What an architect charges in Colombia

Search for "how much does an architect charge in Colombia" and you will find two guides from 2026, both with an air of authority, saying this:

I am not going to add a third unsupported figure. I am going to explain what does exist: a published methodology with a breakdown by stage, and a law that explains why a good part of what you pay is not the architect’s fee. With that you can assess any quotation, ours included. And if you want to go through it with an architect, the free first call lasts fifteen minutes.

The decree everyone cites and that no longer binds

Every conversation about architectural fees in Colombia ends up at Decreto 2090 de 1989. There are sites that republish its clauses (including the one saying that the fees set there "are the minimum that architects shall charge") as though it were law in force and binding.

It is not, and the story is more interesting than a plain "it was repealed".

The decree was never expressly repealed: the Gestor Normativo, the government’s consolidated register of legislation, shows it without a single repeal note. What happened is that it was issued under a power granted by Decreto-Ley 222 de 1983, and that rule was repealed by Ley 80 de 1993. The decree was left with no footing. Lawyers call that decaimiento: an administrative act lapses when the statute it rested on disappears.

And a judge has already said so in as many words:

And there is an underlying reason why it should not become binding again: the Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio, the competition authority, has fined trade bodies for setting minimum tariffs among their members. Its guidance on professional associations instructs them expressly not to speak of "minimum remuneration" or to recommend prices. A binding trade minimum is a cartel.

The Consejo Profesional Nacional de Arquitectura, a state body and not a private association, is clear about this. In August 2026 it launched a fee simulator and describes it as "a reference and a guide", whose result is "freely accepted and negotiated between the parties".

Even so, it is the only published methodology

That it does not bind does not make it useless. It is the only Colombian source with a complete, verifiable methodology, and it is still the language in which fees get discussed. It works in two steps.

Step 1: a percentage that falls as the size grows

Step 2: a multiplier for the type of project

The decree sorts projects into categories, from A to I, and applies a multiplier: 50% for the simplest, 100% for category D, and 130% for category E. Restoration adds 20%; alterations and extensions, 10%.

Category E is, word for word, "projects of residences or single-family, two-family or three-family dwellings". Your house is the most expensive category in the table, and not out of caprice: a house carries more decisions per square metre than almost any other building.

How it is split by stage

This is the part most worth knowing, because it is what turns a contract into something verifiable. The decree splits the payment not by dates but by deliverables, and every one of them can be checked.

And what each of those is, in the rule’s own words:

• —Basic scheme: the general outline, which can be done even without the final site. Zones, entrances, how the rooms relate to one another.
• —Concept design: plans, sections and elevations enough to understand the building, not including drawings for executing the works. It is where things are decided, not where they are built.
• —Architectural project: "all the information necessary for the construction to be executed correctly". Detail drawings of joinery, stairs, bathrooms, façades, tiling, ceilings and floors; specifications; coordination of the engineering drawings; and the procedure before the authority.
• —Architectural supervision: site visits, choosing finishes, resolving questions of interpretation. The rule is blunt: the architect supervises their project and does not technically direct the works. Those are two separate contracts.

What the fee does not include, and why

Here is the commonest objection ("why am I charged all that separately?") and its answer, which is not commercial but legal.

An architect cannot sign the structural design or the soil survey. It is not unwillingness: the law reserves those signatures to a civil engineer, and whoever signs is legally answerable. If somebody offers you "all inclusive" at a suspiciously round price, ask who signs each drawing.

What sits outside the fee, and whose signature each one carries:

The two costs that are not fees and everyone confuses

The curaduría charges

This is what the curador urbano (the private official who issues building permits in Colombia) charges for studying the application. Since December 2021 those charges are assessed in UVT, the tax value unit, and no longer in minimum wages: any table still in minimum wages is obsolete.

The formula has a fixed charge and a variable one, affected by the use, the socio-economic stratum, the area and a municipal factor, plus 19% VAT. To give a sense of scale, a dwelling of up to 100 m² in Bogotá, with VAT: around $556,000 in strata 1 and 2, $1,112,000 in stratum 3, and up to $2,780,000 in stratum 6.

The urban delineation tax

It is a municipal levy, so there is no national rate and each city structures it differently. In Bogotá the general rate is 3% on the works budget, with an advance payment of 2.6% that has to be made before the permit is released.

The practical difference: the curaduría charges scale with the area and the tax with the budget. In a house of 150 to 200 m², the tax tends to be an order of magnitude larger than the charges. And neither of the two is the architect’s money.

How to check that your architect is one

To practise in Colombia you need a degree and a professional registration card from the CPNAA, the national architecture council. And the law goes further: to enter into contracts you have to present the registration and state its number in the contract. If yours does not carry it, ask for it.

The register is public and free, and it has a quirk worth knowing: it cannot be searched by name. You have to search by identity document number or by registration number. So ask your architect for one of the two: it is a perfectly normal question.

• —A search of the register, by document or by registration number, in the CPNAA virtual office.
• —A Certificado de Vigencia Profesional, free of charge: it evidences the registration and, on top of that, the absence of sanctions. It is the document worth asking for.
• —The CPNAA publishes the list of sanctioned professionals, with name, registration number and suspension dates.

What the contract must say

The fee rule requires that there be a written record, and the CPNAA insists that the contract agree the design phases. These are the clauses where arguments get lost.

The revisions included

No Colombian rule fixes a number of revisions. It is a commercial decision, and that is why it has to be written down. What the rule does give is who pays: except for an error or omission by the architect, every modification to the project is charged to the client. The distinction between "the architect got it wrong" and "the client changed their mind" is what keeps this out of court.

Who owns the drawings

Drawings are works protected by copyright, with no need for registration. The moral rights (being recognised as the author) are perpetual, inalienable and unwaivable. The economic rights can be assigned, but with two conditions almost nobody meets: the assignment must be in writing to be valid, and if it does not say for how long, it is limited to five years.

And there is a special rule for architecture that surprises both parties:

In architecture, the author’s right that the work not be altered gives way to the right of property. What survives is the signature: the architect can demand that their name be taken off. The counterpart sits in the fee rule: the project may only be used on the works for which it was commissioned, not on another.

What happens if you cancel

The rule provides for it: the percentage corresponding to the work executed is charged, with a minimum covering the expenses plus 25%. And it adds a condition worth understanding before signing: partial drawings may not be used to execute the works. You cannot pay for the concept design, have somebody else finish it and build from that.

What to ask on the first call

1. 1What base do you calculate the fee on? It should be the construction cost, without the land.
2. 2How is it split by deliverable? If the split runs by dates and not by deliverables, there is no way to verify anything.
3. 3What is left outside? They should name the soil survey, the structural design, the topography, the curaduría charges and the delineation tax without you having to ask.
4. 4Who signs each drawing? The structural and geotechnical ones have to be signed by a civil engineer.
5. 5How many revisions are included, and when is a modification charged?
6. 6Your professional registration number? So you can check it yourself, free, in two minutes.

An architect who answers those six without discomfort is telling you something more important than their price. You can put them to us on the free first call.

All of the above is verified against rules, judgments and official resolutions as at August 2026. The values in pesos (the UVT, the curaduría charges, the minimums tied to the minimum wage) change every year.