How Colombia's New Digital Nomad Visa Came to Be Under Government Turmoil

25.08.2023 - 14:12 / skift.com / Matthew Parsons

Colombia has launched a dedicated visa for digital nomads, which is quite an achievement considering the country’s recent political upheavals.

The visa was spearheaded by entrepreneur Ilana Milkes, who founded World Tech coding bootcamps. And when she presents the new digital nomad visa alongside government agency ProColombia at Mobile World Congress later this month, her brief moment on stage will represent the culmination of nearly two years of work.

She’ll discuss how the visa lets visitors stay for 24 months, compared with six months for tourists, and how it offers state ID, meaning access to banking and the right to register a company in the country. She’ll probably go into less detail about all the effort it took to launch.

Work began in March 2020, prior to volatile election campaigning and protests that would eventually see left-wing politician Gustavo Petro take power.

Milkes initially talked to the Mayorship of Medellin about the benefits digital nomads could bring to the city, and the country as a whole. Once approved, more meetings followed.

“You need a lot of patience talking with politicians,” Milkes said. “We talked to the president’s team, ministers, the chancellor’s team, even the mayorship’s team. It was almost like a year and a half of meetings and writing the law itself, and making lots of presentations. This was during the pandemic as well.”

In October 2022 it was finally approved, and the visa, which applies to freelance workers and remote workers, went live in January 2023.

“Neither party had leadership or initiatives to take it as a vision,” Milkes said. “So what we’re doing now is advocating (it) to people, including the public sector, and our vision for digital nomads.”

The lack of government focus isn’t surprising, as the country has been undergoing change. In the voting build-up to elections last year there were also many protests from radical groups.

And disruption continues. This week thousands protested against proposed fiscal reforms, and an amnesty proposed for members of armed groups, according to reports.

However, the new administration shows a clear intention to strengthen the tourism industry. “There is an acknowledgement of tourism as an important source of generation of foreign exchange in the country,” Gilberto Salcedo, vice president of tourism at ProColombia, told Skift in July last year.

The vision has plenty of benefits. In 2019, tourists spent $6.8 billion in Colombia. But according to the World Travel and Tourism Council, “business tourism” which  involves people attending events like congresses and conventions represented 14 percent of that. Digital nomads, Milkes argues, are able to “activate local economies” with their spending.

The country’s tourism