New customs penalty law: what changed and how to defend yourself?
Understand the infractions, the graduation of penalties and acceptance of liability, and respond to DIAN with ex-DIAN lawyers and accountants at your side.

Law 2586 repeals Decree Law 920 of 2023 and article 51 of Law 1762 of 2015 (art. 114). Decree Law 920 of 2023 had been declared unconstitutional with deferred effects by the Constitutional Court in Judgment C-072 of 2025, so that Congress would regulate the regime by law. Decree 1165 of 2019 does not disappear: it remains the rule on the customs obligations whose breach the law penalizes (art. 15), and its references to penalty, forfeiture and official assessment matters are understood to refer to Law 2586 (art. 112, par. 2).

On paper, the law sets express rules of procedure and penalty and enshrines principles that DIAN must apply: favorability, legality, typicity, prohibition of analogy and of double penalty, proportionality and good faith (art. 2). It provides for prior persuasive management (art. 5), a catalog of non-penalizable formal errors (art. 22), grounds for exemption such as force majeure, fortuitous event or due diligence (art. 23), acceptance of liability with a reduction (art. 19) and the reduction of a fine that exceeds 40% of the prior year’s gross income when requested in the appeal (art. 18, num. 6). Each company must review how those rules apply to its specific operation.

Article 14 classifies infractions as minor, serious and very serious and provides for four types of penalty: warning, fine, suspension and cancellation. Very serious ones are penalized with cancellation, suspension or fines between 1.000 and 4.000 UVT, or between 70% and 100% of the FOB value or of the goods, or 100% of freight, VAT or taxes as the case may be; serious ones, with fines between 200 and 999 UVT, between 10% and 69% of taxes, freight or FOB value, or other bases the rule specifies; and minor ones, with a warning or fines between 50 and 199 UVT or between 1% and 9% of the corresponding base. Article 15 lists the conduct by type of user (declarants, customs agencies, free zones, warehouses, among others). Some examples: using irregular means or simulating foreign-trade operations (very serious, art. 15.1.1), not having the supporting documents required by Decree 1165 of 2019 (serious, art. 15.2.2.2) or preventing or obstructing control activities without just cause (minor, art. 15.1.3.1).

Yes. Article 17 graduates the penalty, for example when several infractions are committed through the same act or when a minor infraction is repeated. Article 18 provides for reductions for acceptance of liability, for late compliance or termination, for having no record in the INFAD in the previous two fiscal years and, in the appeal, when the fine exceeds 40% of the gross income on the prior year’s income tax return. And paragraph 1 of article 14 provides that whoever commits, for the first time or within three years, a minor infraction penalized with a fine and corrects their situation will not be subject to a pecuniary penalty, with a record in the INFAD.

Article 19 allows the commission of the infraction to be acknowledged in writing. If the acknowledgment is voluntary, without intervention of the customs authority and before the Special Customs Request is notified, an infraction that is not very serious is left without penalty (num. 1). If it is made before the Request is notified, but already with the authority’s intervention (the law understands it to begin with the notification of a control action or of the persuasive management, par. 2), the fine is reduced to 20% (num. 2). After the Request and until before the decision on the merits, the fine is reduced to 40% (num. 3), and within the term to appeal the act on the merits, to 60% (num. 4). The payment receipt for the taxes, the interest and the reduced penalty must be attached, and compliance with the breached obligation must be shown where applicable. It can be total or partial (par. 4). It does not apply to default interest or to redemption (par. 1). You must read carefully which numeral covers each case before accepting liability.

It is the act by which DIAN proposes to impose a penalty or to issue an official assessment, and its notification formally begins the proceeding (art. 66). It must be issued no later than 30 business days after the date on which the alleged infraction is established (art. 67). The interested party has 15 business days to answer, object and request evidence (art. 70), and the authority has 70 business days to decide on the merits, counted under article 72. If the administration’s terms are not met, article 96 provides for positive administrative silence, with exceptions, for example when the Request was not answered.

An appeal for reconsideration lies within 15 business days after notification (art. 88). DIAN has five months to resolve it (art. 94). If the obligated party properly answered the Special Customs Request or filed the brief of objections to the seizure and the act is nevertheless issued, it may skip the appeal for reconsideration and go directly to the administrative courts, within the terms of Law 1437 of 2011 (art. 88, par. 2). Only lawyers may act as unauthorized agents (agentes oficiosos) to file appeals on behalf of the user (art. 31).

The power to impose penalties lapses three years after the commission of the act or the omission, and the penalty act must be issued and notified within that term (art. 20). When the same facts are also defined as the crimes of smuggling, customs fraud, money laundering or others that paragraph 1 lists, the lapse period is eight years. The power to enforce penalties becomes time-barred five years after the act becomes final (art. 21). For penalties imposed within an official assessment, the lapse follows the finality of the declaration (art. 20, par. 2).

Article 112 provides that if an operation began while Decree Law 920 of 2023 was in force and before the law took effect, the regime of obligations, infractions and penalties is the one in force when it began, without prejudice to favorability. Proceedings in progress are governed by the rules in force at the time they began, and those begun under prior rules continue provided the conduct has an equivalent typical description in the new law; in any case the most favorable penalty applies (par. 1). This requires comparing case by case, and for facts prior to Decree Law 920 of 2023 the rule applicable to each situation must be analyzed.

Seizure is a precautionary measure (art. 7) and is available on the grounds in article 26. Once a ground is established, the seizure record is drawn up (art. 40). The holder or person responsible has 15 business days from its notification to file the brief of objections (art. 45) and DIAN has 70 business days to decide on the merits (art. 47). There are mechanisms such as delivery of the goods against a guarantee equal to 100% of the FOB value or of the appraisal when there are no restrictions (art. 43) and delivery by redemption once the grounds have been cured (art. 52). The strategy depends on the ground and on the goods. For detail, see forfeiture and seizure.

The law devotes a chapter to the Authorized Economic Operator (arts. 76 to 80): it provides grounds for suspension of benefits and cancellation of the authorization with their own procedures, conducted in proceedings separate from the penalty proceeding even if the facts coincide, without suspension or cancellation in itself implying loss of the status of customs user (art. 76). Suspension of benefits is a precautionary measure with no appeal, and the OEA has 15 business days from notification to cure or rebut the ground in the cases article 78 indicates. In addition, if it commits the same penalizable conduct a second time within two years after the Special Customs Request, the fine is reduced to 30% (art. 18, num. 5).

The law distinguishes administrative liability from criminal liability. When DIAN finds facts that may constitute a crime, it must bring them to the attention of the Prosecutor’s Office (Fiscalía) (art. 12), and the administrative penalty applies without prejudice to any criminal liability that may arise (art. 14). In seizure and forfeiture cases, the criminal complaint may be filed once the forfeiture act exhausts the discussion at the administrative level (art. 12). That is why it pays to coordinate the administrative and the criminal defense from the start. At Ligal, the same defense handles both fronts from start to finish.

Ligal is a firm specialized in tax, customs and criminal tax law. Under the direction of Juan Santiago Rodríguez Prieto, a tax lawyer and ex-DIAN, together with Jeysson Pulido, accountant, and LIGAL Auditores (certified public accountants), we combine the legal reading of Law 2586 with the accounting analysis of the operation and represent you before DIAN, from the answer to the Request through the appeal and the courts. Our work is backed by 5.0 / 5 on Google with 36 reviews: https://share.google/VVzMvULrOj8Mj52Au. The team handles real customs, audit and litigation cases. No result is guaranteed.