How to ship to Colombia with the best and fastest delivery services?
Are you a company or an individual
and you send parcels or documents to Colombia?
You work for a Swiss or Swiss-based SME and your customers are in Colombia? Are you a private individual who has family or friends living in Colombia and you want to send them goods? Whatever the situation, you will need to send your goods in a parcel. What are your options? You can use the Post Office, but be aware that the Colombian Post Office, which will deliver your parcel to its destination, is rated 52ème worldwide, which means that the risk of reliability is quite high.
To send a parcel to Colombia, try expedismart.ch. You can compare and book online the services of express carriers such as DHL, FedEx, UPS, TNT or Aramex and get special rates. These carriers are reliable and allow delivery times for Colombia of between 3 and 7 days depending on the service you choose. Whether you are a small business or an individual, you can send up to 20 parcels to Colombia at the same time, with a maximum weight of between 10 grams and 70kg per parcel. If you are a company, you also have the option of paying by invoice and benefiting from additional discounts if you send more than 10 parcels per month, whether to Colombia or to other destinations.
Customs formalities for Colombia
Required documents
If you are planning to send parcels to Colombia, you should know that the Colombian customs will ask you for a certain amount of information about the content of the goods. If you are sending via expedismart.ch and you choose an express carrier such as FedEx, UPS, DHL, Aramex or TNT, you should be aware that the information you will be asked for will almost always be the same. If you are a company and you sell goods in Colombia, then you will have to attach a commercial invoice to your shipment.
If you are a private individual or even a company but do not sell your goods, you will need to enclose a proforma invoice with your packages. If you don’t have one, you should know that on expedismart.ch, the commercial or proforma invoices are filled in automatically and that you will only have to download them at the end of your booking. The second document that will allow you to send a package to Colombia is the Airway Bill. It usually contains a large barcode that will be scanned by the courier from FedEx, UPS, TNT, DHL or Aramex as they pass by. On the Airway Bill you will also find the full addresses of the sender (you) and the receiver. Both documents mentioned here will be included in the PDF that you can download at the end of your parcel booking to Colombia.
If you need to send parcel to Colombia, you must join a proforma or commercial invoice:
Certain information must be included on both invoices, in any case:
- The full address of the recipient and sender must be included on this invoice, as well as the first name, surname, e-mail and telephone number.
- If the shipment is to a company in Colombia, then remember to add the company’s VAT number.
- Describe precisely the contents of each package you send to Colombia. The description should always be in English (the language of international transport) or Spanish, the local language.
- The proforma or commercial invoice must be dated and signed.
- Are you sending a parcel to Colombia to an individual? Remember to ask them for a copy of their passport and identity card. Enclose it with your shipment. Customs sometimes ask for an official document before starting the clearance process.
CHECK-LIST
- Full address
- Proforma document
- Customs declaration
- No banned goods
Delivery of goods in Colombia?
Customs tariffs
When sending goods to Colombia, you should warn your recipient that he or she will have to pay customs duties. In this case, it will mainly be VAT. If you are sending a parcel to a company in Colombia, be aware that these VAT charges will be deductible for the company in question. The carrier (DHL, FedEx, UPS, TNT or Aramex) will deduct this for you. In Colombia, VAT is normally charged at 19% on imported goods. However, these charges can vary between 0 and 20% depending on the goods.
Goods that are not allowed to be imported.
Some goods are forbidden to be imported by all carriers, here is a non-exhaustive list:
- Used clothing
- The different textiles
- Germinating seed
- All types of poisons
- Personal effects
- Wet or dry ice
- Food with an expiry date of less than 6 months
- Prescription and non-prescription medicines
- Lithium batteries
- Antiques
- Animal skins
- Alcohol
Important information: All the information we provide is for information purposes only. It is your responsibility to check that you have the right to ship your goods to Colombia. Expedismart cannot be held responsible for any shortcomings.
Making express shipments to Colombia
Fragile goods
Shipping goods that can break in Colombia should not be taken lightly. We have written an article that will tell you everything you need to know about the best way to pack a package to Colombia and prevent it from breaking.
The most important information to bear in mind is that although carriers such as DHL, FedEx, UPS TNT or Aramex will take care of your packages, you must ensure that your goods are well-packed. This means adding newspaper, foam, sagex, anything you can find that will keep your goods secure. International carriers even provide specific information on packing, so write or call us if you want to know more about this.
Delivery times
By clicking on “Get a quote” you can find out how long it will take to deliver your package to Colombia. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, no carrier offers guaranteed delivery times. What does this mean? Simply that these times are indicative and may vary by a few days. If, for example, your parcel is held up in customs by Colombian customs officials, the delivery time will naturally be longer. They will ask you or the recipient for additional information about the contents of the goods.
Check your email box and ask the recipient to do so as well, as this is usually the channel through which you will be contacted. Due to customs blockages, delivery times may vary by a few days. The main cities to which our customers send parcels in Colombia are : Bogota, Medellin, Cali and Cartagena.
Pick-ups and deliveries in Colombia
Festive days
Colombia has 19 public holidays in a year, which is a lot. We advise you to take this into account when planning to send a parcel. Apart from weekends when no parcels are delivered, the same applies to public holidays. Here are the public holidays in Colombia:
- 1er January, the new year
- 8 January, Epiphany
- 19 March, St John’s Day (or San José)
- Maundy Thursday
- Good Friday
- Easter
- 1er May, Labour Day
- The Ascension
- 4 June (Corpus Cristi)
- 11 June, Feast of the Sacred Heart
- 2 July, Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul
- 20 July, Independence Day
- 7 August, the Boyaca battle
- The Assumption
- 15 October, American Race Day
- 5 November, All Saints’ Day
- 12 November, Independence of Cartagena
- 8 December, the Immaculate Conception
- 25 December, Christmas
Tracking of express parcels to Colombia
Track your shipment
All carriers such as DHL, FedEx, UPS, TNT or Aramex, you can track your shipment. To understand how your package tracking information is provided by the carriers, please read our article on the subject.
