 41 would remove the VAT exclusion for games operated only online and apply the standard 19% rate. The taxable base would be the player’s deposit, including cash, bank transfers and cryptoassets, divided by 1.19. In the bill’s own example, a COP119,000 ($35.98) deposit would include COP19,000 in VAT.
5. The liability would sit with operators, including foreign-based operators, when players are tax residents, domiciled or doing business in Colombia. The same article would also double the monthly taxable bases for land-based gambling: slot machines from 20 to 40 tax value units (UVT), gaming tables from 290 to 580 UVT, and bingo from three to six UVT per seat. Lotteries would remain exempt.
6. Article 52 would raise the occasional gains tax on prizes from lotteries, raffles and betting from 20% to 30%. Separately, the Colombian Federation of Gambling Entrepreneurs (Fecoljuegos) is preparing an alternative tax proposal for the Ministry of Finance and Congress. Its members include Betsson Group, Codere, Wplay and Betano.

Colombia first applied 19% VAT to online gambling deposits by emergency decree in February 2025. That tax expired at the end of that year after a Senate committee rejected a bill to make it permanent; Decree 1474 of December 2025 reapplied it.