Sending money to Colombia: the number every exchange declaration carries

Money that reaches Colombia through an authorised exchange intermediary produces a declaration, and that declaration has a number on it. The Banco de la República's circular requires the intermediary to assign that number, to make it unique across the country for the day, and to communicate it to the person it dealt with. Since 26 February 2025 the same numeral has also required it to hand over, on request, the declarations it has transmitted and the central bank has confirmed.

Key Takeaways

• The circular is DCIP-83, from the Banco de la República. The bank's index marks the DCIN-83 files current only to 31 August 2021, so citing DCIN-83 names a lapsed designation.
• A declaration is produced by money passing through the exchange market. Numeral 1.1 sets no monetary threshold and no minimum amount.
• Numeral 1.2.2 literal d gives every exchange declaration an identification number. No other declaration in Colombia carries that number on the same day.
• Literal d holds two duties: the intermediary assigns the number, and it tells the residents and non-residents it deals with what the number is.
• Literal f is a third duty, added 26 February 2025. On request, the intermediary supplies the declarations it has transmitted to the central bank and the bank has confirmed.
• Article 41 of Resolución Externa No. 1 de 2018 lists seven kinds of operation that must go through the mercado cambiario, the regulated exchange market. A family remittance is not one of them.
• Anexo 1 codes inbound family money as 1809, remesas de trabajadores, workers' remittances. 1812 covers housing and 1813 simplified savings accounts.

What number does a Colombian intermediary put on an exchange declaration?

One that no other declaration in Colombia carries that day, and the intermediary has to say what it is.

The instrument is DCIP-83, the Banco de la República's circular reglamentaria externa, its standing regulatory circular, on Asunto 10. Its chapter 1, numeral 1.2.2, sets out the obligations of the intermediarios del mercado cambiario, the institutions authorised to handle exchange operations. Literal d requires the intermediary to assign each exchange declaration an identification number, unique nationally within a single day. That number is one que deberá informar a los residentes y no residentes con quienes realiza la operación de cambio: which it must communicate to the residents and non-residents with whom it carries out the exchange operation.

Assigning the number and communicating it are two separate duties in literal d. The number attaches to a declaration whether or not either party has been told it. Literal d names the residents and non-residents the intermediary carries out the operation with. The circular does not spell out who that is in a given transfer.

The designation matters here. The circular is DCIP-83, not DCIN-83. The bank's compendium index marks the DCIN-83 files vigente hasta el 31 de agosto de 2021, and every live chapter PDF is headed CIRCULAR REGLAMENTARIA EXTERNA DCIP-83. The superseded files are still downloadable from official sites, so a reference to DCIN-83 as the current circular names a designation that stopped being current in 2021. The live chapters carry the header date 12 de septiembre de 2023 and are amended in place, so the header records the issue and the text can be newer.

What did 26 February 2025 add?

A duty to hand the declarations over when somebody asks for them.

Literal f of the same numeral requires the intermediary to supply the exchange declarations it transmitted to the Banco de la República, once the bank has confirmed they were integrated into the Sistema de Información Cambiaria, the central bank's exchange-reporting system. It does so a solicitud de los residentes o no residentes, at the request of residents or non-residents. The form is open: physical or digital, in whichever format the intermediary prefers, provided it carries the minimum data.

Literal f is annotated Modificado con el Boletín del Banco de la República No. 13 (Febrero 27/2025) [DCIP-83 Febrero 26/2025]. It does not appear in the archived October 2023 compendium, which stops one letter earlier, at literal e. The Secretaría Distrital de Hacienda de Bogotá's compilation of the 26 February 2025 circular reproduces the same wording.

Two conditions narrow what literal f reaches. The declaration has to have been transmitted to the central bank, and the bank has to have confirmed it was integrated into the Sistema de Información Cambiaria.

Three later circulars, of 9 October 2025, 16 December 2025 and 26 February 2026, exist, and none of them has been read against numeral 1.2.2. The February 2025 annotation in the chapter's own margin is the most recent change recorded against that numeral: good evidence the numeral still reads as set out here, and not proof of it.

Does Article 41 require a family remittance to go through the regulated exchange market?

Article 41's list of operations that must be channelled runs to seven items, and a family remittance is not on it.

Article 41 of Resolución Externa No. 1 de 2018 sets out the operations that have to be channelled through the mercado cambiario, the regulated exchange market. Read as it stands, the list is exactly seven:

1. the import and export of goods
2. external debt and its financial costs
3. foreign capital investment in Colombia and the returns on it
4. Colombian capital investment abroad and the returns on it
5. financial investments in securities and assets abroad and their returns
6. guarantees in foreign currency
7. derivatives

Articles 81 and 82 both cross-refer to Article 41 as the list, so reading it as exhaustive is the natural reading.

Article 36 decides what becomes of money outside that list. Foreign currency exempt from the channelling obligation, but channelled voluntarily, still forms part of the exchange market. Colombian law calls that currency divisas.

Separately, Article 8.1(c) makes the payment of remittances an activity intermediaries are authorised to carry out.

So nothing in Article 41 compels a family transfer into the regulated market. If it is channelled through an intermediary anyway, Article 36 puts it inside that market. The number, and the right to ask for the declarations, then follow from an intermediary handling the operation.

Whether a separate instrument restricts who may pay a remittance out inside Colombia is a different question, and Article 41 is not where it is answered.

Which code does inbound family money get recorded under?

Numeral 1809, with narrower codes where the money has a particular destination. Anexo 1 to the circular holds those numerales cambiarios, the codes that classify an exchange operation for the reporting system.

A further inbound numeral, 1814, was added by Boletín del Banco de la República No. 43 of 16 December 2025. That annotation also shows the annex is a live file, amended in place like the chapter above it.

Does the amount decide whether a declaration exists?

No. What triggers the declaration is channelling the money, not how much of it there is.

Numeral 1.1 of the chapter stands on Article 89 of Resolución Externa No. 1 de 2018. It requires residents and non-residents carrying out operaciones de cambio, exchange operations, to supply the minimum data the central bank requires. The numeral sets no monetary threshold and no minimum amount.

A keeping duty sits on the declarant. Numeral 1.2.1(b) requires the declarant to retain the documents evidencing the amount, the characteristics and the origin or destination of the divisas, for a period equal to the limitation period for exchange-regime sanctions. The circular defines that period by reference and gives no number of years.

Article 40 of the same resolution defines the methodology by which the tasa representativa del mercado, the market representative rate, is calculated. The article settles a method, and the number that method produces moves.

Where to look next

What a payment rail is made of sets out the layers a cross-border payment depends on, and how international transfers work covers the sequence a payment moves through and where it can be held. The codes above have a general counterpart in who maintains the codes on a transfer, and the term itself is defined at remittance. For live figures, see the Australian dollar to Colombian peso page or the Australian dollar to peso converter.

Sources

• Banco de la República, Circular Reglamentaria Externa DCIP-83, Asunto 10, Capítulo 1, from the bank's compendium of circulares reglamentarias externas, with the numerales cambiarios in Anexo 1 and the archived compendium to October 2023, which stops at literal e. Numeral 1.1, on Article 89 of Resolución Externa No. 1 de 2018, on the minimum data to be supplied for an operación de cambio; numeral 1.2.1(b) on retaining the documents evidencing amount, characteristics and origin or destination of the divisas; numeral 1.2.2 literal d on the identification number and the duty to inform the parties of it; literal f on supplying the transmitted and confirmed declarations on request, annotated Modificado con el Boletín del Banco de la República No. 13 (Febrero 27/2025) [DCIP-83 Febrero 26/2025]; and Anexo 1, inbound numerales 1809, 1810, 1812, 1813 and 1990, with 1814 added by Boletín No. 43 of 16 December 2025. The live chapters are headed CIRCULAR REGLAMENTARIA EXTERNA DCIP-83 and carry the header date 12 de septiembre de 2023 while being amended in place; the compendium index marks the DCIN-83 files vigente hasta el 31 de agosto de 2021
• Secretaría Distrital de Hacienda de Bogotá, compilation of the circular of 26 February 2025 - reproduces the wording of numeral 1.2.2 literal f identically, and is the cross-check that the literal is a February 2025 addition rather than a re-lettering of existing text
• Banco de la República, Resolución Externa No. 1 de 2018 (compendium) - Article 8.1(c) authorising intermediaries to pay remittances; Article 36 on exempt divisas channelled voluntarily forming part of the exchange market; Article 40 defining the methodology of the tasa representativa del mercado; Article 41 listing the seven categories that must be channelled through the mercado cambiario; Articles 81 and 82 cross-referring to Article 41 as the list; and Article 89 on the data to be supplied for an exchange operation

General information about sending money to Colombia and about the exchange-declaration rules that apply when an intermediary handles the operation. Not financial advice, and not a recommendation of any product or institution. Reviewed by the Tradergy editorial team, September 2026.