Aire acondicionado y calefacción en Atlántico: costo de las reparaciones (2026)

Normas e impuestos locales en Colombia

IVA en las reparaciones de aire acondicionado y calefacción

Aquí la mano de obra de reparación está sujeta al IVA. HVAC repair labour, replacement parts and the visita tecnica/domicilio (call-out) charge are all standard-rated for Colombian IVA (Impuesto sobre las Ventas) at 19%. The rate is set by articulo 468 of the Estatuto Tributario in one sentence: 'La tarifa general del impuesto sobre las ventas es del diecinueve por ciento (19%) salvo las excepciones contempladas en este titulo.' The DIAN's own Compilacion Juridica (normograma.dian.gov.co) reproduces the consolidated text and records that the current wording was introduced by articulo 184 de la Ley 1819 de 2016; parag. 1 of the article was repealed by articulo 122 de la Ley 1943 de 2018 and articulo 160 de la Ley 2010 de 2019. A split air-conditioning repair, a minisplit service call, a bomba de calor (heat-pump) repair and the repair of a calentador de paso a gas are all ordinary taxable services with no special rate. There is no reduced rate for HVAC repair: Colombia does have a 5% band and a list of excluded services in the Estatuto Tributario, but neither reaches HVAC repair -- the 5% list sits in articulo 468-1 and articulo 468-3 and the exclusions in articulo 476 cover things like medical care, education and domiciliary public utility services. Neither of those articles is quoted here. The nuance most often got wrong in Colombia is worth stating precisely: the fact that the supply of domiciliary natural gas or electricity is treated as an excluded public-utility service does not make work on the customer's own appliance or internal installation exempt. Repairing a household's calentador, its internal gas line or its air conditioner is a normal taxable service at 19%, billed by a private repair firm, not a utility supply. There is also a real and common Colombian exception about who actually charges the tax: Colombian VAT law distinguishes 'responsables del IVA' from 'no responsables del IVA'. A persona natural who meets all of the conditions set out in the Estatuto Tributario (a small-scale test built on gross income, number of establishments, absence of franchise agreements and similar factors) is a 'no responsable' and does not charge IVA at all. Many independent Colombian tecnicos operating alone fall into that category, so a quoted repair price from a one-person operator may legitimately carry no IVA while the same job from an incorporated firm carries 19%. The specific numeric thresholds are not stated here because they are not independently confirmed; treat 19% as the standard rate for a formal, invoicing provider rather than as a universal add-on, and take the 'no responsable' conditions from the Estatuto Tributario itself. Colombian consumer-facing prices are customarily quoted with IVA already included rather than added at payment. The specific statutory basis for that duty in the Estatuto del Consumidor is not cited here, because it is not independently confirmed; Colombian HVAC repair prices are best read as IVA-inclusive totals rather than as figures with tax still to be added. No Colombian subsidy or tax incentive applying to HVAC repair has been identified, and none is claimed. Any incentive of that kind would in any case reduce the cost of a new installation rather than change the IVA charged on a repair invoice.

"ARTICULO 468. TARIFA GENERAL DEL IMPUESTO SOBRE LAS VENTAS. <Articulo modificado por el articulo 184 de la Ley 1819 de 2016. El nuevo texto es el siguiente:> La tarifa general del impuesto sobre las ventas es del diecinueve por ciento (19%) salvo las excepciones contempladas en este titulo." -- Estatuto Tributario (Decreto 624 de 1989), articulo 468, read in the DIAN Compilacion Juridica / normograma (normograma.dian.gov.co), the tax authority's own consolidated text. The same compilation records that PARAGRAFO 1 of the article was derogado by articulo 122 de la Ley 1943 de 2018 and articulo 160 de la Ley 2010 de 2019, and that from taxable year 2017 one point of the IVA collected is earmarked half to health insurance and half to education. DIAN conceptos in the same normograma apply the rule to services in the same terms ('a la tarifa del 19% de conformidad con el articulo 468 del Estatuto Tributario'). No private legislation-compilation site is used as the citation for publication.

Fuente oficial: normograma.dian.gov.co

Habilitaciones & certificaciones

Colombia has no single occupational 'HVAC licence', but it has one HVAC-specific technical regulation plus two enforceable credential regimes -- one electrical, one gas -- and a mandatory five-yearly gas inspection that is unusual among comparable markets. Never cite EPA-608, Gas Safe, ARCtick or a US state contractor licence for Colombia. (1) The on-point instrument for heating and cooling work is RETSIT: the Reglamento Tecnico de Instalaciones Termicas (RETSIT) was adopted by Resolucion 40773 de 29 de diciembre de 2023 del Ministerio de Minas y Energia, 'Por la cual se expide el nuevo Reglamento Tecnico de Instalaciones Termicas (RETSIT)'. Its articulo 1 expedites the reglamento, contained in an Anexo General of 72 pages; its articulo 2 states the scope: 'El presente reglamento tecnico aplica a las instalaciones termicas nuevas, a las ampliaciones que se efectuen a estas y a las personas que lleven a cabo actividades en las instalaciones objeto del reglamento'. The Anexo General, numeral 1.2, lists the installations covered: 'a) Las instalaciones de acondicionamiento de aire. b) Las instalaciones de refrigeracion. c) Las instalaciones de produccion y distribucion de energia termica a traves de distritos termicos', and excepts only transport (road, rail, air and marine). That makes RETSIT the primary Colombian regulation for air-conditioning and refrigeration work, ahead of RETIE and RETIG, which reach HVAC only through the electrical and gas parts of the job. On personnel the Anexo General is explicit: 'Este reglamento debe ser cumplido por todas las personas naturales o juridicas, nacionales o extranjeras que disenen, construyan, realicen el montaje, operen, mantengan y/o desmantelen instalaciones termicas en Colombia', and those persons 'deberan ser competentes y estar legal y tecnicamente facultadas segun la ley colombiana, con matricula profesional vigente para efectuar dichas actividades'. Tecnologos y tecnicos 'en instalaciones de aire acondicionado y refrigeracion' are named expressly and must work 'bajo la direccion del profesional en ingenieria competente' under Ley 842 de 2003 (their Consejo Profesional under Ley 392 de 1997). Paragrafo 2 adds the sanction that matters: where the people directing or executing design, construction, montaje, operation, maintenance, dismantling, supervision or inspection lack matricula profesional or the competence their profession's law requires, 'no se debe poner en marcha la instalacion' and the authorities must be informed. Those responsible for construction must also be registered in the Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio's registro de productores, importadores y prestadores de servicios. One point is time-sensitive: articulo 4 sets entry into force 'a partir del dia siguiente a que se cumpla un (1) ano de su publicacion en el Diario Oficial', and neither the exact Diario Oficial date nor any later modifying resolution is confirmed here. (2) On refrigerants, RETSIT is again the instrument to read, and its Anexo General creates no personal refrigerant-handling credential -- there is no Colombian equivalent of the Spanish carne under RD 115/2017. What RETSIT does require is different in kind and worth stating accurately: refrigerant use falls inside the reglamento's scope; the operation-and-maintenance chapter requires a documented plan covering 'la inspeccion de rutina, deteccion y reparacion de fugas' and 'los procedimientos para la manipulacion, almacenamiento, transferencia y disposicion de refrigerantes, lubricantes y combustibles'; and the people doing that work must be technically and legally competent as set out above. The one place RETSIT does demand a certificate of labour competence is for inspectors of thermal installations, who 'deberan contar con un certificado de competencia laboral emitido por un ente certificador de competencias laborales acreditado ante el ONAC o una entidad publica habilitada por el Ministerio de Trabajo', on top of an engineer's matricula and three years of experience. Colombia is also a party to the Convencion de Viena, the Protocolo de Montreal and the Acuerdo de Kigali, which RETSIT's own introduction cites as part of its purpose, and SENA and the trade association ACAIRE run competency certification in good refrigerant-handling practice. SENA and ACAIRE certification is a competency certification a technician may hold, not a personal licence -- but Colombia is not a country without a refrigerant rule, because RETSIT governs the installation the refrigerant sits in. (3) For electrical installations the instrument is RETIE: the Reglamento Tecnico de Instalaciones Electricas is the binding technical regulation for the Colombian electrical sector. Its current base text was issued by Resolucion 40117 de 2024 del Ministerio de Minas y Energia (published 2 April 2024, in force from 3 April 2024, replacing the RETIE issued under Resolucion 90708 de 2013), structured as transitional provisions plus four books -- general provisions, products, installations and conformity assessment -- and the Ministry's own RETIE page records a further modification by Resolucion 40284 de 23 de junio de 2026. The resolution number is time-sensitive; there is also a documented transition under which installations could still be certified against the 2013 RETIE for a period tied to the accreditation of inspection bodies under the 2024 text. The Ministry states the scope as covering 'Instalaciones electricas. Productos utilizados en instalaciones electricas. Personas que intervienen las instalaciones electricas.' and states the personnel rule directly: 'El diseno, construccion, ampliacion, modificacion, remodelacion e inspeccion de toda instalacion electrica objeto del RETIE, asi como la operacion, el mantenimiento y cualquier intervencion o manipulacion de la instalacion o sus equipos, debe ser dirigida, supervisada y ejecutada por personas tecnica y legalmente competentes'. That sentence is what makes RETIE bite on HVAC: connecting or re-connecting a split condenser, a heat pump or an electric calentador is an intervention on a fixed electrical installation. (4) Who counts as 'legalmente competente' for electrical work is settled by the CONTE matricula: Ley 19 de 1990 regulated the profession of tecnico electricista and made a professional licence necessary to practise, prohibiting and sanctioning unlicensed practice; Ley 1264 de 2008 then assigned the Consejo Nacional de Tecnicos Electricistas (CONTE) the exclusive and autonomous function of studying, processing and issuing the matricula profesional de tecnico electricista, which every such technician must hold to practise lawfully in Colombian territory. To be clear about what it is: this is a real, checkable licence and the closest Colombian analogue to a US state contractor licence or UK Gas Safe registration -- but it is an electrical-technician licence, not an HVAC licence, and it does not by itself authorise gas or refrigerant work. These statements rest on CONTE's own published guidance plus the SUIN-Juriscol text of Ley 1264 de 2008, and no individual article number is cited for them. (5) Gas work runs through RETIG plus a mandatory competency certification: internal gas installations, including the gas connection of a calentador de paso, are governed by the Reglamento Tecnico de Instalaciones Internas de Gas Combustible (RETIG), adopted by Resolucion 90902 de 2013 del Ministerio de Minas y Energia and subsequently modified. Under the RETIG a 'persona competente' is one who has been trained, has experience, and holds a labour-competency certificate for the activity concerned, certified either by an Organismo de Certificacion de Personas accredited by ONAC or by the SENA. Where an inspection finds defects, the resulting repairs must be carried out by personnel holding that competency certificate and registered in the Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio's Registro de Productores e Importadores for products and services subject to technical regulations. This is materially stronger than Mexico's voluntary CONOCER model: in Colombia the competency certificate is a condition of doing the work, not an optional credential. (6) The five-year gas inspection is a distinctive Colombian homeowner duty: CREG Resolucion 059 de 2012 established the revision periodica of internal gas installations. CREG states that 'La revision periodica de las instalaciones internas de gas solo podra hacerse una vez cada cinco (5) anos', that the user 'debera realizar la revision periodica de la instalacion interna de gas entre el Plazo Minimo (5 meses antes de que se cumplan los 5 anos) y el Plazo Maximo (al cumplirse los 5 anos)... y obtener el Certificado de Conformidad', and that the work is done by 'Organismos de inspeccion acreditados en o con las empresas distribuidoras, las cuales podran realizar la actividad directamente como Organismo Acreditado o a traves de sus contratistas'. The user may choose the accredited inspection body, and the distributor must keep and publish an up-to-date list of them. Colombian reporting on the scheme also states that a user who does not obtain the Certificado de Conformidad may have gas service suspended by the distributor; the CREG publication does not itself spell out that consequence, so it is reported here rather than asserted as fact. (7) What a Colombian homeowner can actually check is this: whether the firm and the person doing air-conditioning or refrigeration work are competent and legally facultated as RETSIT requires, and whether an engineer is directing the work when the installation is new or being extended; whether the electrician or tecnico holds a current CONTE matricula profesional; whether anyone touching the gas installation holds a labour-competency certificate from an ONAC-accredited certifying body or SENA; whether the property's five-yearly gas revision periodica is up to date and its Certificado de Conformidad on file; and whether the firm invoices formally (which also tells them whether the 19% IVA applies).

Fuente oficial: minenergia.gov.co

Esto es información general, no asesoramiento legal ni fiscal. Las tasas y normas cambian: confírmelas con las fuentes oficiales indicadas arriba.