Sick pay in Colombia: incapacidad, the two employer days and EPS rates

Sick pay in Colombia is split between the employer and the health insurer. When an employee is signed off with a common, non-work illness, the employer covers the first two days and the health insurer (EPS) takes over from the third. There are no unpaid waiting days: the employee is covered from day one.

The split comes from the health-sector regulations, Decreto 780 de 2016, art. 3.2.1.10. The benefit itself, the sickness payment the worker receives, is set by the Labour Code (Código Sustantivo del Trabajo) in art. 227. In everyday Colombian usage both the medical certificate and the payment go by one word: incapacidad.

A different insurer handles anything caused by work. If the illness is occupational or the absence follows a workplace accident, the employer’s two days fall away and the occupational risk insurer (ARL) takes over payment starting the following day. Keeping the two routes apart matters, because they have different rates, different paperwork and a different payer.

On the first morning, the practical steps are short. The employee tells their manager they are unwell and sends the certificate once a doctor has issued it. The manager tells payroll. Payroll records the dates, checks the cause and the issuing EPS, and makes sure nobody counts the day as unpaid absence or deducts it from vacation. Skipping any of those steps is how small sick-pay errors start.

For a common illness, the worker receives two-thirds of salary (66.67%) for the first 90 days of incapacity and half of salary for days 91 to 180. Those are the figures in CST art. 227, and they apply whatever the employee’s seniority.

Consider an employee in Bogotá on COP 8,000,000 a month who is signed off for ten days with a respiratory infection. The daily salary is about COP 266,667. Days one and two sit with the employer. From day three, the benefit is two-thirds of the daily salary, about COP 177,778, so the EPS portion for days three to ten comes to roughly COP 1,422,222.

Stretch the same case to a 120-day absence and the arithmetic shifts at day 91. Days three to 90 are paid at about COP 177,778 a day, roughly COP 15,644,444 in all; days 91 to 120 drop to half the daily salary, about COP 133,333, for another COP 4,000,000. The employee feels that step-down sharply, so it helps to tell them about it before it arrives rather than on the payslip.

How much the employer pays for its two days is a point on which payroll practice in Colombia is not uniform. Some employers apply two-thirds from the start; others keep full salary for those days. We agree the approach with you when the employment contract is set up, so it is applied the same way to every absence.

Absences longer than 180 days follow a separate set of rules. They are rare, and we deal with each one individually, keeping you informed of the dates and the cost at each stage.

The EPS pays only when two conditions are met. First, the worker needs at least four weeks (28 days) of contributions immediately before the incapacity starts. Second, the incapacity must be certified by the EPS or validated by it. Both conditions come from art. 2.2.3.3.1 of the same health-sector decree, as amended in 2023.

• Ask the employee to send the incapacity certificate as soon as it is issued, not at month end.
• Check that the certificate comes from, or has been validated by, the employee’s own EPS.
• Record the start date, the number of days and whether the cause is common or work-related.

Employees sometimes see a private doctor or use a prepaid health plan rather than their EPS. That is their choice, but the certificate then has to be validated by the EPS before the insurer will pay, so ask the employee to start that step straight away. A certificate that sits in someone’s inbox for three weeks only delays the EPS payment.

The four-week rule is worth flagging for brand-new hires. Someone who falls ill in their first month will not yet have 28 days of contributions behind them, which changes how that first absence is handled. It is one more reason to get affiliations right before day one; our timeline from offer to first payroll sets out the order in which they happen.

For anything caused by the job, the ARL replaces the EPS and pays from the day after the event. That cover only exists if the employee was affiliated in time. Protection starts the calendar day after the employer registers the worker, which means registration has to happen no later than the eve of the first working day.

The employer pays the whole ARL contribution, at a rate set by the job’s risk class. A company new to the system pays the initial rate of its class, which is 0.522% of the contribution base for class I; riskier classes pay more, with class V topping out at 8.7%. Getting the class right is the insurer’s call, but describing the job accurately is ours.

Work-related absences also raise prevention questions. Employers must provide suitable premises and protection against accidents and occupational disease, and give immediate first aid. For remote staff, telework agreements must set out minimum workstation requirements, which is part of the same preventive logic.

Staff who work from abroad under a transnational telework arrangement raise a further point. Their benefits still run through the Colombian social security system, but the employer must also arrange insurance that covers at least health care for an accident or illness while they are outside Colombia, and the ARL must cover accidents abroad. If someone on your team splits time between countries, raise it with us before the first trip.

Social security contributions do not stop during sick leave. Under the health-sector rules they keep running through incapacity and maternity leave, with the benefit amount, not the full salary, as their base. The PILA for that month reports the absence and the reduced base.

For the employee, the payslip in an incapacity month looks different. Days worked are paid as salary, the incapacity days at the benefit rate, and the employee’s own 4% health and 4% pension deductions apply to the corresponding bases. Withholding tax is computed on the total actually paid in the month.

An incapacity month is also where employees most often query a payslip, so we send a short note with it explaining which days were paid at which rate. Our explainer on pension, health and ARL contributions shows how each base is built.

Records matter for audits. The UGPP checks that contributions were paid on the correct base, and an incapacity month is exactly where errors creep in. Keep the certificate with the payroll file for that month.

One more rule applies while someone is off: the right to disconnect. Under Ley 2191 de 2022 employees should not be contacted about work outside working hours or during leave, and every employer needs a written disconnection policy. A manager who keeps sending tasks to a colleague on incapacity creates a complaint that is easy to avoid. Agree in advance who covers the absent person’s work and route questions there.

An illness is not, in itself, grounds to end a contract. The Labour Code lists a non-occupational illness that has not been cured within 180 days as a just cause, but only after those 180 days and with at least 15 days’ notice. Even then, extra protection may apply.

Workers with a disability have reinforced job protection under Ley 361 de 1997. Where disability is the reason for a dismissal, the labour authority must clear it beforehand. If it does not, the employer pays an extra 180 days’ salary. Because the line between a disability and a serious health condition is not always clear, we treat any dismissal close to a long illness as one that needs advice before anything is put in writing.

Refusing preventive or curative medical measures that the employer or the law requires is a separate just cause. It applies rarely, and it carries the same 15-day notice requirement as the illness ground. Our guide to termination in Colombia covers the full list and the indemnity table.

Pregnancy brings its own protection, independent of any illness. A pregnant worker, or one who gave birth in the last 18 weeks, needs a just cause and the Ministry of Labour’s prior sign-off before any dismissal; otherwise discrimination is presumed and 60 days’ salary is added to the bill. Notice served during maternity leave is void.

Several other absences are paid, and it helps to know which budget each comes from.

• Maternity leave (licencia de maternidad): 18 weeks on the pay the worker had when the leave began, funded by the EPS if contributions covered the pregnancy.
• Paternity leave (licencia de paternidad): 2 weeks, paid by the EPS and taken within 30 days of the birth.
• Bereavement leave (licencia por luto): when a spouse or close relative dies, five working days off on full pay from the employer.
• Serious family emergency (grave calamidad doméstica), voting, urgent or specialist medical appointments and court summons: paid leave from the employer.
• Nursing breaks: for six months a mother gets two paid half-hour breaks daily, and after that one a day until the child is two.

Staff who care for others may request flexible hours or remote work, and the employer has 15 working days to respond. A clear written answer, even a partial yes, avoids a dispute later.

All of this sits with us when we employ your Colombian staff through Employer of Record Colombia. We receive the certificates, apply the right payer and rate, report the absence on the PILA and keep you informed of the dates, while you plan the workload around them.