The most useful thing to know about renting in Medellín is that there are two markets, not one, and they were built for different people. The traditional twelve-month lease was designed around Colombian paperwork. The furnished monthly rental was designed around a passport. Most of the confusion foreigners run into comes from applying the rules of one to the other.
This is the map of both: what each asks you for, where the digital nomad visa fits, what a contract has to say before you sign it, and the sequence that people who settle here well nearly always follow.
Market one: the traditional lease
Walk into an agency in Laureles and ask for an unfurnished apartment on a year's contract, and the list is the same everywhere: a cédula de extranjería (the Colombian ID a visa gives you), proof of income of roughly two to three times the rent, and a guarantee. The guarantee is the hard part. It is either a codeudor solidario — a Colombian co-signer with property and income who becomes liable for your rent — or a póliza de arrendamiento, an insurance policy from an afianzadora that studies your file and often declines a newcomer, or a CDT, a term deposit of six to twelve months of rent parked in a Colombian bank.
None of that is hostility. It is the shape of the law. Ley 820 de 2003 forbids cash deposits on residential leases, so the market asks for a person or a policy instead, and both need a Colombian history you do not have on day one. We took that whole mechanism apart here. Add a contract in Spanish, a yearly increase pegged to inflation, and utilities plus administración billed on top of the rent, and you have the traditional market: excellent value once you are established, and nearly impossible in your first month.
Market two: the furnished monthly rental
The second market was built for exactly the person the first one turns away. A furnished home let by the month asks for three things: your passport, a deposit, and the first month in advance. No cédula, no co-signer, no insurance study, no twelve-month lock. The entry stamp you got at the airport is enough, because a stay of one to six months is a stay, not a residence.
The contract is a short arrendamiento amoblado or a hospedaje agreement: the parties and their ID numbers, the address, the dates, the monthly price and what it includes, the inventory of what is in the home, the deposit and when it comes back, and how either side ends the stay. A serious operator hands it to you in Spanish and in English and lets you read it before you pay anything. Ours is one page longer than it needs to be, on purpose, because the clauses people ask about are the ones worth writing down.
The trade-off is honest: you pay more per month than a bare lease, and you get a home with the internet already working, the utilities inside the price and a door you can walk through this week. For almost everyone arriving from abroad, that is the right first move — and for a good number of them it is the only move they ever make.
Where the digital nomad visa fits
Colombia's Visa V for digital nomads is the bridge between the two markets. It is for people who work remotely for employers or clients outside Colombia, it can be granted for up to two years, and it comes with the cédula de extranjería that unlocks the traditional market, a bank account and a local phone plan in your own name.
The income bar in 2026 is three times the monthly minimum wage — about COP 5.25 million a month, roughly US$1,400 to 1,600 depending on the exchange rate on the day — and the evidence is your bank statements for the last three months, each of them individually above the line. A single low month is the most common reason for a refusal, so the neat trick is to line up three clean statements before you apply, not after. You do not need a lease or proof of accommodation to apply, and you can apply from inside Colombia on a tourist stamp.
The sequence that works: arrive on the stamp, which gives you ninety days and can be extended to one hundred and eighty in a calendar year. Rent furnished by the month while you find your neighborhood. Apply for the visa with three tidy statements. Then, if you want an unfurnished place with a long lease, you have the cédula to ask for one — though by then most people have stopped wanting it.
What to have in your folder
For a furnished monthly rental: a passport, a photo of the entry stamp, and a phone number that works on WhatsApp, because that is where every conversation in this city happens. Some operators also ask for a short form — occupation, who is coming, dates — which is mostly so the home fits the people.
For a traditional lease, later: the cédula de extranjería, the last three bank statements, an income letter or contract, the co-signer's or the afianzadora's file, and patience for a study that takes a week or two. Keep digital copies of everything. Colombian paperwork is repetitive rather than difficult; the person who has the PDF ready wins.
What a proper contract says
Read for six things and you have read the contract. Who the parties are, with ID numbers on both sides. What exactly is being let — the address, the unit, and an inventory you can check against the room. The price, the currency it is paid in, what it includes, and when it is due. The deposit: the amount, what it covers, and the number of days after check-out it comes back. The dates, and what happens if you want to leave earlier or stay longer. And the house rules that matter: guests, pets, noise, the building's own regulations.
Two things a good contract also does. It names the person you call when something breaks, with a response time, because a furnished rental is a service as much as a space. And it tells you how the utilities are handled — inside the price, or billed at cost, or with a fair-use allowance — in plain words, so the last month holds no surprises.
Paying, and getting a receipt
You will usually pay the deposit and the first month before the keys, by bank transfer to a Colombian account or by card, and a monthly rent thereafter on a fixed date. Every payment gets a written receipt or an invoice. Many operators price in pesos and let you pay in dollars or euros at an agreed rate; ask which rate, and ask what happens to the deposit's currency when it comes back. It is a small clause that saves a real conversation later.
That is the whole system. A passport and a good contract get you a home this week. A visa, three bank statements and a little time get you the keys to everything else. Start with the first one — the homes are here, with the price on every card — and let the second follow at its own pace.
