How to pay in Colombia as a foreigner

Medellín will not hand you a clever exchange-rate trick. The peso floats, there is one market rate and no official one, the TRM you see quoted is a reference figure, and anyone offering you a special rate is selling something. What the city takes from a visitor, it takes in small pieces: a foreign card declined at the smaller counter, a markup buried inside a card terminal, a conversion prompt an ATM pushes before it hands over cash, a withdrawal fee your home bank stacks on top. None of it is dramatic on its own, which is why it adds up over a trip. But the city already solved paying for its own residents, and you can borrow that system.

Bre-B is Colombia’s national instant payment system, run by the central bank and live nationwide since late 2025. It has no app of its own; you reach it through an account at a participating bank or wallet. At the counter it’s a QR: printed and static, with no amount inside, or generated per sale with the amount inside. Locals pay it with Nequi, Daviplata or their bank app, in seconds. The catch for a visitor is that those wallets are built around a Colombian ID, and the online bank option, PSE, needs a Colombian account, so many travelers fall back on cards and ATMs, which is where the fees are. Cash matters for stalls, buses and street taxis. For most of what you spend at a register, pay the same QR the locals do.

1. 01

   Top up before you go

   Load stablecoins (USDC/USDT) into Yodl while you still have good wifi, ideally before you land so you're not doing it on airport data. This is the balance you'll spend from all trip, and it stays as stablecoins until each payment.

2. 02

   Find the QR at the counter

   Look for the Bre-B code on a small stand by the register, taped to the counter, or on the cashier's terminal. If a place only says a wallet's name, ask for its Bre-B code. For a stall or a bus that only wants paper, use the small bills you're carrying.

3. 03

   Scan, check the peso amount, confirm

   Open the app, scan the code, and check the peso amount it shows against what you're being charged before you confirm. A licensed local partner pays the merchant in pesos, and the cashier sees a normal payment land.

A word on custody, because it’s the useful difference. Yodl is a wallet you control. A local e-wallet is an account, with a sign-up flow that dead-ends the moment it asks for a Colombian ID; here there is nothing to register for and no company holding your balance on your behalf. The money stays yours, only you can move it, and each payment needs your approval on your phone before it goes anywhere.

After a run of fake payment-screenshot scams a few years ago, Medellín vendors got careful about phone payments, and some still want to see the credit land on their own device before they hand over the bag. Give them the moment. A real payment lands in seconds, and once the vendor sees it clear on their own screen you’re both done, and neither of you has to think about it again.

The peso is the same for everyone. The fees are the part you get to skip.

In Medellín, the QR shows up first at the counter: café and bakery registers across Provenza and Laureles mostly run on it already. It doesn’t reach everywhere. The Metro runs on a Cívica card, bought in cash at the station booth; the turnstile takes no bank card, so don’t plan on tapping a Visa at the gate. Buses are cash to the driver, and street taxis are cash too, though the ride apps take a card or an in-app payment instead. Keep the cash layer thin. One modest ATM pull covers the trip (choose pesos when the machine offers to convert), and set the small bills aside for the stalls.

Each of these is small: the terminal’s markup, the ATM’s conversion prompt, your home bank’s withdrawal fee. What makes them add up is how often they land, which is nearly every transaction. The sample below is illustrative and marked as such; the figure that matters is what the app shows you before you approve.