- A finance ministry bill filed Oct. 29 would extend 19% VAT to online wagering, charged whenever a bettor funds an account.
- The taxable amount is the deposit less the tax itself, so the charge works out to about 16% of what a bettor puts in, win or lose.
- The ministry expects 2 trillion pesos more in 2027, stacked on the health-fund fees operators already owe.
- Rush Street Interactive shares fell 11% to $12.12 on Oct. 30, then rose 9.9% to $12.53 on Nov. 3.
BOGOTA, Colombia – Colombia’s finance ministry asked Congress on Oct. 29 to extend the country’s 19% value-added tax to online wagering, with the bettor’s deposit as the taxable event.
The Colombia VAT bill would tax the money bettors put in, not the gross gaming revenue operators keep, which is the base of the 16% levy in force this year. Shares of Rush Street Interactive, the BetRivers parent listed on the New York Stock Exchange, fell 11% on Oct. 30.
What Article 41 Would Do
Finance Minister Miguel Gómez Martínez filed the 106-article package, Bill 477/2026C, in the Chamber of Representatives under the name Economic Rescue Law. The gaming measure is Article 41 of the bill. Under it, the taxable moment is the funding of a user account, whether with cash, a money transfer or crypto assets.
The taxable amount is the deposit with the VAT backed out, meaning the deposit over 1.19. A bettor who puts in 119,000 pesos would see 19,000 pesos of that go to VAT. The operator, foreign or domestic, owes the tax and may credit input VAT against it. Article 41 sets no start date of its own, and the bill’s final article makes the law effective on promulgation.
How It Differs From The 2026 Levy
This year’s levy on legal sports betting in Colombia is built differently. Emergency Decree 240 of 2026 created a 16% consumption tax for this year only, and its base is what the operator keeps after paying prizes, the decree’s definition of gross gaming revenue. A deposit also includes money a bettor later withdraws as winnings, which gross gaming revenue leaves out, so a charge of about the same rate on deposits reaches money the operator never keeps.
For a bettor, the trigger is funding the account, not the result of a bet, and winnings that are withdrawn and deposited again are taxed again when they go back in.
Decree 175 of 2025 had applied a VAT to deposits. Rush Street President and Chief Financial Officer Kyle Sauers said on the company’s Oct. 28 earnings call that bonusing in Colombia offset that tax last year, and that ending the bonusing helped lift Latin America revenue per monthly active user 113%.
A separate article lifts the rate Colombian residents pay on windfall income from lotteries, raffles and wagers to 30% from 20%, worth 198 billion pesos in 2028 by the tax agency DIAN’s estimate.
The Finance Ministry’s Case
The finance ministry’s memo to Congress says the VAT would put online games on the same footing as in-person games, which already pay it. The ministry’s own estimate is 2 trillion pesos of new collections in 2027, then 2.3 trillion pesos in an average later year. The memo says online exploitation-rights revenue, the fees that fund health care, had more than doubled in nominal terms through September from the same stretch of 2025, even with the 2025 VAT and this year’s consumption tax in place.
Rush Street’s Exposure
Rush Street Interactive, the parent of BetRivers, operates in legal sports betting markets in the United States and Canada as well as in Latin America, where it lists Colombia, Mexico and Peru as live markets. The company does not report Colombian revenue separately. Its Oct. 28 earnings release counted 607,308 monthly active users in Latin America in the third quarter, up 46%, and held its 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance at $245 million to $265 million, a range that assumes Colombia’s temporary 16% decree stays as it is.
Chief Executive Richard Schwartz said on the same call that, as of then, the gaming tax was expected to return to its original 15% in 2027, and that Colombia’s 2027 budget, which Congress approved Oct. 20, included no new gaming taxes. The Colombia VAT bill was filed the next day. Rush Street shares fell about 10% on Oct. 29 and 5.9% on Nov. 2 before the 9.9% rebound on Nov. 3.
Peru’s online betting tax bill, filed in October, would raise the selective consumption tax on online wagers from 1% to 5% in another Rush Street market.
Industry Response
Fecoljuegos, the trade group for Colombia’s licensed operators, said Oct. 30 that its technical staff is studying the text and drafting an alternative tax plan to take to the ministry and to Congress. President Evert Montero said the federation is willing to contribute and wants a technical conversation, arguing that online and in-person gambling have different cost structures and that obligations should reflect each.
The Chamber of Representatives lists the bill as in committee, with no debate dates posted, and the first legislative period of 2026-27 ends Dec. 16.
