Arriving in San Andres can be confusing for the first few days.

One of the decisions you will have to make is about the Temporary Importation of your boat.
All visiting modes of transport that are going to leave again are given 15 days grace period to leave, before temporary importation is mandatory.

In the past, this was accomplished by your agent here (Rene or Julian) as all of the paperwork was handled on the island. However, in the Colombian Government’s battle to gain transparency, this function is now done in Bogota and online.

It is a fairly simple and FREE process if you follow these steps.

1. Get a photo or scan of your passport face page, and the entry stamp of your arrival here.

2. Make sure that the person above is the name on the vessel registration document, and have a digital copy handy, these will be uploaded to the server.

3. If you have a VISA for Colombia have this ready to upload too.

4. Point your browser at https://webazure.dian.gov.co/importacionestemporales/validate-email. Look at the top right and click the “EN” button to change language.

5. On the first page, select “SOLICITAR IMPORTACION” or “ORDER IMPORTATION”
Add your vessel registration number, if the system rejects it, only enter numbers, no spaces, dashes, slashes etc. Add your email address and accept the terms and conditions.

6. Check your email for the code generated, and enter it into the space provided on the web site.

7. Enter and upload all of the other information they request (San Andres), and finally submit.

8. Wait for an email that greets you by name.

(Sometimes the system requests the docs in item 1, sometimes not, their database makes those decisions)

9. Once you have that letter, you can send it to your agent, or take a walk down to the West along Avenida Newball, (the front street) till you get to the Fire Station. Turn left into that road past the Red Cross base, then you will see the blue DIAN gates, hand the letter to the security guard. A Mr Gustavo will attend to you. He needs to verify that your boat is in fact here. He will arrange with you to meet at Nenes Marina, where you may point your boat out to him. Once satisfied he will ask you to sign a document, and within a few hours you will receive the TIP via email from DIAN in Bogota.

It is that easy.

Our thanks to Mike Brasler for these useful guidelines.

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Noonsite has not independently verified this information.