Colombia's SITAC Platform Is Down, Visas and Passports Caught in the Backlog
System updates to the SITAC platform on or around April 10, 2026, caused temporary delays in immigration processing. This affects visa and residency applications for expats and digital nomads.
Colombia's SITAC Platform Is Down, Visas and Passports Caught in the Backlog
Colombia's SITAC platform , the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' integrated system for visas, passports, apostilles and consular services , went into deep technical maintenance starting April 7,8, 2026 and it's, honestly, been intermittently down since. The Cancillería confirmed the outage publicly but gave no firm date for full restoration, which is frustrating if you're mid-application.
SITAC handles nearly every immigration touchpoint: visa approvals, passport issuance and renewal, legalizations, notarial acts and consular registration worldwide. It's not one department that's slow, it's the whole pipeline that's stalled.
Who's Affected
The disruption hits several groups hard:
- Resident visa holders with visas issued before October 2022, who face a mandatory transfer deadline of October 31, 2026 under Law 5477
- Digital nomads and M-category visa applicants , work, pensionado and independent income visas are all queued behind the same broken system
- Tourists needing passport services or consular processing abroad
- International applicants at Colombian consulates worldwide, turns out, aren't spared either
What to Do Right Now
Don't attempt time-sensitive applications through SITAC while the outages continue, you'll likely hit a dead end and lose your spot in the queue. That said, the October 31 R-visa transfer deadline is close enough that waiting indefinitely isn't an option either.
For the R-visa transfer specifically, you'll need a Migration Movements Certificate from Migración Colombia's Formulario Único de Trámites page , get that now, because it's a separate system and doesn't depend on SITAC being live. The full transfer package also requires a scan of your original R visa, passport main page, current Cédula Extranjería, most recent entry stamp, a letter citing Law 5477 of 2022 and a compliant passport photo.
Contact the Cancillería directly at contactenos@cancilleria.gov.co if you have a deadline bearing down, they're, frankly, your best shot at getting a workaround or timeline update. An immigration attorney familiar with Colombian law is worth the cost right now, not a luxury.
Stay on top of visa updates as SITAC restoration develops and read our full Colombia guide for the complete picture on visas, residency and nomad life in the country.