Agents in Colombia

It would be great if it was about some 007 or some other C.I.A, but it’s not. It is about the very annoying and pricey institution of a maritime agent. In some places, it is voluntary, in some – obligatory. In Colombia, it’s the latter one. I’m not a big fan of complaining, but their fee it’s a lot, and doesn’t give you any satisfaction for what you pay. This is a short resume of our Colombian experience in continental Colombia, and San Andres y Providencia, covering the time from late 2021 till March 2023 (we wrote about sailing in Colombia in our previous posts – this is purely administrative). I am reporting mostly on what we experienced, with a few comments from our friends from the same period.

What does an agent do?

An agent is responsible for the contact between you and local authorities such as immigration, customs (DIAN), biosecurity (ICA), and the Ministry of Defense. An agent’s job is to help you with entry/exit procedures. He/she can help you only within one department. If you decide to sail from port to port within Colombian borders, you are obliged to hire a new agent.
An agent is also not responsible for your legal status, meaning, you have to make sure that you have all the documents on time. If you would want to argue with authorities, this would be pointed out very quickly. Luckily, we were never caught up in such a situation. Colombians, in general, are super pleasant people. Officers however, can be super official and not willing to compromise. We heard about serious fines, which were in the end never executed, most likely because Colombians ARE the nicest people in the world!

When do you need to contract an agent?

Officially, you should arrange an agent before leaving for Colombia. We were called, first via AIS, then VHF by Port Control, and asked about our agency in Cartagena. In San Andres we didn’t have an agent as we didn’t plan to stop there, so Port Captain assigned one of the local agents to us. In Barranquilla, nobody called us, but we were in contact with Marina Puerto Velero, who acted as our agent.

What happens next?

ENTRY PROCEDURE

As I just mentioned, our first entry to Colombia was in Puerto Velero, which was under the jurisdiction of the Port of Barranquilla. Marina acted as our agent, so they arranged the arrival of the officers from immigration, customs, and biosecurity. They took our passports, leaving stamped copies, so we could already leave the marina and returned the originals the next day. In San Andres, everything happened on the same day.

Barranquilla is a commercial port, and they don’t have a simplified entry procedure for yachts, so the paperwork was substantial. 5 officers interviewed me for over 30 minutes asking questions like: how many bodies do I have in the morgue? how much fresh meat do we have onboard (including livestock)? Seeds? When was the last deratization? is there an outburst of pandemic onboard? please forgive me if the vocabulary is not accurate, it’s definitely not my field of expertise 😀. I honestly thought they meant the very popular in 2021 covid, but no… it was just about yellow fever and typhoid. They checked our yellow vaccination booklets.

Typically, we were asked about guns, alcohol, and cigarettes. They were extremely uninterested in opened bottles, which I started to count out loud. The only stuff that we could possibly trade mattered. We were so surprised that someone might want to smuggle anything from Aruba because Aruba was a place where everything was expensive, that the customs officer quickly decided that we fit in the category “customs-boring” and we were free to go. None of them even bothered to see our boat.

In San Andres, we were charged with the tourist tax. First, our agent asked for 35USD per person, but he was unlucky because we just checked on the official website that the tax was 25USD until 2025. His reaction was immediate. With a big smile on his face, he said that he accepts the tips. He didn’t expect Marcin’s reaction though, because Marcin just shat back that he accepts discounts! They laughed, shook hands, and we ended up paying 25USD per person.

An agent is starting the procedure of temporary importation of the yacht only if you inform him/her that you plan to stay in Colombia for more than 5 days on the mainland and 14 days in San Andres. TIP – temporary importation of the boat was arranged within 3 weeks in Barranquilla, and never in San Andres! The confirmation of this procedure is a document called Permiso de Permanencia.

EXIT PROCEDURE

An agent takes your passports to the Immigration Office, and comes back with ZARPE and stamped Crew List.
The cost of exit procedure service is included in the agent’s fee, but.. In Cartagena, our agent demanded 50 USD extra. In San Andres we had to hire another agent because our first one, during our stay on the island, lost or maybe didn’t renew his license, and forgot to tell us about it, he just stopped responding to any messages. For a moment Marcin was chasing him, ambushing him on meetings he set with other yachties via VHF. Then we learned that he is actually not allowed to represent us, and we have to hire a new agent. Funny, because when we asked about changing the agent a few weeks before that, Port Control told us it was not possible to do so. Anyways… we ended up hiring a new agent, who was kind enough to charge us half of his fee – 35USD.

An agent is also responsible for the cancellation of the temporary import of your boat. We never got any confirmation regarding this procedure, but we checked in again in Colombia and didn’t have any problems with it. It might mean that it was done accordingly or… nobody cared to check when we got back there. It will remain unknown forever, I guess 😀.

We found out that our agent in Cartagena was a crook. He extorted only 50USD from us and way more from our friends, who ended up leaving Colombia without documents. If you want to know his name we can share this info in a private message. I don’t mean to scare you, it’s just good to know.

Costs

• Agent’s fee, as far as our and our closest friends’ experience goes, ranges between 70USD in San Andres to 600USD on the continent. Some marinas advertise that they won’t charge you for the agent’s fee. They did this also in Puerto Velero, but in the end, we paid 220USD in hidden costs. In Cartagena we agreed on 50USD for limited service as it was only interdepartmental sailing, we ended up paying 100USD when the agent held our passports, hostage.
• on San Andres and Providencia you will be charged 25USD per person, including kids (there is an age limit, but Vincent being 12 didn’t meet it), but we were the only people there who paid that low, the rest was charged 35USD. It is a governmental fee, fixed until 2025.
• ZARPE is included in the agent’s fee. In Barranquilla we were charged 10USD extra, because “officially” we didn’t pay for the agent.
• Immigration doesn’t charge any fee (hidden costs are frequently added here)
• TIP – temporary import is about 120 USD plus 40USD application fee

Time to sum up…

• an agent is required by local law. Officially, you need to contract an agent before you enter Colombia, but if you have to make an emergency stop, you will be granted entry and an agent will be assigned to you by default (we did it in San Andres).
• an agent is operating only within one department, if you sail to another department – you need to hire a new agent
• an agent is neither your legal representation nor is he responsible for the delivery of your documents on time.
• ZARPE – official exit document s necessary, even if you move within Colombian borders. In some places, like San Andres, you won’t be able to leave the anchorage without it. Every boat is controlled (and boarded) by Aeronaval. If you don’t have ZARPE you will be escorted back to the anchorage. As far as we know, nobody was fined, but it delays you and typical sailor’s excuses, like weather, do not work!

Recommendations

1. Never pay in advance
2. Never pay in advance 😀
3. You may pay half, upfront, pay the rest when you see stamped documents. The enthusiasm of agents and willingness to stay in touch decreases as soon as they get paid.
4. Before you contract an agent, check his/hers license! In San Andres, it turned out that our agent lost or didn’t renew his license and we had to pay for a new agent
5. Mention in the beginning that you would like to receive all bills for his service and official fees
6. Don’t agree to additional costs. Colombians are extremely nice people, but they will exercise the option to earn extra money whenever they can. If your budget is flexible enough, let them. Colombians earn millions, but still, it is in local pesos, so a few dollars extra is always welcomed!

Send us a message if you need more information. We can share also all the names of agents we used.

We are also on Noforeignland – sailors community