Get all the data you need about the real estate market in Colombia
SUMMARY
What rental yield can you get in Colombia? A realistic long-term target is about 6% to 8% gross, with roughly 7% a solid market benchmark and 8% already a strong deal.
The national average sits around 7%, but the city spread is not huge across most major markets. Bogotá, Barranquilla, Pereira, Medellín and Cali all cluster in the low-to-high 7% range, so property selection can matter more than choosing the “right” city.
Cartagena is the clear exception. Its long-term yield is much lower because buyers pay a premium for tourism, coastal scarcity and international demand that normal residential rents do not fully recover.
Small Medellín units can beat the city average by a lot. Current asking-price and rent data imply that some apartaestudios can reach roughly 9% to 10% gross, mainly because compact rentals command a high rent per square metre.
Prime neighborhoods do not automatically produce better cash flow. In expensive areas, purchase prices often rise faster than rents, so investors may accept a lower yield in exchange for stronger resale liquidity, easier tenanting or personal use.
A 7% gross yield is not a 7% return in the owner’s pocket. Vacancy, property tax, insurance, maintenance, administration and leasing costs can pull a normal deal closer to about 5% to 5.5% before financing and personal income tax.
Rents are still rising enough to keep yields broadly intact for now. Colombia’s current national gross-yield benchmark is slightly above its preceding reading, even as new-home prices continue to climb.
Airbnb can produce much higher gross revenue, but the revenue number alone is not a yield. Medellín and Cartagena can look very attractive on short-term-rental income, yet acquisition price, management, utilities, cleaning and furnishing decide whether the extra revenue survives.
The recent jump in Airbnb revenue per active listing needs care. In Bogotá, Medellín and Cartagena, active supply fell sharply at the same time, so part of the apparent boom comes from a smaller pool of listings rather than a pure surge in underlying operating performance.
Legal feasibility can completely change the investment case. An apartment that looks like a 12% Airbnb deal may fall back to a 7% or 8% long-term rental if the building does not authorize tourist accommodation or the property cannot meet RNT requirements.
The practical target is therefore fairly simple: around 7% gross is good, 8% is strong and 9% is excellent for a conventional long-term rental if there is no obvious catch. Double-digit returns are possible, but they usually require a compact unit, a very good purchase price, short-term renting, or more operating risk.
Thinking of buying real estate in Colombia?
Acquiring property in a different country is a complex task. Don't fall into common traps – grab our guide and make better decisions.
What rental yield can you realistically get in Colombia today?
A realistic long-term rental yield in Colombia today is about 6% to 8% gross, with roughly 7% the best starting point for a normal residential investment.
The latest Global Property Guide data put the national average at 7.01%. The figure is based on median asking prices and rents for one-, two- and three-bedroom homes, so we would use it as a market benchmark rather than a promise of what one apartment will earn.
Colombia also compares well with much of Latin America. The same dataset currently puts gross yields at 5.71% in Brazil, 5.79% in Mexico and 5.93% in Peru. Costa Rica is higher at 7.63%, while the Dominican Republic is above 8%.
Another way to look at the market gives roughly the same answer. Colombia's current national price-to-rent ratio is around 15 years. Brazil is around 20, Peru 18 and Argentina 22, meaning Colombian rents are relatively high compared with residential purchase prices.
For a conventional long-term apartment, we would treat 6% as acceptable, 7% as good and 8% as strong. A clean 9% deal is already unusual enough to deserve attention.
| Gross yield | What it means in Colombia |
|---|---|
| Below 5% | Weak for an income-focused purchase |
| 5%–6% | Commoner in expensive locations |
| 6%–8% | The realistic attractive range |
| 8%–9% | Strong |
| 10%+ | Possible, but check why it is so high |
Which Colombian cities give landlords the highest rental yields right now?
Bogotá currently comes out on top among Colombia's main long-term rental markets, while Cartagena sits well behind the pack.
Global Property Guide puts Bogotá at about 7.71% gross. Barranquilla is close at 7.49%, followed by Pereira at 7.29%, Medellín at 7.25% and Cali at 7.19%.
The spread is narrow. Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Pereira and Barranquilla are all within roughly half a percentage point of each other. There is no giant Medellín premium despite the amount of international attention the city receives.
Cartagena looks very different at 5.58%. Buyers there are paying for the coast, tourism, second-home demand and international appeal. Long-term tenants do not pay enough extra rent to match that higher purchase price.
For a landlord who simply wants rent relative to money invested, Bogotá currently looks better than Cartagena by more than two percentage points.
| City | Average gross rental yield |
|---|---|
| Bogotá | 7.71% |
| Barranquilla | 7.49% |
| Pereira | 7.29% |
| Medellín | 7.25% |
| Cali | 7.19% |
| Bello | 7.09% |
| Santa Marta | 6.44% |
| Cartagena | 5.58% |
Don't buy the wrong property, in the wrong area of Colombia
Buying real estate is a significant investment. Don't rely solely on your intuition. Gather the right information to make the best decision.
Is Bogotá actually better than Medellín for rental property?
Bogotá currently gives a slightly higher average long-term yield than Medellín, but Medellín becomes much more competitive once we focus on small apartments.
The citywide difference is modest: about 7.71% in Bogotá versus 7.25% in Medellín. We would not choose between the two cities because of a 0.46-point gap.
The tenant mix tells us more. Fincaraíz found that 74% of housing demand in Bogotá during 2025 was for rentals. Medellín was almost identical at 73%.
Compact Medellín units stand out inside that market. Among people looking at apartaestudios on Fincaraíz, 79% were searching for a rental and only 21% for a purchase. Standard Medellín apartments had a much more even split.
So Bogotá wins the simple city-average comparison for now. Medellín gets more interesting when we target the part of the market where tenants are especially willing to rent rather than buy.
Can a small apartment in Medellín really yield 9% or 10%?
Yes, current asking-price data show that some Medellín apartaestudios can mathematically reach gross yields around 9% to 10%.
We can calculate this directly from Fincaraíz's sale and rental prices per square metre.
An estrato 5 apartaestudio was listed at roughly COP 7.455 million per square metre to buy and COP 63,000 per square metre per month to rent. Annualising the rent gives an implied gross yield of about 10.1%.
An estrato 6 apartaestudio comes out around 9.3%, while an estrato 3 unit is close to 8.9%. Standard apartments also improve as we move up the estratos in this dataset, reaching about 9.3% in estrato 5 and 9.7% in estrato 6.
These are asking-price calculations, so we would never plug 10.1% straight into a financial model as guaranteed income. But the pattern is useful: Medellín tenants pay a strong premium per square metre for compact homes, and that can give small units much better rental economics than the city average suggests.
| Medellín unit | Sale price/m² | Monthly rent/m² | Implied gross yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apartment, estrato 3 | COP 4.095m | COP 26,250 | 7.7% |
| Apartment, estrato 4 | COP 5.408m | COP 39,060 | 8.7% |
| Apartment, estrato 5 | COP 5.933m | COP 45,990 | 9.3% |
| Apartaestudio, estrato 3 | COP 4.673m | COP 34,755 | 8.9% |
| Apartaestudio, estrato 5 | COP 7.455m | COP 63,000 | 10.1% |
| Apartaestudio, estrato 6 | COP 9.870m | COP 76,440 | 9.3% |
Get to know the market before buying a property in Colombia
Better information leads to better decisions. Get all the data you need before investing a large amount of money.
Do expensive Colombian neighborhoods give you a better rental yield?
Expensive Colombian neighborhoods often give you a lower rental yield because purchase prices rise faster than the rent tenants are willing to pay.
Medellín's El Poblado is a good example. Current long-term yields there generally sit around the 7% range depending on apartment size. That is solid, but hardly an exceptional premium for buying in Medellín's best-known upscale district.
The same problem appears inside Bogotá. Different unit sizes in expensive districts can have very different yields because an extra COP 200 million or COP 300 million in purchase price does not necessarily translate into a proportional increase in monthly rent.
We would therefore be careful with properties sold mainly on the idea that they are in the “best area.” For a rental investor, a slightly less fashionable neighborhood can work better if the acquisition price drops much faster than the rent.
There is still a reason to pay more for prime areas: resale liquidity, tenant quality, lower vacancy and personal use can all justify a lower yield. But anyone buying mainly for cash flow should calculate the rent first and admire the neighborhood second.
Why is Cartagena's long-term rental yield so much lower?
Cartagena currently gives landlords only about 5.6% gross on average because property prices carry a tourism premium that normal residential rents cannot fully match.
Cartagena trails Bogotá by more than two percentage points and Medellín by around 1.7 points on the latest long-term figures.
That does not make Cartagena a bad property market. Buyers there may care about holiday use, foreign demand, scarcity in desirable areas, appreciation or short-term rentals. Those buyers are bidding for the same apartments as conventional landlords.
The purchase price gets pushed up by several types of demand, while a Colombian family signing a normal annual lease still has a limit on what it can pay every month.
So if the goal is simply to collect stable long-term rent, Cartagena is currently one of the harder Colombian markets in which to make the numbers work.
Buying real estate in Colombia can be risky
An increasing number of foreign investors are showing interest. However, 90% of them will make mistakes. Avoid the pitfalls with our comprehensive guide.
How much of a 7% Colombia rental yield do you actually keep?
A 7% gross rental yield in Colombia will often leave the owner with something closer to 5% to 5.5% before financing and personal income tax.
The first hit is vacancy. One empty month removes about 0.58 percentage points from a property that would otherwise yield 7% for a full year.
Property tax, insurance and maintenance reduce it further. Depending on the building, an owner may also face administration costs, leasing commissions, occasional special assessments or management fees.
A newer apartment with a stable tenant can perform better than this. An older furnished unit with frequent tenant changes can perform considerably worse.
Global Property Guide estimates that Colombian net rental yields are usually around 1.5 to 2 percentage points below gross yields. That rule of thumb matches what we get when we run a basic cost model ourselves.
| Example from a 7% gross yield | Approx. yield left |
|---|---|
| Full advertised rent | 7.00% |
| After one vacant month | 6.42% |
| After tax and insurance allowance | ~6.0% |
| After maintenance reserve | ~5.6% |
| After other leasing/admin costs | ~5.2% |
Are rents in Colombia still rising enough to keep yields attractive?
Colombian rents are still rising, and there is no clear evidence yet that higher property prices are crushing rental yields.
The latest national gross-yield reading is 7.01%, compared with 6.88% in the previous observation. That small increase tells us that asking rents have kept up with purchase prices well enough for yields to remain healthy.
Existing residential leases also get some inflation protection. Under Colombia's rental law, once the same rent has been in place for 12 months, the landlord can raise it by up to the previous calendar year's CPI. DANE measured inflation at 5.10% in 2025, so qualifying leases can currently be adjusted by up to that amount.
There is one reason to watch this closely. DANE reported that new-home prices rose 2.79% in the first quarter of 2026 alone, including 2.78% for apartments. If buyers keep paying more while rents slow down, entry yields will eventually fall.
We are not there yet. The current 7% national yield is actually a little higher than the preceding reading.
Don't lose money on your property in Colombia
100% of people who have lost money there have spent less than 1 hour researching the market. We have reviewed everything there is to know. Grab our guide now.
Can Airbnb earn more than a long-term rental in Colombia?
Airbnb can earn much more gross revenue than a long-term lease in Colombia, especially in Medellín and Cartagena, but the purchase price decides whether the extra revenue produces a genuinely better yield.
AirDNA's latest trailing data put annual revenue per active listing at roughly $15,500 in Medellín, $21,500 in Cartagena and $8,300 in Bogotá.
Those are meaningful numbers. Still, annual Airbnb revenue cannot be called a rental yield until we know what the property cost.
A Medellín unit making $15,500 a year would show a 15.5% gross revenue-to-price ratio if it cost $100,000. The same rental income against a $200,000 purchase would produce only 7.75%.
Short-term rentals also make the owner pay expenses that a conventional tenant often absorbs: electricity, internet, cleaning, furniture, linen and more frequent repairs. A professional manager can take another sizeable share.
So yes, Colombia can produce double-digit Airbnb revenue yields on the right purchase. We would be much more skeptical of anyone advertising a double-digit net return without showing the full cost base.
Is Medellín, Bogotá or Cartagena best for Airbnb right now?
Medellín currently has the most interesting balance of occupancy and nightly rate, while Cartagena produces the highest average annual short-term-rental revenue.
AirDNA shows Medellín at about 63% occupancy and a $71 average daily rate. Bogotá gets close on occupancy at 61%, but its average daily rate is only $39. Cartagena charges around $119 per night, although occupancy drops to 53%.
That leaves Medellín in an attractive middle position. It earns almost twice Bogotá's average annual listing revenue while filling a slightly higher share of available nights. Cartagena generates more annual revenue than Medellín, but buyers also face much higher property prices in many tourist areas.
The right city therefore depends on how cheaply we can acquire a legal property capable of matching those operating numbers.
| Market | Occupancy | Average daily rate | Average annual revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bogotá | 61% | $39 | $8,300 |
| Medellín | 63% | $71 | $15,500 |
| Cartagena | 53% | $119 | $21,500 |
Get the full checklist for your due diligence in Colombia
Don't repeat the same mistakes others have made before you. Make sure everything is in order before signing your sales contract.
Did Airbnb revenue really explode in Colombia lately?
Airbnb revenue per active listing has jumped lately, but the huge growth rates make the improvement look much stronger than the underlying short-term-rental market really was.
Bogotá is the most extreme example. AirDNA currently shows average annual revenue up 185.3% year over year. Yet active supply fell 34.4% over the same comparison period.
Medellín shows the same pattern even more strongly on supply: average annual revenue rose 92.4%, while active listings fell 41.6%. Cartagena revenue increased 59.5%, alongside a 38.3% drop in active listings.
RevPAR helps separate genuine pricing and occupancy improvement from the changing mix of properties still being counted. Bogotá's RevPAR increased 33.3%, which is genuinely impressive. Medellín's rose only 8.3%. Cartagena's fell 1.9%.
Average daily rates tell another part of the story. Medellín's fell 16.9% and Cartagena's fell 19.9%, despite those enormous jumps in average annual listing revenue.
So we should take Bogotá's improvement seriously, while treating the headline revenue growth in Medellín and Cartagena with much more caution. A shrinking pool of active properties has pushed up the average revenue reported for the listings that remain.
Tourism itself looks healthy. MinCIT recorded more than 1.58 million non-resident visitors in the first quarter of 2026, with arrivals in March up 6.7% from a year earlier. Colombia therefore has plenty of real visitor demand behind the short-term-rental market. The strange part of the latest Airbnb numbers comes mainly from the supply side.
Can you legally Airbnb any apartment in Colombia?
No, owning an apartment in Colombia does not automatically give you the right to rent it to tourists.
Colombia requires tourist-accommodation operators to register through the Registro Nacional de Turismo, or RNT. For apartments inside a propiedad horizontal, MinCIT's current guidance also requires the operator to declare that the building's regulations authorize tourist accommodation.
This is a major yield issue, not just paperwork.
Imagine buying a Medellín apartment because comparable Airbnb units suggest 12% gross revenue against the purchase price. If the building prohibits tourist rentals, the same apartment may have to go onto the long-term market at 7% or 8%.
The difference can wipe out the reason for choosing that property in the first place.
For that reason, we would check the building regulations and RNT eligibility before using Airbnb revenue to decide what an apartment is worth.
Don't sign a document you don't understand in Colombia
Buying a property over there? We have reviewed all the documents you need to know. Stay out of trouble - grab our comprehensive guide.
What rental yield should you actually target when buying in Colombia?
A good target in Colombia today is 7% to 8% gross for a normal long-term apartment, while a genuine 8% to 9% deal already looks very attractive.
We can reach that conclusion without leaning too heavily on one statistic. The national market sits around 7%. Bogotá, Barranquilla, Pereira, Medellín and Cali all currently cluster in the low-to-high 7% range. Medellín's underlying price-per-square-metre data show that carefully chosen compact units can move into the 9% range and occasionally around 10% on asking-price mathematics.
At the other end, 5% to 6% can still make sense when an investor deliberately pays for a premium location, strong resale prospects or personal use. Cartagena currently fits that profile much better than it fits a pure long-term-yield strategy.
Net income needs a tougher standard. A 7% gross deal often becomes roughly 5% to 5.5% after realistic property-level costs. We would therefore want the gross number comfortably above 6% before getting excited about income.
Short-term rentals can go much higher, especially in Medellín and Cartagena. But Airbnb should be underwritten separately because the owner is taking on operating expenses, fluctuating occupancy and legal restrictions that a normal landlord does not face to the same degree.
So the range worth remembering is simple. Colombia currently offers roughly 6% to 8% gross on ordinary long-term residential property. Around 7% is good, 8% is strong and 9% is excellent if the property has no obvious catch. Once someone promises much more than that from a conventional lease, we would check the assumptions before celebrating the yield.
OUR METHODOLOGY
This analysis estimates what rental yield is currently realistic in Colombia by separating the market into the pieces that actually determine the result: national and city-level gross yields, property type, purchase price, rent per square metre, ownership costs, rental strategy and legal feasibility.
We use broad market data to establish the baseline, then move into more granular city and property-type evidence where national averages can hide meaningful differences. Gross yield is used for clean market comparisons before owner-specific costs, while asking-price and asking-rent data are used to test the current relationship between acquisition cost and rental income.
Long-term and short-term rentals are treated separately. Airbnb revenue is assessed together with acquisition price, occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, active supply and operating costs, because annual revenue on its own is not the same thing as a rental yield.
Where a headline number could be misleading, we compare it with related indicators. This is especially important for the latest Airbnb data, where strong revenue-per-listing growth coincides with sharp declines in active supply in Bogotá, Medellín and Cartagena.
We also distinguish gross from realistic owner-level returns. Vacancy, property tax, insurance, maintenance, administration, leasing costs and management can pull a nominal 7% gross yield closer to roughly 5% to 5.5% before financing and personal income tax.
Legal feasibility is included in the return analysis rather than treated as a separate footnote. Tourist accommodation in Colombia requires Registro Nacional de Turismo compliance, and apartments in propiedad horizontal buildings also need regulations that authorize tourist accommodation. A property that cannot legally operate as a short-term rental has to be valued on a different income base.
Key sources used for this analysis include Global Property Guide for national and city-level rental yields, Global Property Guide for residential market and price-to-rent context, Fincaraíz for Bogotá and Medellín rental demand and Medellín prices and rents per square metre, DANE for new-housing price growth, DANE for the inflation figure used in rent adjustments, Función Pública for Law 820 of 2003, AirDNA for Medellín short-term-rental data, AirDNA for Bogotá short-term-rental data, AirDNA for Cartagena short-term-rental data, and MinCIT for Registro Nacional de Turismo requirements.
Get fresh and reliable information about the market in Colombia
Don't base significant investment decisions on outdated data. Get updated and accurate information.
Related blog posts
- How much is rent in Colombia now?
- Is Airbnb still profitable in Colombia?
- Is buying property to rent out in Colombia still worth it?
- Is Airbnb still legal in Colombia now?
