Home.International Trade Division (ITD).Colombia
Labels must be in Spanish. They must contain:
Please note: All documents originating from another country must be approved/certified by the Ministry of External Relations.
Importers must register with the Ministerio de Comercio, Industria, y Turismo (Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Tourism).
An import license is also required for alcoholic beverage products. Importers should fill out an Import Registration Form (Registro de Información) in order to bring products into the country. This form requires a complete product description and tariff classification.
Wine, beer, and other alcoholic beverages are considered Importaciones de licencia previa or "Prior License Imports," as they require import registration with INVIMA, in addition to approval from the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Tourism. The following are the steps that should be taken in order to obtain the necessary permits and/or licenses:
The importer should submit all the required documents mentioned in the above section in a folder to INVIMA. Importers’ records and their products (i.e. alcoholic beverages) will be reviewed and then be issued an import permit, which will grant them a sanitary registry number.
The importer should also contact the Directorate of External Trade in the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Tourism, to register as an importer, and register his/her products to be imported.
Importers must also receive approval from Customs (Dirección de Impuestos y Aduanas Nacionales de Colombia – DIAN).  The following are the main steps:
After presenting your documents to Customs, they will inspect the merchandise (if considered necessary), and authorize the removal of goods. The importer must keep import documents for a period of not less than five (5) years.
For the most current tariffs and taxes applied to imported products for this country, please visit the Online Tariff Database provided by Tariffic.  Please ensure you have a 10-digit HS classification code in order to obtain tariff information. Also see the Census Bureau’s Schedule B search function (http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/schedules/b/index.html), which allows you to classify your product according to United States export codes. Simply click "Search" and enter the keyword (i.e. beer) that best describes your product.
Office of Agricultural Affairs |
Instituto Nacional de Vigilancia de Medicamentos y Alimentos (INVIMA) |
Dirección de Impuestos y Aduanas Nacionales (DIAN) |
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development |
Ministerio de Comercio, Industria, y Turismo |
Colombian Embassy, Washington D.C. |
The information in this guide was obtained from external sources, including the websites of various governmental agencies and organizations, direct contact with those agencies and organizations, and from Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) Attaché reports. Consequently, the accuracy of this information depends upon the accuracy of the sources.
TTB is not responsible for the content of external websites.
This page was last reviewed on August 17, 2010.