Colombian payroll in 2026: PILA, withholding and deadlines

A Colombian pay run ends in three places: the employee’s bank account, the PILA contributions form and DIAN. Salary goes to the worker at least monthly; contributions for health, pension, occupational risk and the payroll levies go through the PILA; withheld income tax and the electronic payroll record go to the tax authority. Each has its own deadline in the following month.

In order, a typical month looks like this:

• collect the month’s variable items: overtime, night and rest-day surcharges, commissions, sick days and leave
• calculate gross pay, then the IBC, the ingreso base de cotización on which contributions are charged
• deduct the employee’s contributions and the income tax withheld at source
• pay net salary to the employee and issue the payslip
• in the following month, pay the PILA, file and pay the withholding return, and transmit the electronic payroll document

The variable items deserve care because each carries a statutory uplift. Any hour between 19:00 and 6:00 counts as night work and earns a 35% surcharge. Overtime adds 25% by day and 75% at night. Hours on the rest day or a holiday are paid with a 90% premium from 1 July 2026. All of them are salary, so they enter the contribution base and the prestaciones as well as the payslip.

A monthly salary cannot be paid less often than once a month; overtime and surcharges can be paid with the salary of the period in which they were worked or the next one. CST art. 134 sets that monthly maximum; nothing stops an employer paying more often.

The employee pays 4% of the contribution base to health and 4% to pension, and those two lines appear on every payslip. A third line appears once pay reaches 4 SMMLV, or COP 7,003,620 monthly: 1% to the Fondo de Solidaridad Pensional, the pension system’s solidarity pot, paid entirely by the employee. It rises in steps above 16 SMMLV, adding 0.2 points per band, until it reaches 2% above 20 SMMLV.

The contribution base has a floor and a ceiling. It is never less than the minimum wage, and for pension it stops at 25 SMMLV (COP 43,772,625 a month). The prima is not salary and is not part of the base, so the June and December payments carry no social security deductions, though they do carry tax. On a salario integral, only 70% of the pay is used as the base.

Regular extras change the base, occasional ones do not. A commission paid every month is salary and is contributed on; a one-off discretionary bonus, or a benefit both sides have agreed in writing is not salary, stays outside it. Getting that classification right at the offer stage avoids corrections on the PILA later.

For a worker on COP 8,000,000 a month, the arithmetic is simple: 4% health, 4% pension and 1% solidarity fund come to COP 720,000. Tax is the next step.

The employer withholds income tax every month from salary payments, using the table in art. 383 of the Tax Code (Estatuto Tributario). The table is expressed in tax value units (UVT), worth COP 52,374 each in 2026, and the most common method, procedure 1, applies it to each month’s payments.

Before the table is applied, the gross is reduced in these steps:

• the employee’s mandatory health, pension and solidarity fund contributions are removed as non-taxable income
• deductions follow where the employee has them: for dependants, 10% of gross labour income up to 32 UVT a month, and prepaid health plans up to 16 UVT a month
• 25% of what is left is exempt, within an annual cap of 790 UVT
• exempt income and deductions together may not exceed 40% of net labour income or 1,340 UVT a year

The table itself starts at zero: a monthly base of 95 UVT or less (COP 4,975,530 this year) attracts no withholding at all. Between 95 and 150 UVT the rate is 19% of the excess, then 28% up to 360 UVT, with higher bands reaching 39% above 2,300 UVT.

Procedure 1 is not the only method. Under procedure 2, the employer works out a fixed percentage every six months and applies it to each payment until the next recalculation. An employee may also ask in writing for a higher withholding rate, which some people choose to avoid a balance due with their annual return. Severance indemnities are taxed at the employee’s average rate from the same table.

Applied to the COP 8,000,000 salary, the base after contributions and the 25% exemption is COP 5,460,000, or 104.25 UVT. The withholding is 19% of the 9.25 UVT above the threshold, about COP 92,000, leaving net pay of COP 7,188,000 in an ordinary month. Since the table runs on everything paid within the month, the months that include half the prima push the base into the 28% band: with COP 12,000,000 paid in June or December, withholding rises to about COP 693,000.

Every social security contribution, from employer and employee alike, is self-assessed and paid on the integrated contributions form, the Planilla Integrada de Liquidación de Aportes (PILA). It covers health, pension, the solidarity fund, the occupational risk insurer (ARL), the family compensation fund and, where they apply, the SENA and ICBF levies.

The due date hangs on the final pair of digits in the employer’s NIT, running from the 2nd business day of the month for 00 to 07 to the 16th business day for 94 to 99. Rounding is fixed by regulation: the contribution base is rounded up to the nearest peso and each contribution up to the next COP 100.

On the employer side, a company that files income tax pays, for staff below 10 SMMLV, pension at 12%, the caja at 4% and the ARL premium, which is 0.522% at the initial rate of risk class I. The employer’s 8.5% health contribution and the 2% SENA and 3% ICBF levies are exempt under art. 114-1 of the Tax Code below that line and apply in full above it. Contributions continue during sick leave and maternity leave, calculated on the benefit paid.

The employer has to keep the PILA files and give the worker a copy showing payment on request. That copy is often the first thing an employee checks when their health insurer or pension fund statement looks wrong, so a clean PILA history also avoids a steady trickle of questions.

Errors are expensive. The UGPP audits contributions, and an omission found in an official assessment costs 10% of the unpaid amount for each month, up to 200%, plus interest; an inaccuracy costs 35% of the difference if corrected at the request stage and 60% if assessed. The PILA proof is also needed at the end of a contract: a termination has no effect until the employer shows the last three months were paid.

Two filings go to DIAN after each pay run. The monthly withholding return (declaración mensual de retenciones en la fuente) reports and pays the tax withheld. Its due date in the following month depends on the NIT’s last digit, running from the 7th business day for a 1 through to the 16th business day for a 0. December’s return falls due in January.

The electronic payroll support document (nómina electrónica) is a separate obligation. For every payment, DIAN must receive a payroll record from the employer no later than the tenth of the following month. Each payment produces its own record, so an off-cycle payment such as a final settlement needs one too.

Year-end works differently from many countries. There is no reconciliation by the employer; instead, an employee whose gross income for 2026 exceeds 1,400 UVT (COP 73,323,600), or who passes other thresholds such as assets above 4,500 UVT, must file their own 2027 return and square the balance there. At COP 8,000,000 a month, procedure 1 withholding comes to about COP 2,306,000 for the year, while the annual tax works out at roughly COP 2,742,000, so an employee with no other income or deductions would expect a small balance to pay with the return. Cesantías and the interest on them are not subject to withholding.

The surcharge rates used in payroll this year follow the 2025 reform, summarised in our guide to the labour reform in practice.

Several payments fall outside the regular pay run and are where most payroll errors in Colombia start. They have legal dates, and missing them carries penalties of their own.

• prima de servicios: a month’s salary per year, in two halves, one by 30 June and one by 20 December
• intereses sobre cesantías: 12% of whatever cesantías had built up by 31 December, handed to the employee in January
• cesantías: one month’s salary per year, deposited in the employee’s fund before 15 February, with one day’s salary owed for each day of delay
• dotación: clothes and shoes three times a year (30 April, 31 August, 20 December) once an employee on up to 2 SMMLV passes three months’ service

Annual leave is handled inside the regular pay run: an employee on holiday is paid their normal salary for those days, and only leave that is exchanged for cash, up to half of the entitlement by written agreement, shows as a separate payment. Unpaid amounts at the end of a contract go into the final settlement, where a delay costs one day’s salary per day for up to 24 months.

Two options from the 2025 labour reform change the rhythm if the parties want. Employers can now pre-fund the cesantías with 8.33% each month, and, if both sides sign up to it, the interest can go out monthly as 1% of salary. Our guide to prima, cesantías and interest covers the amounts and dates in more depth, and the effect on total cost is set out in the true employer cost in Colombia.

All of this is the routine work that Employer of Record Colombia carries for each employee. The order in which it starts for a new hire is in our offer-to-payroll timeline, and if you are comparing providers, the payroll calendar is one of the tests for shortlisting a Colombian EOR.

Q01How often must Colombian employees be paid?+

A.Monthly salaries cannot be paid less often than once a month. Overtime and surcharges can be paid with the salary of the period or the next one.

Q02Is the prima subject to social security contributions?+

A.No. The prima is not salary and is left out of the contribution base. It is added to the month’s payments for withholding tax, which is why June and December withholding is higher.

Q03What is the PILA deadline?+

A.Each employer has its own PILA date, a business day between the 2nd and the 16th that depends on the NIT’s last two digits. Every contribution is paid on that one form.

Q04Does the employer file a year-end tax reconciliation for employees?+

A.No. Employees whose 2026 gross income passes 1,400 UVT, or who meet other thresholds, file their own return in 2027 and settle any difference with the tax withheld.

Q05What is nómina electrónica?+

A.The electronic payroll support document that the employer sends to DIAN for each payment, by the tenth day of the next month.