Colombia's Chamber of Representatives completes the pension-reform debate ordered by the Constitutional Court

28 October 2026

The plenary of Colombia's Chamber of Representatives, the lower house of Congress, finished the debate that the Corte Constitucional had ordered on the government's pension reform. The Court had returned nine articles of the reform because proposals to change or add to them were never taken up in an earlier sitting, a defect of procedure. In the plenary the proposals were voted down and their authors withdrew the returned texts, so the reform stands exactly as the Senate approved it and no conciliation between the two houses was needed. The Court has set the reform to take effect on 1 April 2027. The reform builds a pillar system: a solidarity pillar paying a basic income of about COP 230.000 to older people without a pension, a semi-contributory pillar giving a life annuity to those who contributed between 300 and 1.000 weeks, and a complementary component under which contributions up to 2,3 minimum wages go to Colpensiones and the excess to the Administradoras del Componente Complementario de Ahorro Individual.