Practically
The load bearing topics in one place. Each one answers up front, says when it was last checked, and pulls in live prices and the entries that touch it.
Before you come
Decisions, paperwork and budget, while you are still at home.
Medellín
Which neighbourhoods of Medellín are safe, and where can you live?
Medellín today is safer than most of its reputation: from 380 homicides per hundred thousand in 1991 down to roughly eleven. What threatens a foreigner is not what is in those statistics but robbery, a spiked drink and a date arranged through an app. People live in El Poblado, Laureles, Envigado or Belén, and the difference between them is bigger in price than in safety.
Checked 31 August 202618 entries
What it costs
What does living in Medellín cost?
The 2026 minimum wage comes to exactly two million pesos including the transport allowance, and almost everything else is counted from it. One person gets by frugally on about 4 million pesos a month, normally on 8 and comfortably on 12.5, which is roughly one, two and three thousand dollars. The neighbourhood makes a bigger difference than the spending.
Checked 31 August 202618 entries
Weather
What is the weather like, and what should you pack?
Eternal spring is half marketing: you get three kinds of weather a day, and 2026 is a record year at 33.8 degrees at Olaya Herrera airport. There are two seasons, rain lasts an hour and comes in the afternoon. People underestimate the sun, not the heat: at 1,495 metres you burn under cloud.
Checked 1 September 202618 entries
Spanish
How much Spanish do you actually need?
English works in a hotel and in Poblado, nowhere else. A2 is enough to live on, and from B1 the country opens up differently. Colombian pronunciation is among the clearest anywhere, though in Antioquia even friends get the formal usted. A private tutor costs around 36,000 pesos an hour and the first one is usually free.
Checked 1 September 202619 entries
Visas and paperwork
How long can I stay in Colombia, and when do I need a visa?
Most Western passports need no visa to visit. You get a 90 day stamp on arrival and can extend it once, to 180 days per calendar year. Staying longer, or working here, needs a visa, and you apply online from inside Colombia or from home. Watch two numbers that have nothing to do with each other: 180 days is the stay limit, 183 days makes you a Colombian tax resident.
Checked 28 August 2026
Settling in
The first weeks on the ground: a flat, money, connection, a doctor.
First month
What to sort out after arriving, and in what order?
First a SIM card, a Cívica and cash, because without a local number everything else jams. Housing short-term only; you learn a neighbourhood by living in it. Then the visa and the cédula, which the bank and the insurer both hang on, and only then a long lease. The first month costs twice what the next ones do.
Checked 1 September 202618 entries
Paperwork
What has to be sorted after the visa, and in what order?
The cédula within fifteen days of the visa, 294,000 pesos and ten working days of waiting. Without it there is no account, no insurer and no lease. Apostilles are done online for about 36,000 pesos per document, and only then the translation, which only a registered official translator may do, at 30,000 to 70,000 a page.
Checked 1 September 20263 entries
Housing
How do you find a flat in Medellín, and what will be asked of you?
Short term you pay roughly double; long term you will be asked for a guarantee. A cash deposit is prohibited by law, so it is handled with a Colombian co-signer or with rent insurance at thirty to forty per cent of one month's rent per year. You search on Fincaraíz and Metrocuadrado, the scams happen on Facebook, and the owner can be verified from the land registry.
Checked 31 August 202618 entries
Money
How do you pay in Colombia, and how do you open an account?
Cash is taken everywhere, cards only in big shops, and the rest of the country pays by instant transfer through a key or a QR code in Bre-B, the system that has connected banks and wallets since 2025. A foreigner gets into it only with a Colombian account or with Nequi or Daviplata. Always pay in pesos, withdraw in large amounts, and ask for the 4x1000 exemption as soon as the account is open.
Checked 31 August 202618 entries
Internet and remote work
Can you actually work from here?
You can, and the line is the least of it. A SIM is bought against your passport, a month of data costs 12,000 to 22,000 pesos, home fibre starts at 65,000. The real obstacles are two: verification codes going to your old number, and the six to seven hour difference that turns mornings into the only slot for meetings with Europe.
Checked 1 September 202619 entries
Healthcare
What do you do when you need a doctor here?
Public EPS is tied to a visa and a cédula and costs 12.5% of income, so from roughly 219,000 pesos a month. Private prepagada at Sura starts at 512,265 pesos for someone in their thirties and passes a million after sixty. A GP visit paid in cash starts at 100,000 pesos, emergencies are 123, and the tap water in Medellín is drinkable.
Checked 1 September 202618 entries
Dentists and cosmetic work
Is it worth seeing a dentist or having a procedure here?
An implant with the crown for 3.5 to 6 million pesos, hygiene for 60 to 150 thousand and an appointment within three days. For cosmetic work something other than price decides: the doctor in the ReTHUS register, the clinic in REPS, a dedicated anaesthetist, and two to three weeks before you may fly home.
Checked 1 September 202618 entries
Living and travelling
Getting around the city and the country, and where to go.
Transport
How do you get around in Colombia?
There are no passenger trains; you travel by bus or you fly. In Medellín the metro and a Cívica card cover everything, the airport bus costs 20,000 pesos against a 132,000 peso taxi, intercity buses leave from two different terminals, and a car only pays off in the mountains.
Checked 1 September 202619 entries
Trips
Where can you go from Medellín?
Two hours and you are in a different world. Guatapé with its 740 step rock for 24,000 pesos, Jardín for two nights, colonial Santa Fe in the heat, the Río Claro canyon with no signal. The coffee region needs three days, not a weekend. Half the battle is knowing which of the two terminals you leave from.
Checked 1 September 20268 entries
Food and groceries
Where do you shop, and what does food cost?
Fruit at the market, dry goods at a D1 or Ara discounter, one big monthly run to Éxito. The measured basket came to 147,771 pesos in Medellín in 2026 and lunch in a local restaurant costs 15,000 to 25,000. Anything imported is expensive, and a libra means half a kilo.
Checked 1 September 202618 entries
Staying safe
How do you behave here, and what do you do if something happens?
The real risk is not a mugging but being drugged: scopolamine thefts rose 89% in 2026, most of them in El Poblado, Laureles and La Candelaria. The rules cost ten minutes a day. After a theft you do not resist, you call 123, block cards and the phone by IMEI, and file a report.
Checked 1 September 202618 entries