Medellín Airbnb Tax: 5,404 Short-Stay Hosts Flagged for ICA

Quick answer: The Medellín Airbnb tax review, announced November 4, 2026, flags two groups of short-stay providers over ICA (municipal industry-and-commerce tax) filings: 1,327 registered providers that skipped filing in at least one year from 2022 to 2024, and 4,077 providers that hold a national tourism registry (RNT) but are absent from the city’s tax registry (RIT). Together that is 5,404 providers, our own sum of the two groups.

Source note: Every figure comes from the Alcaldía’s press release; the release does not state a combined total. We found no independent press coverage of the 1,327 and 4,077 figures, so treat them as the city’s own numbers. The list covers all tourist-housing and short-stay providers, not only Airbnb listings.

What Medellín’s Airbnb tax review found

The analysis was run by the Unidad de Inteligencia Fiscal (UIF) inside Hacienda’s Subsecretaría de Ingresos. It cross-checked several datasets, according to the city:

• The RNT (Registro Nacional de Turismo), the national tourism registry.
• The RIT (Registro de Información Tributaria), the city’s taxpayer registry.
• ICA returns. ICA (Impuesto de Industria y Comercio) is the municipal tax on commercial and service activity.
• DIAN data and información exógena reported by withholding agents.

The city says the first front targets registered providers with an active RNT who skipped ICA filings. The second targets unregistered providers, prioritizing those with signs of recurring activity or several active RNTs. The release does not say which years were reviewed for the unregistered group.

Context: registered tourist-housing providers rose from 521 in 2019 to 8,322 in 2026, per the Secretaría de Turismo y Entretenimiento figures in the same release.

What the city did not say

• No penalties or amounts. The release lists no fines, back-tax figures or deadlines.
• No rates. It gives no ICA rate for short stays. Confirm yours with Hacienda or a Colombian accountant.
• Nothing specific to foreign owners. The release does not mention nationality. Our reading that foreign owners face the same rules is an inference, not a finding.
• Not a ban. The city states that the oversight “no busca limitar el desarrollo de las rentas cortas ni de la actividad turística” (does not seek to limit short-term rentals or tourism). It urges providers to review their tax status, keep their data current and file what they owe, to avoid later audits.

Zoning: the new POT

The tax push lands the same week the Concejo approved the new land-use plan 18–3 on November 5. Our POT approval breakdown notes that the final tourist-housing provisions were not yet confirmed in the reporting we found, so zoning rules for hosts remain something to verify in the approved text. The 8,322 registered-provider figure above also appears in our first-debate POT report.

Registration: RNT penalties

Registration is a separate compliance track. Tourist housing is regulated nationally under Ley 300 de 1996, Ley 1558 de 2012, Ley 2068 de 2020 and Decretos 2119 de 2018 and 1836 de 2021, according to the Alcaldía’s October 26 explainer on informal tourist housing, which lists these risks:

• Fines: operating without a valid RNT can bring Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio (SIC) fines of up to 2,000 monthly minimum wages. Using the COP 1,750,905 monthly minimum wage reported for 2026 under Decreto 1469 de 2025 (Consultorsalud summary), that ceiling would be roughly COP 3.5 billion. The decree has been challenged before the Consejo de Estado, so verify the current figure in the official text.
• Registry cancellation: RNT cancellation can bar a provider from tourism activity for up to five years.
• Delisting: under Decreto 1836 de 2021, platforms such as Airbnb and Booking must remove listings without a valid RNT.
• Building rules: if the building is under propiedad horizontal, the page says the activity must be expressly allowed in its bylaws.

For background on why the rental debate is so heated, see our report on stalled housing construction and the Airbnb argument.

What to check now (as of November 6, 2026)

1. Confirm your RNT is active and your listing number matches it.
2. Check whether you are in the RIT (the city’s taxpayer registry; ask the city’s Secretaría de Hacienda, and use the national RNT lookup at RUES for your tourism registry). Holding an RNT without a tax registration is exactly the profile the city flagged in its second group.
3. Review your ICA filings for 2022–2024 and later. If you skipped a year, talk to a Colombian accountant about regularizing before an audit notice arrives.
4. Confirm your building’s bylaws and the property’s zoning allow tourist use.
5. Keep records of income and platform payouts. The city says it is using DIAN and third-party reported data.

FAQ: Medellín Airbnb tax

Do Airbnb hosts in Medellín have to pay ICA? Yes, according to the city: its November 4, 2026 release treats registered short-stay providers as ICA filers and flags those who skipped filings in 2022–2024. The release gives no rate or activity code, and we could not verify one in Medellín’s tax statute (Acuerdo 066 de 2017), so confirm yours with Hacienda or an accountant.

What is the RIT? The Registro de Información Tributaria is the city’s taxpayer registry. The city flagged 4,077 providers that hold an RNT but do not appear in it.

Do foreign owners face the same rules? The release does not mention nationality. It is reasonable to assume the same municipal rules apply to anyone operating a rental in Medellín, but that is our inference, not a city statement.

Does ICA replace national income tax? No. ICA is a separate municipal tax; DIAN income tax is a different obligation. See our reports on the rejected July 2026 tax reform and expat tax residents and the DIAN filing postponement.

This is general information from public sources, not tax or legal advice. Rules and thresholds change by decree and ordinance, so verify with the city or a licensed professional before acting.