Colombia’s government has proposed restoring 19% VAT on online gambling deposits through a tax reform that would also change taxable bases for land-based gaming, according to the official bill published by Congress.
Article 41 of Bill 477/2026C, the Ley de Rescate Económico, would amend the Tax Statute to bring internet gambling into the general VAT regime, while retaining the exclusion for lotteries. The proposal remains under committee consideration and has not become law.
The online taxable base would be the amount deposited into a player’s account divided by 1.19. Deposits include cash payments and transfers of money or cryptoassets made to obtain the right to bet.
Under that formula, a COP119,000 deposit comprises a COP100,000 taxable base and COP19,000 in VAT. It does not mean deducting 19% of the full deposit.
The approach differs from the 16% national consumption tax established for 2026 under Decree 0240. That levy uses gross gaming revenue, defined as total bets minus prizes paid during each two-month reporting period, rather than deposits. The proposal therefore changes more than rates.
Operators would be responsible for VAT, including those operating from overseas where customers meet the bill’s Colombian residence or establishment criteria. Article 41 also permits input VAT credits against the tax generated.
For land-based gambling, proposed monthly taxable bases include 40 tax value units, or UVT, per ordinary slot machine, 580 UVT per gaming table and six UVT per bingo seat. These are calculation bases, not fixed tax bills.
The government’s explanatory memorandum says VAT would operate alongside existing gambling exploitation fees that fund healthcare, rather than replace them. It forecasts COP2 trillion in additional online-gambling VAT revenue in 2027.
Timing remains important. Article 106 provides for commencement upon promulgation unless otherwise specified, while Article 41 contains no separate implementation date.
Although the explanatory memorandum discusses the policy’s effects from 2027, the operative gambling provision does not expressly set January 1 as its starting date.
The proposal follows repeated efforts to tax online gambling. Financing bills containing gambling-tax measures failed in 2024 and 2025, while a temporary deposit-based VAT applied during 2025.
A subsequent emergency decree imposed 19% VAT on GGR for 2026, but was suspended in January and struck down in April after its enabling emergency declaration was invalidated. The outgoing Petro administration proposed online-gambling VAT again in July, before the latest bill revived a deposit-based approach.