Colombia to Impose Visa Requirements for British Travelers in Response to UK Rule Change

Colombian President Gustavo Petro in Bogota, Colombia, on July 20, 2023. Fernando Vergara/AP Photo

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Nov. 26 that his country will impose visa requirements for British travelers in response to the UK’s decision to revoke visa-free entry to Colombian nationals.

The British government reinstated the visa requirement for Colombian citizens on Tuesday, citing the “significant increase in irregular migration cases” as the rationale for the change.

Colombian visitors will also require a direct transit visa to pass through the UK to another country as part of the UK’s border measures.

In response to the British government’s move, Petro said that his country would impose similar measures on British travelers, though he did not specify when the visa rules would be enforced.

“If the United Kingdom has reestablished the need for visas for the Colombian people, I have to say that by the principle of reciprocity, the Colombian government will ask for visas from British citizens who want to come to Colombia,” he wrote in a Nov. 26 post on social media platform X.

The UK scrapped the visa requirement for Colombian visitors in November 2022, three months after Petro took office.

British Ambassador to Colombia George Hodgson said on Tuesday that reinstating the visa requirement on Colombian nationals was not an easy decision but was necessary to protect the border.

Hodgson said in a video address posted on X that the country has observed a rise in “unjustified asylum requests” within two years of lifting visa requirements for Colombian nationals.

The visa rules took effect on Tuesday, but a four-week, visa-free transition period will apply for Colombian travelers with confirmed bookings made before 3 p.m. GMT on Nov. 26 for arrival to the UK no later than 3 p.m. GMT on Dec. 24, according to British officials.

British Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Migration and Citizenship Seema Malhotra said the visa requirement was imposed due to a “sustained increase” in asylum claims and “high rates of refusals” at the border.

“This increase in asylum claims and refusals has added significantly to operational pressures at the border, resulting in frontline resource[s] being diverted from other operational priorities,” Malhotra said in a written statement to the UK Parliament on Tuesday.

Malhotra said that the decision does not impact the country’s relationship with Colombia, saying the ties between the two nations remain “strong and friendly” despite the change in border measures.

“Any decision to change a visa status is not taken lightly and we keep the border and immigration system under regular review to ensure it continues to work in the UK national interest,” she stated.

The British government also issued an explanatory memorandum detailing the changes and stating the number of asylum claims from Colombia in recent years.

In 2020, 11 Colombians made asylum claims in the UK. In 2021, the country received six asylum claims from Colombian citizens.

The number of asylum claims from Colombia increased from 13 during the first three quarters of 2022 to 105 in the fourth quarter of the same year.

In 2023, there was a total of 854 asylum claims from Colombians. In the first two quarters of this year, the UK received 468 asylum claims from Colombian citizens.

“There have been more asylum claims per quarter in 2023 and 2024 than in the entire 10 years preceding the visa lift,” the explanatory memorandum stated.

Thousands of Colombians have left home for Europe and the United States over the past three years due to economic stagnation and rising violence in parts of the country. In 2022, U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested more than 165,000 Colombian nationals attempting to cross the U.S.–Mexico border. The number decreased slightly to 155,000 in the following year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.