Colombia: How overtime and surcharges work and how to submit them

This guide explains how overtime and surcharges work in Colombia, which rates apply, how the amounts are calculated, and the steps to submit these hours to our Operations team so they are paid correctly in payroll.

In short:

• Overtime and surcharges are two different concepts, and each one is reported in different columns.
• The rate depends on the date the hours were worked and on whether it was a weekday, a Sunday or a holiday, day or night.
• Send your information to our Operations team before your payroll cutoff date.
• For surcharges, or for overtime of many employees, use the Base Carga Extras template.

Overtime (horas extras) is time worked beyond the employee's contracted schedule or beyond the legal maximum. In Colombia the legal maximum is 8 hours per day and, since 15 July 2026, 42 hours per week.

Example: an employee has a 6-hour contract and works 8 hours. The 2 additional hours are overtime, even though the legal maximum was not exceeded.

Surcharges (recargos) are a mandatory extra payment when an employee works their ordinary, contracted hours during a special period: at night, on a Sunday or on a public holiday. The employee is not working extra time, only working at a time the law protects.

An hour worked at night triggers a night premium, whether it is part of the ordinary shift or overtime. If a shift crosses the night threshold, the hours must be split into daytime and nighttime.

• Maximum overtime: 2 hours per day and 12 hours per week.
• Prior authorization: overtime must be approved by the employee's manager before it is worked.
• Record keeping: employers must keep an up-to-date record of all overtime (relación de horas extra), which may be requested in a Ministry of Labor inspection.

Overtime and surcharges generally do not apply to:

• Employees in management, trust and handling roles (dirección, confianza y manejo).
• Employees on an integral salary (salario integral), because their salary already compensates these concepts.

If you decide to pay overtime or surcharges to these employees, do not include them in the template. Tell our team through the chat and we will process them manually, because the template calculates using the full salary. Please keep in mind that paying them to employees in management, trust and handling roles can affect the nature of the role. For employees on an integral salary, the calculation uses 70% of the integral salary as the base.

The table shows the rates for work performed from 1 July 2026. Use the exact column name shown, and do not change the Spanish headers in the template.

How the Sunday and holiday surcharge changes (Law 2466 of 2025): 80% from 1 July 2025, 90% from 1 July 2026 and 100% from 1 July 2027. The multipliers above will be updated when the next change takes effect.

Optional "no rest day" columns: use them only if the employee works Sundays or holidays habitually (3 or more in the month). Using them is the employer's decision. Report the hours in one of these columns or in the regular Sunday/holiday surcharge column, never in both. If you are not sure whether it applies, contact our team before submitting.

Sundays and holidays are mandatory rest days. When an employee works on one of them, the amount of rest or payment depends on how often it happens in a calendar month:

• Occasional work (up to 2 Sundays or holidays in the month): the employee chooses between a paid compensatory rest day or payment in money with the surcharge. It is one or the other.
• Habitual work (3 or more Sundays or holidays in the month, consecutive or not): the employee is entitled to both the surcharge payment and a paid compensatory rest day.

The compensatory rest day is paid as a normal working day. The employer decides which day it is, not the employee, but it must be a regular working day in the week after the Sunday or holiday that was worked. A day that is already a holiday does not count as a compensatory rest day.

What this means when you submit hours:

• If an employee chose a compensatory rest day instead of payment for occasional work, do not report those hours as surcharges, so they are not paid twice.
• If an employee works Sundays or holidays on a regular basis and you are not sure how to report the hours, contact our team through the chat before you submit.

Ordinary hourly value = monthly salary ÷ monthly hours

The monthly hours depend on the date worked: 230 (15 Jul 2024 – 14 Jul 2025), 220 (15 Jul 2025 – 14 Jul 2026) and 210 (from 15 Jul 2026), as the working week goes down from 46 to 44 and then to 42 hours.

• Overtime pays the full hour: hourly value × multiplier × hours.
• Surcharges pay only the extra premium, because the ordinary hour is already included in the monthly salary: hourly value × surcharge × hours.

The figures below are illustrative. With a monthly salary of COP 2,100,000, the hourly value from 15 July 2026 is 2,100,000 ÷ 210 = COP 10,000.

Example 1: weekday overtime. An employee works 2 extra daytime hours on a Wednesday. 10,000 × 1.25 × 2 = COP 25,000.

Example 2: Sunday surcharge. An employee works their ordinary 4-hour shift on a Sunday morning (August 2026). 10,000 × 0.90 × 4 = COP 36,000, added to their normal salary.

To ensure accurate payroll processing and avoid regulatory penalties, all additional hours must be formally reported to our team.

Once your information is ready, you must send it to our Operations team via our official chat or via email before your designated payroll cutoff date.
What happens if you miss the deadline? Any files or hours submitted after the cutoff date will not be processed in the current cycle and will automatically be applied to the next payroll period.

All overtime and surcharges are reported with the official Base Carga Extras template, regardless of how many employees or hours you have. Once the file is ready, send it to our team through the official chat or by email, before your payroll cutoff date. Files or hours received after the cutoff are not processed in the current cycle and are applied to the next payroll period.

Our payroll software requires Spanish headers, so the template has three tabs:

1. Tab 1: Guide. Explains every column and tells you which ones to fill in.
2. Tab 2: Fill Out (English). Your working sheet, with headers in English.
3. Tab 3: horas extras (official Spanish upload). The sheet that is uploaded to the system.

Steps

1. Make a copy of the original template and work from the copy.
2. In Tab 2, write each employee's national ID in the first column. Use one row per employee: do not repeat employees, and add all their hours for the month in that single row.
3. Fill in only the columns with a green header. Leave the grey columns empty.
4. Enter hours as numbers only, without text or units.
5. Copy the filled rows (not the header) to Tab 3. The column order is identical.
6. Delete Tab 1 and Tab 2. The file you submit must contain only the Spanish sheet, otherwise the upload fails.
7. Send the file to our team before the cutoff date, indicating the payroll period it covers.

Important: the template is only for current periods. If you need to report hours from previous periods, contact our team through the chat before sending anything.

Step by Step video

Note: this video was recorded before July 2025, so the percentages and multipliers shown in it may be outdated. The process shown is still the same.

• Reporting night hours using the wrong window (7:00 PM since 25 December 2025, 9:00 PM before).
• Putting hours in an overtime column when they were part of the ordinary shift (they should go in a surcharge column).
• Repeating an employee in more than one row.
• Offering free time instead of paying overtime. Overtime must be paid in money.
• Reporting a Sunday or holiday as a surcharge when the employee chose a compensatory rest day instead.

Can overtime exceed 2 hours per day?
No. Colombian law limits overtime to 2 hours per day and 12 hours per week.

Can I give time off instead of paying overtime?
No. In Colombia overtime must be paid in money. Giving the employee free time does not replace that payment, and the employee can still claim it later. This is different from the compensatory rest day for work on Sundays and holidays, which is a separate right (see above).

Can employees work longer days some days without overtime?
Yes, if a flexible schedule is agreed in advance with the employee. The 42 weekly hours can be distributed across the week, with days of 4 to 9 hours. In that case the longer days are not overtime as long as the weekly total does not exceed the legal limit. Contact our team before changing a schedule.

Do I need to submit anything for ordinary hours?
No. Ordinary hours are already covered by the monthly salary. Only report overtime and surcharges.

What if the cutoff date has passed?
The hours are processed in the next payroll cycle.

What if I am not sure how to classify some hours?
Contact our team through the chat and we will help you classify them before you submit the file.