Colombia

Colombia was Latin America's first regulated online gambling market, launched in 2016 and administered by Coljuegos, the state monopoly administrator for games of chance. Operators hold concession contracts for internet-operated games covering online casino and betting, typically running about five years. The baseline fiscal terms are a 15% GGR exploitation-rights charge plus a 1% administrative fee - moderate by regional standards - but recent taxation has been highly volatile. An emergency Decree 0175 imposed a temporary 19% VAT on gambling deposits from February 2025 (to 31 December 2025), sharply cutting deposits and bonuses; a subsequent Decree 1390 shifting VAT onto GGR was suspended by the Constitutional Court in January 2026, a first in its history; and since March 2026 a 16% national GGR consumption tax (Decree 0240), introduced to fund flood relief, has applied - though its legality remains disputed. This sequence of emergency decrees and court challenges makes Colombia one of the most fiscally unstable markets to plan around, with the applicable tax capable of changing at short notice. For operators, the underlying concession framework is well-established and Coljuegos is an experienced regulator, but the layered and contested consumption taxes create real uncertainty over effective costs and player economics. The direction of travel is unpredictable: while the base regime is stable, repeated attempts to raise revenue through deposit or GGR taxes - and the courts' willingness to strike them down - make the current consumption tax's durability the key open question.