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SUMMARY
Yes, rents in Colombia are still going up. The surge has cooled dramatically, but there is little evidence that the country has entered a broad period of falling rents.
The biggest change is the speed of the increase. The maximum CPI-linked adjustment for many existing residential leases fell from 13.12% in 2023 to 5.10% in 2026, turning a double-digit shock into something much closer to mid-single-digit growth.
That slowdown does not undo the previous increases. A rent that started at COP 1.5 million and absorbed the maximum adjustments from 2023 through 2026 would now be around COP 2.07 million, roughly 38% above its starting point.
Existing tenants and apartment hunters are also living in two different rental markets. The annual CPI ceiling limits many renewals after 12 months, but a landlord renting a vacant apartment to a new tenant can reset the asking price much closer to the current market.
Colombia has become unusually dependent on renting. DANE found that 40.8% of households rented their homes in 2025, more than the share that owned their homes outright or were still paying for them.
Demand still leans heavily toward rentals. Fincaraíz reported that 71% of housing demand on its platform in 2025 was for rentals, with the pattern appearing across Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla and Bucaramanga rather than in one isolated city.
Medellín is the clearest high-price outlier in directly comparable city data. Premium apartments and studios command far higher asking rents per square metre than similar segments in Cali and Barranquilla, particularly in areas such as El Poblado and Laureles.
Airbnb and other short-term rentals can intensify pressure in those specific neighborhoods, but they do not explain Colombia's national rental story. The broader forces are domestic rental demand, difficult access to homeownership and years of inflation-linked increases.
Affordability therefore has not recovered just because inflation slowed. Today's smaller percentage increases are being applied to a much higher base, while households that want to leave the rental market still face down payments, mortgage costs and tighter access to subsidies and credit.
The next risk is inflation. Annual CPI had risen to 6.03% in the latest published reading, so a higher full-year inflation result could push the next legal adjustment ceiling above the 5.10% applying to many 2026 renewals.
The cleanest description of the market today is a slower but persistent rental squeeze. Rent growth has cooled; rent levels generally have not reversed, and popular urban markets can still reprice sharply when tenants move.
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Are rents in Colombia still going up today?
Yes, rents in Colombia are still rising today, although the increases are much smaller than during the inflation shock a few years ago.
The easiest way to see the slowdown is through Colombia's annual rent-adjustment ceiling. Because residential leases can generally be increased by up to the previous year's inflation after 12 months, the maximum adjustment went from 13.12% for many renewals in 2023 to 9.28% in 2024, then 5.20% in 2025.
For 2026 renewals, the ceiling fell again to 5.10%. On a COP 2 million monthly rent, that means a maximum annual increase of about COP 102,000, compared with COP 262,400 under the 2023 ceiling.
DANE's latest price data still show housing costs moving upward, so there is little evidence of a broad reversal. What has changed is the speed. Colombia has moved from unusually large rent increases to something much closer to mid-single-digit growth.
| Renewal year | Previous-year inflation | Maximum annual adjustment | Increase on COP 2m rent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 13.12% | 13.12% | COP 262,400 |
| 2024 | 9.28% | 9.28% | COP 185,600 |
| 2025 | 5.20% | 5.20% | COP 104,000 |
| 2026 | 5.10% | 5.10% | COP 102,000 |
Why are Colombian rents still rising when inflation has come down?
Colombian rents keep rising because lower inflation slows future increases without undoing the large increases already built into existing rents.
Law 820 links many residential rent adjustments to the previous calendar year's inflation. The increase also happens on each contract's anniversary rather than across the whole country at once.
A tenant renewing in February can therefore receive the annual adjustment months before a tenant whose contract renews in October. Higher inflation gradually works its way through the rental stock over an entire year.
There is also a simple compounding effect. Once a COP 1.5 million rent rises by 13%, the next increase is calculated from roughly COP 1.7 million rather than from the original COP 1.5 million. Falling inflation slows the next step, but the earlier jump stays in the rent.
That is why the current slowdown feels less dramatic to tenants than the inflation numbers might suggest.
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Has Colombia's rent boom finally cooled down?
Yes. Colombia's rent boom has cooled sharply, and describing today's market as another double-digit rental surge would be misleading.
Take a COP 1.5 million rent exposed successively to the maximum increases applicable in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026. It would reach roughly COP 2.07 million after those four adjustments, an increase of around 38%.
Most of that jump came from the earlier inflation shock. Four consecutive annual increases of roughly 5% would produce a much smaller cumulative increase.
For tenants, though, the starting point is now higher. A renter who absorbed the previous increases does not return to the old rent simply because inflation cools.
So today's pressure increasingly comes from accumulation rather than another sudden jump.
Does Colombia's rent cap protect someone looking for a new apartment?
No. Colombia's annual rent-adjustment cap offers much less protection to someone signing a new lease than to someone staying in the same apartment.
The inflation ceiling mainly governs increases on an existing qualifying residential contract after 12 months. A landlord cannot normally take an existing tenant's rent and raise it by whatever percentage the market will bear at the anniversary.
A vacant property is different. When a new tenant arrives, the asking rent can be renegotiated at the prevailing market level, subject to Colombia's broader legal limits on residential rents.
That creates two very different experiences. Someone who has stayed in the same apartment for several years may receive a relatively predictable annual adjustment. Someone moving into Laureles, Chapinero or El Poblado can discover that comparable listings have moved much further.
Commercial premises and short-term tourist rentals also follow different rules, so the annual residential ceiling should never be read as a universal cap on Colombian rental prices.
| Rental situation | Does the annual CPI ceiling apply in the same way? | Main price driver | What the tenant can face |
|---|---|---|---|
| Existing residential lease after 12 months | Yes | Previous-year CPI ceiling | Controlled annual increase |
| Existing lease before 12 months | Generally no annual increase yet | Existing contract | Usually unchanged |
| New residential tenant | No cap versus the previous tenant's rent | Current negotiated market | Potentially much larger reset |
| Commercial property | No | Contract terms | Different adjustment |
| Short-term rental | No | Tourism and short-term demand | Much more volatile pricing |
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Are Colombians renting more than they used to?
Yes, Colombia has become much more dependent on renting, and that helps explain why rental demand remains so hard to dislodge.
DANE's latest National Quality of Life Survey found that 40.8% of Colombian households were renters in 2025. Only 38.1% lived in homes they owned outright or were still paying for.
Renting has now been Colombia's largest housing-tenure category for four consecutive years. That is a fairly remarkable position for a country where homeownership was traditionally treated as the normal long-term destination for middle-class households.
BBVA Research's latest housing work puts the rental universe at roughly 7.7 million households. It also points to strong spending pressure on lower-income renters and a large informal rental economy.
The shift happened gradually. Colombia did not suddenly become a renter country during one bad year for mortgages. Renting has kept gaining weight across several years, which makes today's demand look structural rather than temporary.
Is demand for rentals still strong in Colombia?
Yes, people searching for housing in Colombia are still overwhelmingly looking to rent rather than buy.
Fincaraíz's 2025 market data found that 71% of demand on its platform was directed toward rentals and just 29% toward purchases. Two-bedroom apartments renting for roughly COP 2 million to COP 3.3 million were the most searched annual-rental segment.
The same pattern appeared across every large city in the dataset. Rental searches made up 74% of demand in Bogotá, 73% in Medellín, 71% in Cali, 67% in Barranquilla and 68% in Bucaramanga.
Those figures measure searches rather than completed leases, so they should not be treated as a direct measure of rent inflation. They are still useful because the pattern is remarkably consistent: in five different metropolitan markets, renting beats buying by a wide margin.
That gives landlords a large pool of potential tenants even after rent growth has slowed.
| City | Rental searches | Purchase searches | Which side dominates? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bogotá | 74% | 26% | Rental |
| Medellín | 73% | 27% | Rental |
| Cali | 71% | 29% | Rental |
| Barranquilla | 67% | 33% | Rental |
| Bucaramanga | 68% | 32% | Rental |
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Is Bogotá still expensive to rent right now?
Yes, Bogotá remains expensive for renters, but the citywide average hides huge differences between neighborhoods and apartment types.
Fincaraíz recorded Bogotá as its biggest housing market in 2025, accounting for roughly 63% of the platform's city-level demand. Apartments dominated the rental searches.
In Bogotá's northwest, a 50–60 m² apartment commonly appeared around COP 1.1 million to COP 1.9 million, while a 60–70 m² apartment was typically around COP 1.3 million to COP 2.1 million in Fincaraíz's dataset.
Those ranges are far removed from what renters see in parts of Chapinero, Usaquén and Chicó, where central location, newer buildings and demand from higher-income renters push asking prices considerably higher.
Usaquén, Chapinero and Chicó were also the three most searched Bogotá neighborhoods on the platform. Demand is therefore heavily concentrated in areas that already command a premium.
For someone asking whether "Bogotá rent" is rising, the answer depends heavily on which Bogotá they mean.
Has Medellín become as expensive as Bogotá for renters?
In some rental segments, Medellín now matches or beats Bogotá prices, especially for small apartments in high-demand neighborhoods.
Fincaraíz's 2025 data put apartment asking rents in Medellín at roughly COP 19,900 per square metre in estrato 2, COP 39,060 in estrato 4, COP 45,990 in estrato 5 and COP 56,805 in estrato 6.
Small units are particularly expensive. Estrato 6 studios reached around COP 76,440 per square metre, roughly 35% above the rate for larger estrato 6 apartments.
Laureles, El Poblado and Belén were the three most searched Medellín neighborhoods. The strongest demand is landing directly in some of the city's most pressured rental areas.
For years, foreigners and Colombians moving from Bogotá could assume Medellín would offer a substantial housing discount. Today, that assumption can fail quickly in Laureles or El Poblado, especially for a furnished or compact apartment.
| Medellín rental asking price per m² | Estrato 2 | Estrato 4 | Estrato 5 | Estrato 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apartment | COP 19,900 | COP 39,060 | COP 45,990 | COP 56,805 |
| House | COP 16,800 | COP 26,250 | COP 31,605 | COP 40,425 |
| Studio | COP 23,625 | COP 44,415 | COP 63,000 | COP 76,440 |
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Is Medellín really Colombia's rental outlier?
Yes. Medellín stands out among Colombia's major cities when we compare high-end rents per square metre.
For estrato 6 apartments, Fincaraíz recorded roughly COP 56,805 per square metre in Medellín. Cali was around COP 32,655 and Barranquilla around COP 33,443.
That puts Medellín roughly 70% above those two cities in the same property and socioeconomic segment.
The premium extends to studios. An estrato 6 apartaestudio in Medellín reached around COP 76,440 per square metre, compared with COP 44,100 in Cali and COP 53,550 in Barranquilla.
These figures do not mean Medellín is universally more expensive than Bogotá. Bogotá has a much larger premium market and some extremely expensive neighborhoods. But among the cities for which Fincaraíz provides directly comparable estrato-level data, Medellín clearly stands apart at the upper end.
| Asking rent per m² | Medellín | Cali | Barranquilla |
|---|---|---|---|
| Estrato 4 apartment | COP 39,060 | COP 21,105 | COP 36,225 |
| Estrato 5 apartment | COP 45,990 | COP 25,410 | COP 29,400 |
| Estrato 6 apartment | COP 56,805 | COP 32,655 | COP 33,443 |
| Estrato 6 studio | COP 76,440 | COP 44,100 | COP 53,550 |
Are rents rising equally fast across Colombia?
No. Rents are moving very differently across Colombia depending on the city, neighborhood, estrato and size of the property.
Medellín's premium market is the clearest example, but the variation exists everywhere. An estrato 4 apartment in Medellín was listed at about COP 39,060 per square metre in Fincaraíz's 2025 data, compared with roughly COP 21,105 in Cali.
Within Medellín itself, an estrato 3 apartment averaged around COP 26,250 per square metre while an estrato 6 apartment reached more than twice that level.
Size also changes the calculation. Small studios often cost considerably more per square metre than family apartments because renters are paying heavily for location, security, common areas and convenience even when the unit contains less floor space.
A national rent-inflation number is useful for understanding the direction of Colombia's market. It is much less useful for predicting what someone will actually be quoted when searching for a 40 m² apartment in El Poblado or a 90 m² family apartment in Cali.
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Are Colombian rents becoming affordable again?
No. Colombian rents are becoming less inflationary, but they have not become cheap again for households that absorbed the previous increases.
A renter who started at COP 1.5 million and then received the maximum annual increases available across the last four renewal cycles would now be paying roughly COP 2.07 million. That is about COP 570,000 more every month.
Household income has also risen, including through large minimum-wage adjustments, so looking only at nominal rent increases exaggerates part of the affordability deterioration. But the accumulated housing increase remains substantial, particularly for households whose earnings did not rise at the same speed.
The problem is also larger because so many households rent. DANE now puts renters at 40.8% of Colombian households. Rent increases therefore hit a much bigger share of the population than they did when renting was a more transitional form of housing.
For lower-income households, BBVA Research still describes rental spending pressure as high. Today's slower increases help, but they are being applied to rents that have already moved much higher.
Why are so many Colombians renting instead of buying?
Many Colombians keep renting because buying a home still requires a level of savings and financing capacity that a large part of the population does not have.
Mortgage rates have improved from their worst post-pandemic levels, and the housing-sales market has recovered from its lows. BBVA Research's current real-estate outlook nevertheless describes a market still adapting to lower subsidies, affordability constraints and changing credit conditions.
The down payment creates another barrier. A household that can afford COP 2 million in monthly rent does not automatically have tens of millions of pesos available for an initial payment and transaction costs.
Smaller households and labor mobility are also making renting practical for more people. Meanwhile, the country's rental market can absorb households almost everywhere and across a much wider price range than the formal mortgage market can.
DANE has now recorded renting as the country's most common form of housing for four years running. Fincaraíz also finds that active housing searches lean heavily toward rentals. Put together, these numbers make it hard to argue that a quick recovery in home sales will empty the rental market.
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Is Airbnb the reason rents are rising in Colombia?
Airbnb contributes to rent pressure in a few Colombian neighborhoods, but it cannot explain the nationwide rise in rents.
The effect is easiest to see in places where tourist demand and ordinary residential demand compete for the same apartments. El Poblado and Laureles in Medellín are obvious examples, as are tourism-heavy parts of Cartagena.
In those areas, an owner may choose between a long-term Colombian tenant, a furnished medium-term renter and short stays priced by the night. That gives landlords more alternatives and can reduce the number of attractive apartments available to conventional renters.
But rents are also rising in Bogotá's ordinary residential districts and in cities where international tourism plays a much smaller role. Millions of Colombian households are competing for long-term housing regardless of what happens on Airbnb.
Short-term rentals can make an already tight neighborhood considerably tighter. The broader Colombian rental story comes from domestic rental demand, difficult access to ownership and years of inflation-linked adjustments.
Could rents in Colombia actually fall soon?
A broad fall in Colombian rents looks unlikely for now.
The conditions for a national decline are still missing. Rental demand remains large, millions of households depend on renting, and landlords with existing tenants can continue making annual inflation-linked adjustments.
Home buying would also need to recover strongly enough to pull a meaningful number of households out of the rental market. Housing sales have improved, but today's rental base is enormous: BBVA Research estimates around 7.7 million renting households.
Local declines are much easier to imagine. A neighborhood can become overbuilt, furnished apartments can lose demand, or landlords can lower asking prices after leaving units vacant for too long.
Across Colombia as a whole, though, slower growth remains much more plausible than falling nominal rents.
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Could Colombian rent increases speed up again?
Yes. Colombian rent increases could accelerate again if inflation stays elevated, and the latest CPI numbers make that risk worth watching.
DANE's latest published reading puts annual inflation at 6.03%, up from 4.90% at the same point a year earlier. Housing, utilities and related costs were among the main contributors to the latest monthly increase.
That 6.03% figure is not the next rent ceiling. Colombia's annual residential adjustment depends on the full calendar-year CPI figure, so the final number can still change materially before the next cycle is set.
Still, the direction has become less comfortable. If inflation finishes the year clearly above the 5.10% rate used for current renewals, tenants whose contracts renew next year could again face a larger permitted increase.
This is the main reason we would avoid assuming that Colombia has already settled into permanently lower rent inflation.
So, are rents in Colombia still going up?
Yes, rents in Colombia are still going up, and the best description of the market today is a slower but persistent rental squeeze.
The dramatic phase has cooled. Annual increases on existing contracts have fallen a long way from the double-digit adjustments seen after Colombia's inflation spike, and most renters are no longer facing anything close to those increases.
Yet the underlying market remains tight. Renting has become the country's dominant housing tenure, Fincaraíz continues to see far more rental than purchase demand, and premium markets such as Medellín have reached rent levels that would have looked unusual only a few years ago.
There is also little evidence yet of the conditions needed for widespread rent declines. Home sales are recovering, but millions of households remain renters. Existing leases keep repricing annually, while new tenants in popular neighborhoods can face a completely different market price from someone renewing an older contract.
The latest inflation data add one more complication. If the recent rebound persists through year-end, the next round of legal rent adjustments could start moving higher again.
For now, anyone asking whether Colombian rents have peaked should separate the pace from the price. The pace has clearly cooled. Prices, in most of the market, are still moving upward.
| Question | Current judgment |
|---|---|
| Are Colombian rents still rising? | Yes |
| Are rents rising as fast as a few years ago? | No |
| Have earlier increases been reversed? | No |
| Is rental demand still strong? | Yes |
| Are all cities behaving the same way? | No |
| Does Medellín stand out? | Yes, especially at the upper end |
| Are nationwide rent declines close? | Unlikely |
| Could rent inflation accelerate again? | Yes, if inflation stays higher |
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OUR METHODOLOGY
This analysis tests whether rents in Colombia are still going up by separating three questions that are often mixed together: whether existing leases are still being increased, whether new asking rents remain under pressure, and whether the pace of those increases is accelerating or slowing.
We started with Colombia's legal framework for residential leases. Law 820 of 2003 and Ministry of Housing guidance are used to understand how qualifying residential rents can be adjusted after 12 months and why the previous calendar year's CPI is central to many existing-tenant renewals.
For the inflation sequence, we used DANE's official CPI releases. The December readings establish the 13.12% inflation figure for 2022, 9.28% for 2023, 5.20% for 2024 and 5.10% for 2025. Those figures provide the basis for the succession of annual adjustment ceilings discussed in the article.
The latest annual CPI reading of 6.03% is treated only as a forward-looking indicator. It is not presented as the next residential rent ceiling because that adjustment will depend on the final full-calendar-year inflation figure.
We kept the level of rents separate from the speed of rent growth. Lower inflation reduces the size of the next percentage adjustment, but it does not reverse increases already incorporated into the rent. The cumulative examples in the article are therefore used to show how several annual increases compound over time.
Household tenure comes from DANE's 2025 National Quality of Life Survey. We use it to establish how important renting has become structurally in Colombia, including the 40.8% renter share and the fact that renting has remained the country's largest housing-tenure category for four consecutive years.
Fincaraíz's 2025 market report is used for active housing demand, neighborhood searches and asking rents. We treat portal searches as evidence of housing intent rather than completed leases, and asking rents as current market quotations rather than transaction prices.
Where we compare cities, we prefer directly comparable segments such as the same property type, estrato and asking rent per square metre. This is particularly important for Medellín, Cali and Barranquilla, where broad city averages can hide very different property mixes.
BBVA Research's Colombia Real Estate Outlook 2026 is used for the estimated size of the rental market, pressure on renter household budgets and the wider ownership and financing environment. DANE housing-finance data, Camacol market data, Superintendencia Financiera credit information and Banco de la República monetary-policy data provide additional context on the ability of households to move from renting into ownership.
Short-term rentals are treated as a local factor rather than a nationwide explanation. Medellín municipal data are particularly useful here because they show the concentration of tourist housing in areas such as El Poblado and Laureles-Estadio, where long-term renters and short-term accommodation can compete for the same housing stock.
Key sources used for this analysis include Colombia's Law 820 of 2003, Ministry of Housing guidance on residential rent adjustments, DANE's historical CPI archive, DANE's latest CPI releases, DANE's 2025 National Quality of Life Survey, Fincaraíz's 2025 real-estate market report, BBVA Research's Colombia Real Estate Outlook 2026, DANE's housing-finance data, Superintendencia Financiera credit-rate and disbursement data, Banco de la República's monetary-policy information, and Medellín municipal data on short-term-rental concentration.
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