I love Colombia.

I’ve been coming here since 2017, living here full-time since the end of 2020, and in that time I’ve watched a lot of foreigners lose money here.

Not to crime.

Not to scams.

Not to the dramatic things tourists worry about.

To banks.

To one screen.

One tiny moment.

One button most people hit without reading.

That’s where the money disappears.

And the frustrating part is that it’s not complicated once you understand it. The whole thing is designed to feel more confusing than it actually is. The ATM wants you to make the wrong choice. The currency exchange booth wants you to focus on the wrong number. The system is counting on the fact that you just landed, you’re tired, you need cash, and you’re probably not in the mood to do math in another country.

So let’s fix that.

If you’re living in Colombia, visiting Colombia, retiring here, or even just coming down for a scouting trip, here’s how the money actually works: the bills, the coins, the exchange rate, the ATM tricks, and the one button that can quietly cost you around 7% to 10% every single time you use a machine.

Once you know this, you stop bleeding money for no reason.

One of the first things Americans notice in Colombia is that the money is easier to read.

Not the numbers.

The design.

In the U.S., all our bills look like they came from the same emotionally repressed design meeting. Green. Black. Same size. Same vibe. From across the room, a one-dollar bill and a hundred-dollar bill look like cousins who went to the same strict private school.

Colombian bills are different.

They’re color-coded.

They’re visually distinct.

Some are even different sizes.

That sounds minor until you’ve been out at night, paying in a dim restaurant, or trying to sort bills quickly in a taxi or corner store. Colombian money is easier to identify at a glance, which means you spend less time staring at it like it’s an exam.

There are six common bills in circulation:

2,000

5,000

10,000

20,000

50,000

100,000

And here’s the one foreigners need to understand immediately:

It’s the equivalent of the “too big for normal life” bill.

Just like a $100 bill in the U.S., the 100,000 peso bill is technically valid everywhere and practically unwelcome in a lot of everyday situations.

Small shops don’t like it.

Taxi drivers definitely don’t like it.

Tiny restaurants may take it, but often with the energy of someone who suspects you’ve personally created a problem for them.

So if an ATM spits out a stack of 100,000s, your first task is not “great, I have cash.”

Your first task is breaking those bills somewhere large enough to absorb them — grocery stores, big chain businesses, larger restaurants, maybe a mall.

That’s your first piece of Colombian cash strategy:

cash is useful, but usable cash is better.

Colombia also has coins:

50

100

200

500

and 1,000 pesos.

The 50-peso coin is basically decorative.

It’s tiny.

It’s low-value.

It’s the kind of thing you accumulate without ever really emotionally integrating into your life.

The others matter more and work fine. Nobody looks shocked if you pay with coins here. But you will end up collecting them faster than you expect, and eventually your pockets start sounding like a minor percussion section.

As of the general rate range in the transcript, one U.S. dollar was floating around the mid-3,000s in Colombian pesos.

And here is the most important rule before you do anything else with money in Colombia:

If you want to know the real exchange rate, open Google and type:

1 USD to COP

Or euros.

Or Canadian dollars.

Or pounds.

Whatever your home currency is.

That number is your anchor.

That is your reference point.

That is what your brain should compare everything against.

Because once you know the real exchange rate, everyone trying to make money off your confusion becomes easier to spot.

Now, in day-to-day life, you may still round in your head.

A lot of people do.

You may simplify the rate to make mental math easier when you’re standing somewhere trying to decide whether a lunch feels cheap or not. That’s fine. But your actual financial decisions — ATM withdrawals, conversions, larger transactions — should always start with the real number from Google.

If you skip this step, you’re walking into every money interaction slightly blind.

And blindness is profitable for somebody.

Usually not you.

This is the big one.

This is where a lot of foreigners lose money without realizing it.

You go to the ATM.

You request pesos.

The machine gives you a screen that looks helpful.

Friendly even.

It says something like:

“Would you like to accept conversion?”

It shows your withdrawal.

It shows an amount in your home currency.

It may even show you the exchange rate.

Sometimes it shows a markup.

Sometimes it hides part of the damage inside the rate itself.

And this is the moment that matters.

Because the ATM is offering to do the conversion for you.

And that sounds convenient.

It is not convenient.

It is a trap.

Let your own bank do the conversion.

Not the ATM operator.

This is called dynamic currency conversion, and it exists because the ATM company knows a lot of people will click “accept” just to get through the screen faster.

If you accept, the ATM company uses their exchange rate.

And their exchange rate is often significantly worse than your bank’s.

Sometimes they even tell you the markup right there on the screen.

Sometimes it’s 7%.

Sometimes more.

And that’s before you fully account for how ugly the exchange rate itself is.

So the machine may be taking money from you in two ways at once:

an explicit markup

and a bad conversion rate.

That’s why one wrong button press can cost way more than people think.

The correct move is simple:

Decline conversion.

Still take the cash.

Let your bank handle the exchange.

That one habit alone can save you a shocking amount over time.

If you’re pulling cash in Colombia regularly, the machine you use matters.

The transcript calls out Davivienda as the best option because it allows larger withdrawals in a single transaction than many other banks. That matters because smaller limits force you into multiple transactions, and multiple transactions can mean multiple fees, more friction, and more chances to make mistakes.

The other key insight is this:

If you find a bank ATM network that works well for you, use it consistently.

The transcript specifically warns against Servibanca based on repeated bad experiences, and that kind of pattern matters. When you’re in another country, you do not want to spend two weeks filing disputes over missing cash because some machine decided to complete a transaction spiritually instead of physically.

The broad rule is simple:

use big-bank ATMs.

Use the ones with a track record.

Do not treat every machine equally just because it has a card slot.

Even if you decline the bad conversion, many ATMs will still charge an access fee.

That part is normal.

The good news is that the right bank card can make this mostly irrelevant.

If you have a debit card from a bank that reimburses international ATM fees, the machine’s fee becomes a temporary inconvenience instead of a permanent loss.

That’s why cards from banks known for international ATM reimbursement are so valuable for expats, travelers, and long-term visitors.

And here’s the rule that matters just as much:

Ever.

Using a credit card at an ATM is not “basically the same thing.”

It is a completely different financial event.

You’re stepping into cash advance territory, which usually means ugly fees, immediate interest, and no grace period.

Debit card for cash.

Credit card for purchases.

That’s the clean split.

Keep it that way.

Let’s make this easy:

In Colombia.

In most of the world.

Generally always.

They’re convenient in the way that $19 airport sandwiches are convenient.

You can do it.

That doesn’t mean you should.

The trick is almost always the same:

they make the visible commission look reasonable,

and then they quietly bury the real damage inside an ugly exchange rate.

So people think,

“Oh, the fee isn’t that bad.”

The fee is not the point.

The rate is the point.

That’s why Google matters.

Google lets you see the actual market rate, and once you see that number, the bad deals become much easier to recognize.

If the conversion you’re being offered is significantly worse than Google, walk away.

Especially at airports.

Especially in tourist zones.

Especially when you’re tired enough to think convenience and value are the same thing.

They are not the same thing.

This sounds obvious, but people mess it up all the time.

They take out too much because they assume cash management abroad is hard.

Then they end up stuck with oversized bills, leftover currency, or a pocket full of awkward denominations that don’t fit how they actually spend.

The better approach is to treat the ATM like a tool, not an event.

Pull what you need.

Use it.

Reload as necessary.

That keeps your losses smaller if something goes wrong, makes daily life easier, and helps you avoid becoming the person trying to pay for a coffee with a bill nobody wants to break.

Once you understand the system here, you become more deliberate.

You stop mindlessly accepting conversions.

You stop treating every machine as harmless.

You stop assuming convenience is neutral.

You start checking rates.

You start breaking big bills strategically.

You start paying attention.

And that’s not really a Colombia skill.

That’s an international money skill.

Colombia just forces you to learn it faster.

Money in a foreign country is not actually that complicated.

It’s just designed to feel complicated.

That’s the whole game.

The ATM wants you to hit the easy button.

The exchange booth wants you to ignore the rate.

The system wants you to move quickly and think slowly.

But once you know what to look for, most of the mystery disappears.

Know your bills.

Know the real exchange rate.

Use a real bank ATM.

Decline the conversion.

Use the right debit card.

Never pull cash from a credit card.

And stay away from airport exchanges unless you absolutely have no other option.

That’s it.

Five or six simple habits, and suddenly you stop donating 7%, 8%, 10% of your money every time you need cash.

Which means more of your money stays where it belongs:

with you,

in Colombia,

doing something better than boosting a bank’s quarterly earnings report.