What water and energy savings the rules require of your building
The building use and the climate class of the site, and out come the minimum energy and water savings of Resolución 0194 de 2025, Colombia’s sustainable construction rule. And whether they are already mandatory for your permit application: the rule comes in by steps, and VIS and VIP social housing comes last.
Water and energy savings
If you came looking for Resolución 0549 de 2015: it was repealed by Resolución 0194 de 2025 (article 15). This tool now calculates against the new one.
Choose the climate class to see the percentages.
The four steps of article 3
- 6 months · 24 October 2025
Every use except VIS and VIP housing (applies to your project) - 12 months · 24 April 2026
VIS and VIP in Special, 1 and 2 category, from 5,000 m² (not yours) - 18 months · 24 October 2026
VIS and VIP in Special, 1 and 2 category, from 2,000 m² (not yours) - 24 months · 24 April 2027
VIS and VIP in the other categories, from 5,000 m² (not yours)
Compliance is reached with passive measures, active measures or both. Passive ones are certified by the designer signing the architectural drawings, and that signature counts as a sworn statement; active ones, with a self-declaration to the utility company (article 7). Anexo 1 lists indicative measures.
Anexo 1: sustainable construction guide (Minvivienda PDF, in Spanish)
Where it comes from
The resolution
Resolución 0194 of 11 April 2025 of the Ministerio de Vivienda, Ciudad y Territorio, published in Diario Oficial 53.097 of 23 April 2025. It has been in force since the following day, 24 April 2025, and repeals Resolución 0549 de 2015 (article 15). Official PDF at minvivienda.gov.co/normativa/resolucion-0194-2025.
The percentages
Article 6, Table 1 (energy) and Table 2 (water): sixteen uses and four climate classes. They are measured against the 2020 consumption baseline in paragraph 2 (Tables 3 and 4). Table 1 has no row for higher education buildings.
When they are required
Article 3: six months after entry into force, every use except VIS and VIP; at twelve, VIS and VIP in Special, 1 and 2 category municipalities from 5,000 m²; at eighteen, in those same categories from 2,000 m²; at twenty-four, in the other categories from 5,000 m². Minvivienda’s official ABC gives the dates: 24 October 2025, 24 April 2026, 24 October 2026 and 24 April 2027. The filing date of the application is what counts (article 6, paragraph 1).
The climate class
Article 5: it is taken from Anexo 2 (IDEAM map and list of municipalities). A municipality can have several classes: 736 of the country’s 1,122 have more than one. If the site lies in a zone other than the one assigned, the builder states it on the Formulario Único Nacional, with no extra procedure (paragraph 2).
What changed from the 0549
For non-VIS single-family housing, the 0549 required a 45 % energy saving in a hot and humid climate; the 0194 requires 20 %. The water saving for that use did not change (25, 25, 20 and 20). VIS and VIP housing goes from indicative to mandatory in steps, and the 40 % cap on the window-to-wall ratio in Anexo 1 of the 0549 is not in the 0194.
What this tool does not claim
A tool that answers what its source does not say is worse than no tool at all. This is what is deliberately left unanswered here, and why.
- It does not tell you the climate class of your municipality. Anexo 2 is not reproduced here, by Minvivienda’s decision, and a municipality can have several: what counts is the zone where the site is.
- It does not tell you the category of your municipality. That is looked up at the Contaduría General de la Nación, as the official ABC indicates.
- It reads «area» in article 3 as the project area, which is what the rule says. The resolution does not specify built or plot area for VIS and VIP housing; for other uses, article 2 speaks of total built area excluding parking.
- It takes each step’s date as the first day it is required, which is how the official ABC publishes them. If you file exactly on that day, confirm it with the curaduría.
- It does not calculate the saving of your design or tell you which measures to use. That is done with the baseline and the measures in Anexo 1, and the designer signs it.
- It does not apply to refurbishment or extensions: the 0194 is required for new-build permits (article 3). Existing buildings may adopt it voluntarily.
- It does not settle applications filed before 24 April 2025, which remain under Resolución 0549 de 2015.
I have a plot and I want to build on it.
We check what the planning rules allow on your plot, what can be built and what it costs, before drawing anything. Then we develop the full project through to the drawings and the permit application with the curaduría (the licensed private office that issues building permits in Cali and other large Colombian municipalities; in smaller ones, the municipal planning office).