🇨🇴 Mercado Libre in Colombia
A growing market with the most recent fee overhaul: Mercado Libre dropped listing types and moved to a single rate.
Mercado Libre fees and charges
What the marketplace withholds on every sale. Check the exact rate for your category in your seller dashboard.
Shipping
The biggest cost after the fee — and the main reason cheap products go into the red.
Work out the exact cost for your product and price in the free calculator— it has the rates and thresholds of all six countries built in.
Taxes: two routes
The regime you pick determines both your tax burden and whether you can import goods at all.
A simplified regime: 1.6% of turnover at the first tier, then 2.0%, 3.5% and 4.5%. IVA does not apply up to roughly COP 183 M a year.
IVA 19% on the markup, renta 35% on profit, ICA around 0.45% of turnover — ICA is paid in the city goods are shipped from, not the buyer's city.
Imports and customs
Two import channels with different economics. Picking the wrong channel costs more than picking the wrong product.
Zero duty on values up to USD 200 regardless of origin. Duty-free entry with zero IVA applies only to goods from the United States.
Duty by tariff code + 19% IVA. Clothing from countries without an agreement: 40% under Decreto 2598.
Not covered by the 40%: a 35% rate applies below the price threshold.
A customs agency is formally required from USD 1,000.
Open the PRO bundle →
350 $ 50 USDT
What you need to start
The order of steps specific to Colombia — it differs from the rest of the region.
- Register a RUT and decide on your responsable de IVA status
- Check whether your product falls under the 40% clothing duty or the footwear thresholds
- Account for the ICA of the city you ship from
- Check your own fee rate in the dashboard — the single-rate model is not documented everywhere yet
- Factor the free-shipping threshold into your price
Useful reading
Breakdowns from our blog, with examples and numbers.
Frequently asked questions
Is it true that Clásica and Premium no longer exist in Colombia?
Yes. Mercado Libre moved the country to a single 8–22% fee: the rate depends on the category and the number of interest-free instalments, and there is no separate flat fee in the new model. Guides describing listing types are out of date.
What is the duty on clothing from China?
40% under Decreto 2598 — one of the highest rates in the region. Note that the 40% applies only to clothing in tariff chapters 61–62. Footwear is not included; a 35% rate applies below the price threshold.
Is a parcel up to USD 200 taxed?
No duty is charged on values up to USD 200 regardless of the country of dispatch. Full exemption including IVA, however, applies only to goods from the United States.
Tools for Colombia
Fees, shipping, instalments and taxes in Colombia — it works out net profit and margin. Free.
A unit-economics workbook for the country, a six-country customs calculator, books on importing directly from China and a country playbook — 36 files.
View → 350 $ 50 USDT
Receiving, storage and dispatch into Full. No contract, no minimum volume.
Let us look at your case
Tell us what your product is and where you plan to sell — we will run the economics and tell you whether Colombia makes sense for you.