Labour reform Colombia 2026: the 2025 law in day-to-day practice

The changes employers in Colombia are applying in 2026 come from two statutes: Ley 2466 de 2025, the labour reform enacted on 25 June 2025, and Ley 2101 de 2021, which has been shortening the working week in annual steps. Most of Ley 2466 took effect on promulgation, but its working-time provisions phase in, so the rules on a given shift depend on the date.

The dates that matter for payroll and scheduling, in order:

• 25 June 2025: Ley 2466 enacted (Diario Oficial 53.160); most provisions in force.
• 1 July 2025: the Sunday and holiday surcharge rises to 80%.
• 25 December 2025: night work starts at 19:00 instead of 21:00.
• 1 July 2026: the Sunday and holiday surcharge rises to 90%.
• 15 July 2026: the maximum ordinary week falls to 42 hours under Ley 2101.
• 1 July 2027: the Sunday and holiday surcharge reaches 100%.

MinTIC’s normogram carries the consolidated text of Ley 2466. This guide covers how each change works in practice in 2026, and which ones a foreign company with a few Colombian staff needs to act on.

Since 15 July 2026 the maximum ordinary working week in Colombia is 42 hours, which completes the staircase written into Ley 2101 de 2021. The law cut the week in stages: 47 hours from July 2023, 46 from July 2024, 44 from July 2025 and now 42. Pay may not be reduced because of the shorter week.

No ordinary day may run past 8 hours, and the parties choose a five-day or six-day week, with a weekly rest day either way. Uneven weeks are possible too: days of between 4 and 9 hours, across a maximum of six days, trigger no overtime as long as the average holds at 42. Shift systems capped at 6 hours daily and 36 weekly can run without night or Sunday surcharges.

For employers running a 40-hour week, which many technology and service businesses already do, the change needs only a check that contracts and internal rules no longer refer to a longer ordinary week. Employers who still scheduled 44 hours in the first half of 2026 must have reduced hours from 15 July without cutting salary. One side effect: the paid recreation and training time some employers gave under Ley 1857 de 2017 no longer applies once the 42-hour week is reached.

Hours worked beyond the ordinary week are overtime, at a surcharge of 25% by day and 75% by night, with a ceiling of 2 extra hours in any day and 12 in any week outside the security and health sectors. No Ministry permit is needed for overtime, but the employer must keep a register of overtime hours and give it to the worker on request.

Since 25 December 2025, night work in Colombia runs from 19:00 to 6:00, and day work from 6:00 to 19:00. Before that date night started at 21:00. Ley 2466 signed the change on 25 June 2025 and gave employers six months to adjust.

Ordinary hours worked in the night band carry a 35% surcharge (recargo nocturno). The effect is widest for teams whose shifts ran until 20:00 or 21:00, such as customer support, retail and logistics: the last one or two hours of those shifts now cost 35% more than they did in 2025.

A simple check is to list every regular shift and mark the hours that fall after 19:00 or before 6:00. For a person on COP 3,000,000 a month, each such hour now costs 35% more than the same hour worked in the afternoon; across a team of twenty on rotating late shifts, the monthly difference is large enough to justify moving shift boundaries, where the service allows it.

For foreign companies, the change matters most when a Colombian team covers hours for another time zone. A support rota that ends at 21:00 Bogotá time to match a US West Coast afternoon now includes two night hours a day for each person on the late shift. Plans that assumed day rates until 21:00 should be repriced.

Night overtime, at 75%, is not added on top of the night surcharge: the Labour Code states that surcharges are not cumulative with each other. Payroll systems should apply the correct single rate to each hour.

The recargo dominical y festivo, the premium for working Sundays and holidays, climbs in three yearly steps under Ley 2466: 80% (July 2025), 90% (July 2026) and finally 100% (July 2027), each starting on the first of the month. In October 2026 the rate is 90%. Employers may choose to apply 100% earlier.

The Labour Code distinguishes occasional from habitual rest-day work. Working up to two rest days in a calendar month is occasional; three or more is habitual. The distinction matters for how the employee is compensated over the month, so payroll needs to count rest days worked as well as hours.

Sunday is presumed to be the rest day unless the parties agree another day in writing. For businesses that open at weekends, a written agreement fixing a different weekly rest day avoids paying the surcharge on every Sunday shift, as long as the agreed day off is actually given.

The phase-in creates a payroll trap at each 1 July. A rest day worked on 30 June is paid at the old rate and one worked on 1 July at the new one, so a monthly payroll that applies a single rate to the whole month will be wrong for June or July, depending on which rate it picks. The 2027 step to 100% will need the same care.

Holidays deserve their own planning. The 2026 calendar holds 18 public holidays, and the Ley Emiliani turns many of them into long weekends by moving them to a Monday. A team asked to work on, say, Monday 12 October or Monday 2 November is working a holiday at the 90% rate.

Article 47 of the Labour Code, in its reformed wording, makes open-ended employment the norm and every other contract type an exception to be justified. Fixed-term and project arrangements must be signed on paper, and a defective fixed-term contract counts as open-ended from day one.

Fixed terms now have an overall ceiling of 4 years including renewals. Contracts that predate the reform start their four-year clock on 25 June 2025. Sub-annual terms can be prolonged without limit by mutual written consent; from the fifth extension onwards each one must cover a full year or more. Without 30 days’ written notice before expiry, a fixed-term contract renews automatically.

The cap changes how employers should think about long fixed-term arrangements. A role that has been renewed year after year since before the reform now has a clear end date for that model, and the choice at the end is to move the person to an indefinite contract or end the relationship properly with 30 days’ notice of non-renewal.

Short engagements still accrue leave, prima and cesantías, scaled to the time served. A project contract needs an exact description of the job, and keeping the person on once the project is finished converts the whole relationship, retroactively, into an indefinite one.

Resignations got a rule as well: a month of notice from employees on open-ended contracts, meant to give time to recruit, with no fine allowed if they leave sooner. Our guide to Colombian employment contracts covers the contract types and probation rules in full.

Sanctions now come at the end of a due-process sequence in the new article 115. The employer opens the case formally, writes down the charges, lets the worker see the evidence and gives them five days or more to answer; the decision must give reasons, match the seriousness of the fault and be open to challenge. Employers with fewer than 10 workers need only hear the worker before sanctioning.

Employers required to keep internal work rules (reglamento interno de trabajo) now have to post them in two visible spots and online as well, and were given a year to bring them into line with the new procedure. Several duties were also added to article 57 of the Labour Code:

• make reasonable adjustments for workers with disabilities
• offer preferential relocation, where possible, to workers who are victims of domestic violence
• guarantee work free of violence and harassment, including for applicants, trainees and former workers
• answer, within 15 working days, a request for flexible hours or remote work from a worker with care responsibilities

For employers with 15 or more workers, the apprenticeship rules changed as well. The SENA apprenticeship contract is now a special fixed-term employment contract, and an employer that pays SENA instead of hiring an apprentice pays 1.5 minimum wages a month for each apprentice not hired.

Ley 2466 also adjusted several pay mechanics. A provable direct payment of cesantías to the worker now settles the debt, even though fund membership is still compulsory. Employers can also prepay the fund month by month instead of in one February transfer, and a signed agreement can turn the January interest into a 1% monthly addition to pay. Our explainer on prima and cesantías in Colombia sets out the standard dates.

Telework gained new forms: autonomous, mobile, hybrid and transnational, the last being a Colombian contract performed from another country with health insurance provided by the employer and ARL cover abroad. For lower-paid teleworkers, under 2 SMMLV, the transport allowance is swapped for an auxilio de conectividad worth the same COP 249,095 a month this year. The three regimes, teletrabajo, trabajo remoto and trabajo en casa, are compared in our piece on remote work in Colombia.

Labour claims now prescribe 3 years after the obligation fell due. For a foreign company, the practical response to the reform is an audit of schedules, surcharges and contract templates against the 2026 rules. At Employer of Record Colombia those rules are built into the contracts we sign and the payroll we run, and our article on choosing an EOR in Colombia suggests reform questions to put to any provider.

Q01What is the maximum working week in Colombia in 2026?+

A.Forty-two ordinary hours. That cap took effect on 15 July 2026 as the final step of Ley 2101, and the daily ceiling stays at 8 hours. Before that date in 2026 the limit was 44 hours. Pay may not be reduced because of the shorter week.

Q02When does night work start in Colombia?+

A.At 19:00. From 25 December 2025 the night band covers 19:00 to 6:00; ordinary hours inside it earn 35% extra. Before then night work started at 21:00.

Q03What is the Sunday and holiday surcharge in 2026?+

A.90% from 1 July 2026, up from 80% since 1 July 2025. It rises to 100% from 1 July 2027, and employers may apply 100% earlier if they choose.

Q04What ceiling did Ley 2466 put on fixed-term employment?+

A.No more than 4 years in total, including renewals. Older contracts count their four years from 25 June 2025, the day the reform was enacted.

Q05Does the labour reform change overtime rules?+

A.Overtime is with a ceiling of 2 extra hours in any day and 12 in any week outside the security and health sectors. No Ministry permit is needed, but the employer must keep an overtime register and give it to the worker on request.