Can you actually work from here?

Say remote work from Colombia and most people picture a connection problem. There is none. The real obstacles are three, and none of them is about line speed: registering a SIM against your passport, two-factor codes tied to your old number, and the six hour time difference that decides what your day looks like.

Phone: what to buy on day one

There are four operators. Claro has the best coverage outside cities and the highest prices. Movistar and Tigo sit in the middle. WOM is the cheapest, works well in town and gets lost in the mountains.

A prepaid SIM is bought against your passport and registered on the spot; the seller copies the document number and will not activate the card without it. Unregistered SIMs are banned in Colombia because of phone extortion, so this step finds you even at a corner stall.

Prepaid package prices in 2026:

• from 2,500 pesos for the smallest package, valid a few days
• 12,000 pesos for 1.5 GB a month at WOM
• 15,000 pesos for 1 GB at Claro
• 22,000 pesos for 2 GB at Movistar
• around 60,000 to 100,000 pesos for an unlimited data package

What separates the operators is what does not count against your data: social apps and maps are often thrown in. For a short stay a twenty thousand peso package is plenty, about four euros a month.

eSIM is supported by all four and is the fastest way to have data the moment you land. The seller by the baggage belt charges more than a shop in town, but on day one it is worth it.

Get a number straight away, not after a week. Without a local number you will not open a ride hailing account, will not pay through Bre-B, and the bank will not deal with you.

Two-factor codes: the trap nobody expects

This is the one thing that genuinely derails a move. Banks back home, government portals and plenty of services send the code to your old number. The moment you stop using it, you lose access to things you took for granted for years.

What to do, best first:

1. Keep your old number alive on a cheap plan, in the second slot of your phone or as an eSIM. It costs a few euros a month and solves everything.
2. Switch verification to an app rather than SMS wherever you can.
3. Print backup codes before you fly and leave them with someone you trust.
4. Change the contact number at your bank only once the Colombian number has been stable and verified for weeks.

Skip this and you will be sorting it out on a video call with your bank at six in the morning local time.

Internet at home

Fibre rules in Medellín and it is cheap. For 300 Mbps in 2026:

• Tigo from 65,000 pesos a month
• Claro from 75,000 pesos
• UNE, meaning EPM, from 80,000 pesos

900 Mbps runs roughly 120,000 to 150,000 pesos. Installation, router and support are usually included, contracts typically run twelve months, and going contract free costs a little more.

Two things worth knowing:

• A rented flat usually has it already. In a furnished place the line comes with the rent and putting it in your name is work for nothing.
• Plan your fallback on mobile. Outages are rare but they happen. A hotspot from a phone on an unlimited package is the cheapest insurance for the call that cannot be moved.

Where to work in Medellín

Coworking. A day pass runs 40,000 to 80,000 pesos, a monthly membership 200,000 to 400,000, unlimited 350,000 to 600,000. Most spaces are in Poblado and Laureles, the same neighbourhoods where most people who came here to work remotely live.

Cafés. This is coffee country and there are dozens with good wifi. One unwritten rule applies: at noon you free the table, because that is lunch. And the laptop does not stay on the table while you fetch your coffee; downtown, nobody declines an offer like that.

Home. Cheapest, and after two in the afternoon the most comfortable, because the fan is at home. Live higher up the slope and you get better air and a worse mobile signal.

The time difference that shapes the day

Colombia is UTC−5 and does not change clocks. Central Europe is therefore seven hours ahead in summer, six in winter.

In practice: if you work with Europe, you are done by lunch. Seven in the morning in Medellín is two in the afternoon in Prague, the last sensible slot for a meeting. Afternoons here are quiet because at home people are having dinner.

It is a better arrangement than it sounds. Mornings take the calls and the email, afternoons are left for work that needs quiet, and by five nobody writes to you. Working with the United States flips it: the day slides into the afternoon and evening.

The visa, if you want to stay

For remote work there is the V visa for nomads, the visa V nómadas digitales. It runs up to two years and asks for two things:

• income of at least three times the minimum wage, which in 2026 means 5,252,715 pesos a month, roughly 1,200 to 1,400 dollars, documented month by month
• health insurance for the full period the visa is issued for, not just a few months

The paperwork lives in its own guide about visas. What matters here is that insurance is arranged before the application, and that the income proof cannot be averaged out.

Taxes are their own subject and one sentence will not do. Spend more than 183 days in a twelve month window and you start dealing with Colombian tax residency, and with what the tax office at home thinks about it. That belongs with an accountant on both ends, not in a blog post.

What I would do again and what differently

Again: buy an eSIM before the flight, keep the old number alive, and spend the first month in a coworking space even with fibre at home. For the people, not for the line.

Differently, one thing: I would not have changed the contact number at my bank until the Colombian one had worked flawlessly for three weeks. It looked like a detail and it cost me a week without access to the account.