Cruising Permit in Colombia after 3 days?

[Stella Polaris]

Hello All,

We recently arrived in Santa Marta in Colombia, intending to spend 5 days here before sailing to Panama, because according to Noonsite you can spend 5 days in Colombia, before you need to pay for a Temporary Import Permit (TIP) and a cruising permit.

Today (on day 2) we were just informed by Marina Santa Marta that we will have to pay for a cruising permit if we stay longer than 3 days and a TIP if we stay longer than 5 days. So effectively, you need to stay 3 days if you want to avoid the extra charges. We asked them if this was new practice and they said no and that this has been in effect for a long time ... which is odd, because I've found no other mention, anywhere, about needing to pay over 300,000 pesos for already after 3 days.

Does anyone else have any similar recent experiences? Is the info on Noonsite wrong, or are they trying to pull a fast one here?

Best regards,

Andreas

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Stella Polaris

Hello All,

We recently arrived in Santa Marta in Colombia, intending to spend 5 days here before sailing to Panama, because according to Noonsite you can spend 5 days in Colombia, before you need to pay for a Temporary Import Permit (TIP) and a cruising permit.

Today (on day 2) we were just informed by Marina Santa Marta that we will have to pay for a cruising permit if we stay longer than 3 days and a TIP if we stay longer than 5 days. So effectively, you need to stay 3 days if you want to avoid the extra charges. We asked them if this was new practice and they said no and that this has been in effect for a long time ... which is odd, because I've found no other mention, anywhere, about needing to pay over 300,000 pesos for already after 3 days.

Does anyone else have any similar recent experiences? Is the info on Noonsite wrong, or are they trying to pull a fast one here?

Best regards,

Andreas

Don't you have time to cruise Colombia on your way to Panama? It doesn't get much better than that anywhere.

It's been years since we were there so I can't help you with the info on the permits; just recommend to cruise the coast down to Sapzurro before hopping over to the San Blas in Panama

[cards26]

All I can say is, welcome to Colombia, because that's the way it is. No matter what the issue, you'll get 15 different answers from govt/banks. We're all trying to figure out the new income tax filing laws here, as no one has a clue as to what they are, including CPA's and lawyers.