Colombia announces new tax reform for 2027
The Colombian government confirmed that it will present a new comprehensive tax reform to Congress on July 20, an initiative that includes significant changes to the tax burden on the gambling industry. The director of the National Tax and Customs Directorate (Dian), Carlos Emilio Betancourt, confirmed that the bill will be debated by the new Congress and would primarily take effect from 2027, during the next government.
This announcement marks the Colombian Executive's third attempt to reform the tax structure of the gaming sector. Previous attempts failed in Congress or were blocked by emergency decrees that the Constitutional Court subsequently annulled and ordered the return of collected taxes. Each previous failure provided lessons on which tax configurations generate insurmountable legislative opposition, and the Government has apparently recalibrated its strategy.
The betting industry has been a recurring tax battleground in Colombia. On the one hand, governments seek to collect more from a rapidly growing sector that generates significant revenue. On the other hand, licensed operators point out that additional tax burdens place them at a competitive disadvantage against illegal operators who do not face tax burdens. This tension is structural in LatAm: aggressive tax reforms can disincentivize the formalization that governments simultaneously pursue.
The timing of the presentation for July 20 (after the change of government) is deliberate. It allows the new administration to present the project under its own agenda, preventing it from being exclusively associated with the outgoing government. It also allows the architects of the reform (particularly in the Ministry of Finance) to calibrate the proposal with input from new teams and updated economic contexts.
For Colombia and the region, the message is clear: the gaming sector will continue to be a target for tax reforms as long as it generates accelerated growth. The critical question for operators is whether the Government will manage to design a reform that balances revenue collection objectives with incentives for formalization, or whether it will repeat previous cycles of rejected projects and measures annulled by constitutional courts.
Tags: Colombia, LatAm tax reform, Gambling regulation