The Colombian government has reintroduced a tax on online gambling deposits in an emergency response to severe flooding in eight of the country’s provinces.
The consumption tax was established through emergency decrees issued last Thursday and set at a rate of 16%.
It will apply exclusively to online operators providing local services, whether based in Colombia or abroad. The levy will be implemented on the cash deposits made by each bettor to online games of chance.
The decrees, signed by Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, also sought to contribute an additional COP8.6 trillion ($2.3 billion) to the nation’s 2026 budget.
Petro, whose presidency will end this year when his four-year term concludes ahead of elections in May, suffered a major setback in late 2025 when his original 2026 budget proposal was rejected.
A revised budget was later approved, although it was COP10 trillion lower than the original project. The government has now said the reduced allocation is “insufficient for the annual provision for disaster and public calamity relief”.
As a result, gambling operators once again face a new levy on top of Colombia’s standard 15% gambling tax.
Colombian gambling in the tax spotlight again
Colombia’s licensed gambling sector faced severe tax pressure in 2025, with the government introducing an emergency value-added tax (VAT) on deposits in February that year at a rate of 19%.
This was in response to civil disturbances in the Catatumbo region, with the government claiming it needed additional funds to address such events.
In April 2025, the Colombian Federation of Gambling Entrepreneurs warned the online GGR in Colombia had fallen 30% since the VAT’s introduction.
This was particularly damaging to the Colombian health sector, which had received COP990 billion in 2024 from gambling taxes.
However, the government’s attempts to make the VAT permanent previously failed when its Financing Law was rejected by the Senate’s Fourth Committee in December.
And although the VAT was shifted from being deposit-based to GGR-based, that emergency decree was then suspended in January by the Colombian Constitutional Court over concerns it was unconstitutional.
It remains to be seen what scrutiny this fresh attempt to implement a new tax on gambling will face. However, the government contends it has the right to impose it in response to a different emergency.
“The adoption of tax measures in a previous emergency does not prevent the national government from using them again in a subsequent exceptional situation to address a different crisis,” the decree read.
Original article: https://igamingbusiness.com/finance/tax/colombia-tax-online-gambling-deposits/
