The Best CDTs in Colombia in 2026: Real Rates, FOGAFIN Cover, and the Brand Trap

The best 360 day CDT in Colombia paid 13.50% in the week ending 26 August 2026. Banco de la República has pushed the policy rate up by 275 basis points this year. Those two numbers explain why every listicle is suddenly ranking Colombian fixed term deposits. Most of those rankings are wrong in three ways. They quote marketing rates instead of the rates savers actually received. They treat brand names as separate banks for deposit insurance. They assume the bank that pays the most at 360 days also pays the most at 90 days.

What a CDT actually is

A CDT, or Certificado de Depósito a Término, is Colombia’s fixed term deposit. It works like a US CD. You lock in an amount of pesos for a set term, and the institution pays interest at maturity or at agreed intervals. Terms usually run from 30 days up to several years. Early withdrawal is either impossible or expensive, so this is money you can leave untouched.

Why CDTs are paying double digits in 2026

Banco de la República, Colombia’s central bank, started 2026 with the policy rate at 9.25%. Its board moved it like this:

Meeting	Decision	Resulting rate
19 December 2025	Hold	9.25%
30 January 2026	Up 100 basis points	10.25%
31 March 2026	Up 100 basis points	11.25%
30 April 2026	Hold	11.25%
30 June 2026	Up 75 basis points	12.00%
31 July 2026	Hold	12.00%

That is 275 basis points in seven months. When the policy rate moves, deposit rates follow with a lag. The central bank does not set what your bank pays you, but it does set the ceiling those banks compete up to.

The real rates, not the advertised ones

The figures below come from the Superintendencia Financiera’s official capture rate series, published on datos.gov.co, for the week ending 26 August 2026. The Superfinanciera number is the volume weighted average rate the institution actually paid on money it took in that week. It is not an advertised headline rate. It is what savers actually got.

Most English language articles about Colombian CDTs quote marketing rates instead. A marketing rate may be open only to new customers, only through the app, only in a narrow term band, or only until a quota fills. The official series cuts through that, and it reorders the league table: Banco Falabella paid 11.43% at 360 days, behind more than a dozen smaller institutions. Lulo Bank shows 11.07%, though on very little money actually captured that week, which is its own warning about reading too much into a single cell.

Institution	90 days	180 days	360 days	Over 360
Banco Pichincha	10.02%	11.61%	13.50%	13.20%
Banco Contactar	10.99%	12.21%	13.04%	13.02%
KOA	11.23%	12.12%	13.00%	12.90%
La Hipotecaria		12.10%	12.89%	12.93%
Iris	10.48%	11.55%	12.86%	12.79%
Banco W	11.38%	11.71%	12.84%	12.18%
Banco Credifinanciera	11.22%	12.09%	12.71%	12.90%
Mibanco	11.91%	12.27%	12.62%	12.95%
Banco de Occidente	10.97%	11.14%	12.57%	12.06%
Credifamilia		12.02%	12.57%	13.32%
Banco Unión	10.72%	11.31%	12.54%	12.46%
Banco Serfinanza	11.07%	11.89%	12.46%	11.75%
Bancoomeva	11.61%	10.11%	12.40%
Coltefinanciera	11.17%	11.77%	12.40%	13.61%
Banco GNB Sudameris	11.33%	11.52%	12.25%	12.57%
Tuya	10.62%	11.38%	12.24%	12.18%
Banco de Bogotá	10.62%	11.09%	12.17%	12.71%
Bancolombia	9.85%	10.41%	11.84%	11.28%
Banco Falabella	10.02%	10.66%	11.43%	10.37%
Banco Caja Social	8.04%	7.97%	11.29%	11.86%
Lulo Bank	9.72%	10.65%	11.07%	12.61%
BBVA Colombia	9.84%	10.07%	11.04%	12.76%
Nu Colombia	9.50%	10.50%	11.00%	11.88%
Banco Davivienda	10.78%	10.84%	10.83%	12.11%
Banco Popular	10.28%	11.52%	10.54%	11.74%
AV Villas	11.20%	9.16%	10.50%	10.60%
Confiar (FOGACOOP)	11.37%	8.00%	10.20%
Coop. Financiera JFK (FOGACOOP)	9.43%	9.85%	9.78%	9.33%
Coop. Fin. de Antioquia (FOGACOOP)	7.71%	9.94%	9.90%	8.96%
Cotrafa (FOGACOOP)	7.97%	8.07%	9.60%	9.66%

Effective annual rates, volume weighted, week ending 26 August 2026. Source: Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia. This is a selection of the larger and higher paying institutions, not the full series, so an absent name means we left it out, not that it pays nothing. Blank cells are terms where the institution took in no money that week. An institution that captured very little at a given term can show a rate that is not representative.

There is no best bank, only the best bank for your term

The term curve is not flat and it is not predictable per institution. AV Villas paid 11.20% at 90 days but only 9.16% at 180 days. Banco Caja Social paid 7.97% at 180 days but 11.29% at 360 days. So there is no best bank. There is only the best bank for your chosen term. A 13.50% headline at 360 days means nothing if you need the money in 90 days. The bank leading at 90 days is not the bank leading at 360.

What FOGAFIN actually covers

FOGAFIN is Colombia’s deposit insurance fund, the closest equivalent to the FDIC in the United States. It covers up to 50,000,000 Colombian pesos per depositor per registered institution. CDTs are explicitly covered. Cover is automatic when you open the CDT and also when it renews. The institution pays a premium of 0.3% of insured deposits, and you do not pay it.

At the TRM for 29 August 2026 of 3,202.79 pesos to the dollar, that 50 million peso cap is about 15,600 US dollars. The dollar figure moves with the exchange rate, so treat it as a rough marker rather than a fixed number. The point is that the cap binds far sooner than a US saver expects, and it applies per institution rather than per account.

FOGAFIN lists 66 registered institutions: 31 banks, 19 financing companies, 7 financial corporations, and 9 SEDPES, which are electronic deposit and payment companies.

Not everything is covered. Trust and fiduciary products, insurance, ordinary bonds, BOCEAS, BOCAS, and any product from an institution that is not registered all sit outside the fund. Verifying cover is simple: statements and advertising for a covered product must carry the FOGAFIN deposit insurance seal. No seal, ask questions before you sign.

The brand trap: Pibank is Banco Pichincha

Pibank is not a bank. The footer of Pibank’s own website states that Pibank is a registered trademark of Banco Pichincha S.A. Its legal notices go to a pichincha.co address. Many press rankings list Pibank and Banco Pichincha as two separate institutions, both around 13.5%. They are one institution. If you split 100 million pesos between Pibank and Pichincha believing you have insured two amounts of 50 million, you actually hold 100 million in a single institution with 50 million of cover. Half of it is uninsured.

Here is the same 100 million pesos, as the saver imagines it and as the fund actually sees it.

What you placed	What you assumed	What FOGAFIN sees
50,000,000 at Banco Pichincha	Insured	One entity, Banco Pichincha
50,000,000 at Pibank	Insured, separately	The same entity, not a second one
100,000,000 total	100,000,000 covered	50,000,000 covered, 50,000,000 exposed

The rule is simple. Cover is counted per registered legal entity, not per brand and not per app. Before splitting money between two names, look up the legal name on FOGAFIN’s registered institution list.

Related names cause the same confusion. Nu, Rappipay, KOA, Iris and Tuya are not banks. They are financing companies (compañías de financiamiento). They are equally FOGAFIN covered at the same cap, but the licence differs. Lulo Bank does hold a full banking licence. Do not read the logo as the legal entity.

If your institution is a cooperative, your insurance is a different fund

Confiar, Cotrafa, Cooperativa Financiera JFK and Cooperativa Financiera de Antioquia appear in the Superfinanciera rate data, but they are not registered with FOGAFIN. They sit under FOGACOOP, a separate fund. The cap is also 50 million pesos per person, so the cover is not worse. It is different: different fund, different supervisor.

A cooperative’s aportes sociales, the member equity contributions, are not covered by FOGACOOP at all. They are equity, not deposits.

Tax on CDT interest

CDT interest is taxable income in Colombia. The institution withholds tax at maturity, called retención en la fuente, and for interest the rate is 4%.

You will also see 7% quoted, and the reason both numbers circulate is more interesting than one of them simply being wrong. Article 1.2.4.2.32 of Decreto 1625 de 2016 sets the withholding on interest at 7%, then records that Decreto 2418 de 2013 lowered it to 4%. Article 1.2.4.2.83 is the decree performing that conversion for fixed income securities, which is what a CDT is. DIAN was still applying 4% in a 2024 ruling.

The 7% has a separate life. It is the effective rate of an older formula in article 1.2.4.2.5, which charges 10% on 70% of the payment, and that formula still governs the interest on an ordinary savings account through article 1.2.4.2.87. A CDT and a savings account are not withheld the same way, which is most of why you see the two figures side by side.

Savings accounts also have a floor that a CDT does not. Withholding only starts once the daily interest reaches 0.055 UVT, about 2,881 pesos a day at the 2026 UVT. Below that, nothing is withheld at all. The provisions setting the CDT rate carry no equivalent floor, so do not assume a small CDT escapes the 4%: ask the bank what it will actually withhold at maturity.

The withholding is an advance payment, not an extra tax. It is credited against your annual return, so if your final liability is lower you get the difference back.

On your CDT	How it is treated
The capital you deposited	Not income at all, nothing is owed on it
Interest paid at maturity	Ordinary income, 4% withheld at source
The inflationary part of that interest	Neither income nor a capital gain (article 38)

One detail rarely mentioned in English: article 38 of the Estatuto Tributario provides that the inflationary component of financial yields received by a natural person is non taxable income. Not all of your CDT interest ends up taxed. For the wider picture, start with our guide to taxes in Colombia.

If you are a Colombian tax resident, this interest goes on your Colombian return. Review it with an accountant in your first year of tax residency.

Your CDT is not a capital gain

One correction worth making, because it sends people down the wrong path. Article 299 of the Estatuto Tributario limits ganancia ocasional, Colombia’s capital gains regime, to the specific items listed in the articles that follow it. Interest on a deposit is not among them. Your CDT interest is ordinary income, taxed as described above, and the flat 15% capital gains rate has nothing to do with it.

That regime does matter if you also sold property, received an inheritance or collected on a life insurance policy in the same year, because those amounts land on the same annual return under a different schedule (cédula). The rates, the two-year rule and the exemptions are all covered in our guide to capital gains tax in Colombia, including the three conditions on the home sale exemption, any one of which voids it.

What to check before you sign

1. Confirm the rate for your exact term, not the headline on the homepage.
2. Verify the legal entity name on FOGAFIN’s registered institution list, especially if you are splitting money across brands.
3. Look for the FOGAFIN deposit insurance seal on the statement and the marketing material.
4. Ask whether the quoted rate is the effective annual rate (tasa efectiva anual) rather than a nominal rate.
5. If you are placing more than 50 million pesos, split it across separate legal entities.
6. Ask about early withdrawal terms before you need the money.

If you are a foreign resident

Peso CDT rates sit far above USD deposit rates, and that is the main attraction. But do not assume the peso will devalue and erase the gap. On 26 August 2026 the head of Banco de la República spoke of peso appreciation, so guaranteed devaluation does not hold. Currency risk runs in both directions. If you live and spend in pesos, that risk is low. If you will one day repatriate the money to dollars, it is real, and FOGAFIN insures the failure of the institution, not the movement of the peso against the dollar.

To open a CDT you will generally need Colombian ID, which for a foreign resident means a cédula de extranjería, plus a Colombian bank account. Requirements vary by institution and some open to residents only, so confirm before you compare rates. If you do not have an account yet, start with how to open a bank account in Colombia, and if the capital is coming from abroad, how to transfer money to Colombia. To judge how far the interest actually goes, our cost of living guide is the better yardstick. If you are weighing this as retirement income, see what retirement in Colombia really costs.

CDT rates move every week. The figures here are the Superfinanciera cut for the week ending 26 August 2026. Confirm the current rate with the institution before you sign.