Ordered. Each step blocks the next; doing them out of sequence is how people spend month two in queues.
Before you board (day −14 to −1)
- Visa approved and downloaded. Do not fly to start a visa process you could have finished from home — the nomad visa runs 2–4 weeks and the M visa 2–6 weeks, and neither wants to be rushed from a hostel.
- Insurance certificate in your inbox as a PDF, dates covering the whole stay.
- First four to six weeks of accommodation booked in your target neighbourhood, not a year lease. Travala or Trip.com for medium stays.
- Airport transfer booked — Welcome Pickups if you want a fixed price and a human with your name on a sign, which is worth it at 1am with luggage and no local SIM.
- NordVPN installed and tested before you leave. Your home bank's fraud system is far happier seeing a login from your home country, and you will be doing banking on café wifi for a month.
Days 1–5: identity and connectivity 6. Get a local SIM or eSIM on day one. Almost everything below needs a Colombian phone number for SMS verification — this is the first true blocker. 7. Register your visa and apply for the cédula de extranjería. Foreign residents are expected to register the visa and obtain the foreigner ID card with Migración Colombia after arrival. We have not verified the deadline or the fee — confirm both with Migración Colombia and the consulate that issued your visa as soon as you land. Treat it as urgent: the cédula is the key that unlocks banking, health enrolment and leases, and it is the single most common thing people leave too late. 8. Store the bags and go look at neighbourhoods on foot. Bounce and LuggageHero both do day storage; walking a barrio at 8pm tells you more than any safety score.
Days 5–15: money and a roof 9. Open a Colombian bank account once you have the cédula. Requirements vary by bank and some will not deal with foreigners at all until the card is physical in your hand — hence the sequence. Keep Wise running in parallel for the first months regardless. 10. View flats in person. Landlords commonly want a Colombian co-signer or guarantee product; ask about this on the first call, not after you have fallen for the place. Have a deposit ready in pesos. 11. Sign nothing you have not read in Spanish. If you want a lease reviewed against a standard template before you sign, Rocket Lawyer is a starting point — but for Colombian tenancy law, pay a local lawyer for an hour.
Days 15–30: the stuff that makes it a life 12. Sort health cover properly. If you are employed, self-employed, living on passive income, or earning at least one monthly minimum wage, you join the national system (SGSSS) through the contributory regime, and a cédula de extranjería or passport is accepted for enrolment. If you are on the Digital Nomad (V) route, note that your private policy valid in Colombia for the whole stay is the visa requirement regardless. See section 5b. 13. Buy the coworking membership if you are going to use it — $90 in Santa Marta up to $120 in Medellin. It is the fastest route into a social circle in a new city, and that is most of what you are buying. 14. Book a session with a Colombian tax accountant. Not next year. Now, while you can still change facts about where you spend your days. Ask the single question: on my visa, my income and my planned days in-country, when do I become a Colombian tax resident and what do I then have to file? 15. Register with your embassy, and if you will be spending time on the coast, in Santa Marta's hinterland or anywhere far from a major hospital, look at medical evacuation cover — Medjet exists precisely for the gap between "treated locally" and "flown home".
What blocks what, in one line: SIM → cédula → bank account → lease → local health enrolment. Everything else can be done in parallel.