Colombia’s online gambling sector faces yet another tax shock. President Gustavo Petro’s administration has issued Decrees 0240 and 0241 of 2026, introducing a 16% National Consumption Tax on bets placed through digital platforms — the latest in a series of emergency fiscal measures that have kept the country’s iGaming industry in near-constant regulatory uncertainty since early 2025.
The new tax applies to all online gambling services operated exclusively through digital channels. The taxable event is a user’s deposit — whether in cash, bank transfer, or cryptocurrency — from within Colombia or abroad. Operators must collect the 16% levy at the point of deposit and remit it to the government, with sanctions for non-compliance.
The tax base is calculated on GGR, defined as total bets placed minus prizes paid out over a two-month period. The government frames the move as a fiscal response to Colombia’s 2026 budget crisis — the National General Budget was cut by COP 10 trillion following congressional reductions, and two financing laws meant to generate COP 16.3 trillion were rejected by lawmakers. Revenue from the gambling tax forms part of a broader COP 8.6 trillion emergency supplement to the 2026 budget, earmarked for disaster relief following flooding that left 14 dead and 120,000 people displaced across Córdoba, Antioquia, La Guajira, Sucre, Magdalena, and other regions.
Tracing the turbulent tax history Colombia’s online gambling sector has endured is essential context. In February 2025, the government introduced a 19% VAT on user deposits under an emergency decree triggered by unrest in the Catatumbo region. The impact was immediate — Fecoljuegos reported a 32% drop in operating revenues between March and June 2025, and monthly tax contributions from the sector fell 46.6% year-on-year. Codere Online publicly stated the framework made further investment in Colombia impossible.
In November 2025, the Senate rejected a bill to make the deposit VAT permanent. The Constitutional Court then suspended an emergency decree reviving it. In a concession, the government shifted the taxable base from deposits to GGR from January 2026, reducing the effective burden from levels potentially exceeding 70% of real income to approximately 34% of GGR. The industry cautiously welcomed this as a correction — but warned it was a starting point, not a solution. Now, just weeks later, the government has reverted to a deposit-based model through emergency decree once again.
The central concern for operators and industry bodies remains unchanged from 2025: deposit-based taxation penalises players before they place a bet, making the legal market structurally uncompetitive against offshore and unlicensed platforms. When the 19% deposit VAT was in force, a clear migration of Colombian players toward illegal sites was observed — undermining both consumer protection and the sector’s contribution to Colombia’s healthcare system, which received COP 436 billion from gambling revenues in 2024 but saw monthly transfers drop sharply after the VAT was introduced.
The government’s argument that online gambling has “ample room for taxation without generating significant adverse effects” is directly contradicted by the sector’s 2025 performance data. The industry will be watching closely to see whether the Constitutional Court, which previously suspended similar emergency decrees, intervenes again.
Fecoljuegos and licensed operators are expected to mount a legal and political challenge to the new decree. The Constitutional Court’s track record of scrutinising emergency fiscal measures suggests the 16% tax could face suspension once again. However, with Colombia’s budget crisis deepening and the government under pressure to fund flood relief, the political will to push through the measure remains strong.
For the broader LatAm iGaming market, Colombia’s cycle of emergency taxes, court suspensions, and legislative rejections serves as a cautionary tale — a reminder of how quickly regulatory stability can unravel when national fiscal pressures meet an industry governments view as a readily available revenue source.
