Your New Colombian President Lives in Miami
Let me tell you something about Colombia's new president that should make every expat and investor pay attention, amigos.
Abelardo de la Espriella, the man who takes office on August 7, is a United States citizen. Naturalized in 2023. Longtime Miami resident. House in Pinecrest. Fourteen Florida companies registered over the last decade. The Superior Court of Bogotá had to rule on July 1 that yes, a dual citizen can be president of Colombia, because apparently nobody had ever asked before, hahaha.
I am not telling you this as chisme. I am telling you because it sets the tone for everything that comes next: the most powerful man in my country has lived your life in reverse. He made his money as a lawyer, moved it to Florida, and now comes back to run the place. He knows exactly what foreign capital wants to hear.
The question is what actually changes for you. Let me give you the three things that matter, without the influencer hype.
1. Colombia just got more expensive for you, and almost nobody is saying it.
Everyone celebrated the election with “Colombia is back” threads. Here is what those threads skip: the peso strengthened to around 3,425 per dollar after the election, its strongest level in about six years. It already appreciated ~15% in 2025.
Translation for the dollar-earner: your rent, your fried fish at the beach, your whole Colombian life costs more dollars than it did two years ago. And here is the uncomfortable part: if the new government’s pro-market plan works, the peso gets stronger, not weaker. The 4,000-pesos-per-dollar paradise of 2023 is gone. Anyone selling you Colombia with 2023 math is selling you the past.
2. Every tax change you read about is a proposal, not a law.
His finance minister wants to consolidate ~15 national taxes into three. Kill the wealth tax. Maybe kill the 4x1000 bank transaction tax (”under study,” which in Colombian political Spanish means “do not hold your breath”).
Colombians have watched every incoming government promise to kill the 4x1000 since before I could legally drink. The rule in my country is simple: plan around the law as written, celebrate reforms when the Diario Oficial publishes them. Not before. If you are making a residency or property decision based on a tax bill that has not passed Congress, you are gambling, not planning.
3. The security show will not happen where you live.
Mega-prisons in the jungle. Bombing narco camps. Joining Trump’s “Shield of the Americas” on inauguration day. It sounds like a Netflix series, and parts of it will be.
But here is the sober take you will not get from the doom accounts OR the hype accounts: the military campaign happens in rural and border zones you were never going to visit. The realistic near-term risk in Medellín, Bogotá or Cartagena is protests, not crime. He won by 0.94%. Half the country voted against him. Expect the streets to say so, especially around August 7 and the tax fight.
The part nobody can tell you for free
Now, here is my problem with everything above: knowing the news is not the same as knowing what to do.
What do you do about the 183-day rule before you accidentally become a tax resident of a country whose top rate is 39%? What happens to your visa thresholds now that the minimum wage they are indexed to is suspended in court (yes, really)? How do you wire money in for an apartment so you can legally get it back out when you sell, whoever is president?
I spent months writing exactly that: The New Colombia Playbook. Visas, the 183-day trap, property, banking, and a full chapter on what this new government actually changes. Every number verified against official sources in July 2026, with the date printed next to it. The legal chapters reviewed line by line by a licensed Colombian attorney. And because the rules WILL move after August 7, every buyer gets updated editions free through the transition.
It is $49 until inauguration day. Then it goes to $79, because the founding price is for the people who move before the news does.
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Next week I am publishing the second free preview: the 183-day mistake that quietly makes DIAN your business partner. Subscribe so you do not miss it.
Dios te bendiga,
Tu Parcero