MedellínvsMiami.

Medellín

SettleMetric tax engine over official 2026 rules (DIAN RST tariffs + UGPP independent-worker contributions) ↗

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of

Jan 1, 2026

Verified

Jul 4, 2026

Method

Best eligible scheme co-rst-professional at €60,000 = 229,069,800 COP (3,817.83 COP/EUR), ≈ 4,374 UVT → SIMPLE professional-services band 0–6,000 UVT = 5.9% of gross = 13,515,118; plus mandatory independent social security on IBC = 40% of income: health 12.5% of IBC = 5% of gross = 11,453,490 and pension 16% of IBC = 6.4% of gross = 14,660,467. Total = 39,629,075 COP → 17.3%. Consistent with the co-rst-professional worked examples. Note: at this income IBC ≈ 4.36 SMMLV ≥ 4, so the Fondo de Solidaridad Pensional adds ≈ 0.4% (all-in ≈ 17.7%); and the SIMPLE pension discount, if claimed, would lower it further — both unmodeled, so 17.3% is the modeled, conservative-of-those figure.

Miami

SettleMetric tax engine over official 2026 federal rules (IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32; IRS self-employment tax; SSA 2026 contribution base) ↗

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of

Jan 1, 2026

Verified

Aug 1, 2026

Method

Best eligible scheme us-sole-proprietor-federal at €60,000 = $68,394 (ECB 1.1399 USD/EUR, 2026-07-02) with 10% expenses. Net profit $61,554.60; self-employment tax 15.3% on 92.35% of it = $8,697.38; half deducted, giving AGI $57,205.91; less the $16,100 standard deduction and a §199A deduction of $8,221.18 leaves taxable income $32,884.73, taxed $3,698.17. Total levies $12,395.55 / $68,394 = 18.1%. This is federal tax only, which is the whole story just in the nine states that levy no income tax on earned income.

Notes

The single number hides the widest internal spread of any country in this dataset. The same freelancer pays 18.1% in Texas or Florida, 20.5% in California (us-sole-proprietor-california) and 24.4% in New York City (us-sole-proprietor-new-york-city), where state and city income taxes stack on the federal one. Read this figure as the floor available to someone free to choose their state, not as a national average. It also excludes the self-employed health-insurance deduction and retirement contributions, both of which US freelancers use heavily and both of which would lower it.

Medellín

Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores — Resolución 5477 de 2022, art. 46 (Visa V Nómada digital) ↗

Official source

Data as of

Jul 22, 2022

Verified

Jul 4, 2026

Notes

Colombia has a dedicated Visa V for digital nomads (trabajo remoto/teletrabajo for foreign companies), valid up to 2 years, income requirement 3 SMMLV. Longer-term freelancers can also use the accumulating Visa M — Profesional independiente (5 SMMLV) toward permanent residence.

Miami

U.S. Customs and Border Protection — Visa Waiver Program; 8 CFR 214.2(b) visitor admissions ↗

Official source

Data as of

Aug 1, 2026

Verified

Aug 1, 2026

Notes

The United States has no digital-nomad visa and no freelance or self-employment permit — the concept does not exist in US immigration law, which authorises work through a sponsoring employer, a treaty investment, or an immigrant petition. For a location-independent earner with an ordinary passport, the realistic ceiling is a visitor stay: 90 days under the Visa Waiver Program, or up to six months on a B-1/B-2 visa, neither of which authorises work in the United States. The genuine long-stay routes all have a demanding filter — E-2 requires a treaty nationality plus substantial invested capital, O-1A and EB-1A require documented national or international acclaim, and the diversity lottery is a lottery. See data/countries/us/legalization.json for all six.

Medellín

DANE — línea de pobreza y clasificación por ingreso 2025 (basket anchor), CPI-consistent ↗

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of

Dec 31, 2025

Verified

Jul 4, 2026

Method

Curated single-person non-rent basket (food, utilities, urban transport, mobile+internet, modest leisure and misc.) for a foreign remote worker in a major Colombian city, anchored on DANE 2025 income bands (national poverty line 482,041 COP/mo; middle-class per-capita spending 853,608–4,596,352 COP/mo) and typical published utility/transport/mobile tariffs. Estimated ≈ 2,360,000 COP/mo ÷ 3,349.7 COP/USD (ECB EUR/COP 3,817.83 ÷ EUR/USD 1.1399, fx-rates 2026-07-02) ≈ 705 USD. Curated estimate — DANE has not published a 2025/2026 one-person-household consumption line comparable to Poland's GUS figure; to be refined from ENPH microdata.

Miami

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2024 annual means (series CXU*LB0101M and CXU*LB0502M via the BLS public API) ↗

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of

Dec 31, 2024

Verified

Aug 1, 2026

Method

Consumer Expenditure Survey 2024, all consumer units: average annual expenditures $78,535 across an average 2.4 persons. Removing shelter ($16,317, the rent-equivalent line), personal insurance and pensions ($9,797, which is saving rather than consumption) and cash contributions ($2,292, which are transfers) leaves $50,129 of consumption. Divided by 2.4 people and by 12 months = $1,740.59 per person per month.

Notes

Per-capita basis, to match how Italy, Spain, Czechia, Austria and France are computed in this dataset. The BLS also publishes the real one-person consumer unit, which is what a solo mover actually faces: $48,794 a year, or $29,359 after removing the same three lines — about $2,447 a month excluding rent, 41% above the per-capita figure because a person living alone has no household economies of scale. Read $1,741 as the comparable cross-country number and $2,447 as the realistic personal one. Both include US health spending, which is why every line involving healthcare runs far above the European entries.

Medellín

Alcaldía de Medellín — Sistema de Información para la Seguridad y la Convivencia (SISC), balance de seguridad 2024 ↗

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of

Dec 31, 2024

Verified

Jul 4, 2026

Method

319 homicides in Medellín in 2024 (SISC), 59 fewer than 2023 (−16%); the city's SISC/security-secretariat reported an official rate of 11.3 per 100,000, the lowest among Colombia's main cities and the lowest local rate since the mid-20th century. Victims: 290 men (91%), 28 women (9%).

Notes

Municipal SISC figure (city proper). Well below the Colombian national rate (~25/100k) and below Bogotá (~15/100k) in 2024 — a historic low after decades of cartel-era violence — but still several times rich-world capital levels. 2025 figures were trending slightly upward at time of writing; to be re-verified against the SISC year-end 2025 balance.

Miami

Bureau of Justice Statistics and FBI — Crime Known to Law Enforcement, 2024 (NCJ 310856), Table 1 ↗

Official source

Data as of

Dec 31, 2024

Verified

Aug 1, 2026

Notes

17,420 homicides in 2024, a rate of 5.1 per 100,000 — down sharply from 6.1 in 2023, continuing the retreat from the 2020–21 spike. Still several times the Western European level: Italy records 0.6, and no European country in this dataset is above 1.2. The national figure also hides an enormous internal range: New York State records 2.7 and California 4.2, while several southern states run above 8. Estimated by the BJS/FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System Estimation Program from agencies covering about 96% of the population.

Medellín

SettleMetric computation over climate-normals ↗

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of

Dec 31, 2020

Verified

Jul 4, 2026

Method

Months with mean daily max 15–28°C AND precipitation < 150mm: only Jan (27.9°C, 72mm) and Dec (27.3°C, 115mm) qualify = 2. Ten months miss the strict test — seven exceed the 28°C max ceiling by a fraction (28.1–28.7°C) and the rest carry >150mm rain (Mar–May, Sep–Nov are the two wet seasons). This understates real comfort: Medellín's temperature is famously stable and spring-like all year (its 'Eternal Spring' reputation); the criterion penalises it for a whisker over 28°C at the warm valley-floor station and for heavy tropical rainfall, not for genuine seasonality. Users should read the raw normals alongside this score.

Miami

SettleMetric — computed from the Miami International Airport 1991–2020 NOAA normals ↗

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of

Dec 31, 2020

Verified

Aug 23, 2026

Method

Months whose 1991–2020 normals have a mean daily maximum of 15–28°C and under 150mm of precipitation: January, February, March, November and December = 5. April is excluded on temperature by 0.7°C (28.7°C), May to October on both heat and rain. No month is excluded for cold.

Notes

The seasons run opposite to the European cities in this dataset: Miami is comfortable in winter and hard work in summer, which is why its five months land in a single unbroken block from November to March. The metric also flatters the city, because it takes no account of humidity, and a 32.6°C August afternoon here is far heavier going than the same temperature in a dry climate.

Medellín

Área Metropolitana del Valle de Aburrá (AMVA) — SIATA, Informe Anual de Calidad del Aire 2023 ↗

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of

Dec 31, 2023

Verified

Jul 4, 2026

Method

City annual mean PM2.5 for Medellín ≈ 15.5 µg/m³ (2023) from the official AMVA/SIATA Valle de Aburrá monitoring network annual report; the network reports a further fall to ≈14.8 µg/m³ in 2024. Figure attributed to the AMVA 2023 annual report; the exact per-station table should be reconciled against the report PDF.

Notes

≈3× the WHO 2021 annual guideline (5 µg/m³) and above the 2030 EU limit (10), within the current EU limit (25). The Aburrá valley traps pollution and suffers seasonal contingency episodes (Feb–Mar, Oct) when levels spike several-fold; neighbouring Bello and Envigado read higher than Medellín proper. Air quality is a genuine drawback of the location. To be re-verified against the AMVA 2024 annual report.

Miami

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — AirData annual concentration by monitor, 2024 (parameter 88101, PM2.5 FRM/FEM mass) ↗

Official source

Data as of

Dec 31, 2024

Verified

Aug 23, 2026

Method

Annual arithmetic mean of 8.33 µg/m³ recorded in 2024 at the Miami Fire Station site (12-086-1016, POC 3), the only regulatory PM2.5 monitor inside the city limits — a continuous FEM instrument with 318 valid days and 87% observation completeness. The filter-based sampler co-located at the same address reads 8.11 but ran only 27 scheduled days, too few a base to prefer.

Notes

Between New York (6.8) and Los Angeles (11.7) among the four US cities here, 1.7× the WHO 2021 guideline of 5 µg/m³, and just inside the US primary standard of 9.0 µg/m³ — though that standard is a three-year design value, not a single year. Miami-Dade reads lower away from the city: 7.01 at Palm Springs Fire Station in Hialeah, 7.24 at Wittkop Park in Homestead and 6.44 at the Everglades National Park background site, so the city adds roughly 2 µg/m³ over the regional background. Across the county line the Fort Lauderdale near-road monitor is higher again at 8.76.

Medellín

Colombian prepaid-medicine and voluntary health insurers (Sura, Colsanitas, Coomeva/medicina prepagada) — comprehensive plans; insurers quote on request ↗

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of

Jul 4, 2026

Verified

Jul 4, 2026

Method

Comprehensive private cover in Colombia layers on top of the mandatory contributory system (EPS): a 'medicina prepagada' or voluntary health plan (Sura, Colsanitas, Coomeva) with outpatient + inpatient access for a healthy 35-year-old runs roughly 250,000–450,000 COP/month; midpoint ≈ 350,000 COP/mo ≈ 4,200,000 COP/yr ≈ 1,254 USD at 3,349.7 COP/USD (range ≈ $895–$1,610). Curated market midpoint — Colombian prepaid-medicine premiums are age/plan-banded and quoted on request, not from a public engine.

Notes

Residents affiliated to an EPS already have universal contributory cover; prepaid medicine buys faster access, private hospitals and broader networks. Premiums exclude the mandatory 12.5% health contribution (counted in the tax burden), not an insurance premium. International (IPMI) plans cost several times more.

Miami

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — 2026 Marketplace Open Enrollment Period State-Level Public Use File, national total row ↗

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of

Jan 15, 2026

Verified

Aug 1, 2026

Method

CMS reports an average monthly premium of $741 before advance premium tax credits across the 23,130,860 people who selected a plan for 2026 through HealthCare.gov and the state exchanges; ×12 = $8,892 a year. Average premium after tax credits is $178 a month.

Notes

Basis differs from the other countries here and the difference matters. This is an enrollee-weighted average across all ages and all metal levels, not a quote for a healthy 35-year-old: the marketplace risk pool skews old (41% of enrollees are 45 or over), and the Affordable Care Act lets insurers charge the oldest adults up to three times the youngest, so a 35-year-old pays meaningfully less than $741 a month. No age adjustment was applied because CMS's default uniform age-rating curve was not retrievable at the verification date. Two further caveats: most enrollees do not pay the sticker price — premium tax credits cut the average to $178 a month — and this is individual-market insurance with deductibles and coinsurance on top, not the comprehensive low-deductible cover the other entries quote. Even discounted for all of that, US health cover is the most expensive in this dataset by a wide margin, and it is the single largest fixed cost a freelancer moving to the United States takes on.

Medellín

DIAN — Concepto Unificado 100202208-1621 de 2023 sobre criptoactivos (tratamiento tributario) ↗

Official source

Data as of

Jan 8, 2026

Verified

Jul 4, 2026

Notes

Crypto is legal to hold/trade but is not legal tender (Banco de la República); the DIAN treats it as an intangible asset. Gains taxed as ordinary income (up to 39%) if held <2 years, or as ganancia ocasional (15%) if held ≥2 years; holdings must be declared. From tax-year 2025 the DIAN (Resolución 000240) requires registered virtual-asset service providers to report Colombian users' operations; the SFC administers a PSAV registry. No consumer ban; banking access can be uneven.

Miami

IRS — Digital assets: for U.S. tax purposes digital assets are property, not currency, and income from them is taxable ↗

Official source

Data as of

Aug 1, 2026

Verified

Aug 1, 2026

Notes

Holding, trading and spending crypto is legal throughout the United States and banking access is normal. Tax treatment is the friction rather than the legality: digital assets are property, so every disposal — including paying for something in crypto or swapping one token for another — is a taxable event producing capital gain or loss, and every federal return asks a digital-asset question on its first page. Exchanges are regulated at both federal level (FinCEN money-services-business registration and anti-money-laundering rules) and state level (New York's BitLicense is the strictest), and brokers now report customer transactions to the IRS. Classified 'legal-regulated' rather than 'legal-friendly' because nothing about the tax treatment is favourable: there is no de minimis exemption for small payments and no long-term holding relief beyond the ordinary capital-gains rates.

Medellín

Banco de la República — Regulación y operaciones cambiarias (régimen cambiario; Circular Reglamentaria DCIP-83 de 2026) ↗

Official source

Data as of

Feb 26, 2026

Verified

Jul 4, 2026

Method

Composite: the COP is convertible and there are no hard capital controls, but Colombia keeps a foreign-exchange regime (régimen cambiario) in which certain operations (external credit, foreign investment, some import/export) must be channelled through the regulated exchange market (IMC or a Banco de la República compensation account) with a declaración de cambio; residents may hold foreign accounts and compensation accounts. Service-export income (freelancer earnings) is not subject to mandatory channelling but reporting/traceability rules apply. Standard AML/UIAF and tax-reporting scope. Rated 'moderate' (freer than capital-control regimes, more paperwork than fully open EU/OECD peers).

Miami

FinCEN — Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR): required when foreign accounts exceed $10,000 in aggregate at any time in the year ↗

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of

Aug 1, 2026

Verified

Aug 1, 2026

Method

Composite. No capital or currency controls: the dollar is fully convertible and personal funds move in and out freely, which is the 'low' end of this scale. Against that: reporting is unusually broad. US persons must file an FBAR whenever foreign financial accounts exceed $10,000 in aggregate at any point in the year, FATCA obliges foreign banks worldwide to identify US account holders, currency of $10,000 or more must be declared when crossing the border, and citizens and permanent residents are taxed on worldwide income wherever they live — a rule almost no other country applies. Banking access for a newly arrived foreigner is workable but slow, generally requiring an SSN or ITIN. Rated 'moderate': money moves freely, but it is watched more closely than in most of the countries here, and the tax net follows you out of the country.

Notes

The worldwide-taxation rule is the one to understand before taking a green card. Permanent residents remain US taxpayers on global income for as long as they hold the status, whether or not they live in the United States, and formally abandoning it can trigger an expatriation tax.

Medellín

Servicios Postales Nacionales (4-72) + private carriers (Servientrega, Coordinadora, Interrapidísimo, TCC) official service pages (composite) ↗

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of

Jun 30, 2026

Verified

Jul 4, 2026

Method

Composite of the national operator (4-72 / Servicios Postales Nacionales) plus the dominant private networks (Servientrega, Coordinadora, Interrapidísimo, TCC, Envía) that provide dense nationwide door-to-door and office-pickup coverage with tracking; 1–3 day delivery between major cities is standard, longer to rural/remote municipalities. Parcel-locker networks are limited compared with Europe. Rated 'good' (reliable major-city coverage, not next-day-everywhere with dense lockers).

Miami

United States Postal Service — service commitments and network (Ground Advantage, Priority Mail), alongside UPS, FedEx and Amazon Logistics coverage ↗

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of

Aug 1, 2026

Verified

Aug 1, 2026

Method

Classified from carrier service standards: USPS delivers to every address in the country including PO boxes and rural routes, with Priority Mail at 1–3 days and Ground Advantage at 2–5; UPS and FedEx both offer guaranteed next-day air nationwide with real-time tracking as standard; Amazon Logistics reaches a large majority of the population with same-day or next-day delivery. Rated 'excellent' on the strength of nationwide next-day availability and universal address coverage, despite a parcel-locker network that is thinner than Poland's or France's — Amazon Lockers and Hub apartment lockers exist in metros but there is no dense third-party locker estate.

Notes

Cash on delivery is effectively extinct in US consumer e-commerce, unlike Italy or Mexico; card or account payment is assumed. Delivery to the door is the default even in apartment buildings, and package theft from doorsteps is a real and widely reported problem in cities.

Medellín

DIAN — modalidad de tráfico postal y envíos urgentes; de minimis USD 200 (Decreto 1090 de 2020) ↗

Official source

Data as of

Aug 1, 2020

Verified

Jul 4, 2026

Notes

Major carriers (DHL, FedEx, UPS) serve Colombia. De-minimis: shipments with FOB ≤ USD 200 are duty-free under the tráfico-postal/envíos-urgentes modality (Decreto 1090/2020), but the VAT (IVA) exemption applies only to origins under a free-trade agreement (e.g. USA, South Korea); from other origins IVA is charged. Consignments are capped (≤ USD 2,000, ≤ 50 kg, ≤ 6 identical units). Customs holds, brokerage fees and slower clearance are common → significant friction for non-FTA imports.

Miami

Executive Order 14324 of 30 July 2025, Suspending Duty-Free De Minimis Treatment for All Countries, continued by Executive Order 14388 of 20 February 2026 (91 FR 9433) ↗

Official source

Data as of

Feb 20, 2026

Verified

Aug 1, 2026

Notes

This changed fundamentally in 2025 and is the fact most likely to be out of date in anyone's head. The United States used to have the most generous de minimis threshold in the world — $800 duty- and tax-free per person per day — which made ordering from abroad trivially easy. Executive Order 14324 suspended duty-free de minimis treatment for all countries from 29 August 2025, and Executive Order 14388 continued the suspension in February 2026. Every inbound shipment is now dutiable regardless of value, postal shipments carry duties set by the order, and carriers charge brokerage on top. The carriers themselves are excellent and clearance is quick, so this is friction of cost and paperwork rather than unreliability — but a €40 parcel from Europe now arrives with a bill attached.

Medellín

M-Lab NDT country aggregates for Colombia ↗

Open data

Data as of

Dec 31, 2023

Verified

Jul 4, 2026

Method

Mean of the daily country median download (download_MED) values in M-Lab's public statistics API for Colombia; the published file covers the first 16 days of 2023 (≈181,872 tests), mean ≈ 17.4 Mbps; the 2024 file (first 16 days) is consistent at ≈ 16.9 Mbps.

Notes

M-Lab NDT is single-stream and reads well below Ookla-style figures — comparable only within this criterion. M-Lab's public stats API exposes only a partial-year window for Colombia, so this is a limited-coverage figure to be refined via BigQuery. Urban fibre plans advertise 100–900 Mbps; the M-Lab median reflects the mixed national access base.

Miami

M-Lab NDT country aggregates for the United States ↗

Open data

Data as of

Dec 31, 2023

Verified

Aug 1, 2026

Method

Median of the 344 daily country-median download values for US in 2023, which ranged 43.9–89.1 Mbps. M-Lab NDT is a single-stream test and reads well below advertised or Ookla-style figures — comparable only within this criterion. 2023 is the latest full year in M-Lab's public statistics API; the 2024 file stops on 26 March.

Notes

The highest reading of any country in this dataset on this metric — roughly three times Italy's — and it reflects a cable and fibre market that competes on headline speed. What the median hides is the price and the choice: monthly costs for gigabit service run well above European levels, and a large share of addresses have exactly one wired provider. Rural coverage remains the weak spot, though federal broadband funding is being deployed against it.

Medellín

EF EPI 2025 — Colombia rank 76/123, score 480 (Low Proficiency band) ↗

Research

Data as of

Nov 1, 2025

Verified

Jul 4, 2026

Notes

Own band informed by EF EPI 2025 (attribution: EF Education First); score 480 sits in EF's 'Low Proficiency' band. Spanish is the working language for government, healthcare and most services; English is workable in tourist/expat pockets of Bogotá and Medellín and in tech/BPO circles but not broadly across daily life.

Miami

Executive Order 14224 of 1 March 2025 — Designating English as the Official Language of the United States (90 FR, doc 2025-03694) ↗

Official source

Data as of

Mar 1, 2025

Verified

Aug 1, 2026

Notes

English is the language of government, healthcare, housing and services throughout the country, and since March 2025 it is also the designated official language at federal level — the first such designation in US history. Spanish is a genuine second language of daily life in parts of the south-west, Florida and large cities, and federal agencies still provide multilingual services, but nothing about daily life requires another language.

Medellín

Accreditor registries — AEFE (French), ZfA/German Auslandsschulwesen, IB, Cambridge International, CIS — cross-checked per school ↗

Curated by SettleMetric

Data as of

Jul 4, 2026

Verified

Jul 4, 2026

Method

Count of internationally-accredited schools in the Medellín metro (city + Envigado/Itagüí/El Retiro). Two verified directly against their accreditor's own registry: Lycée Français de Medellín (AEFE réseau, homologué — aefe.gouv.fr) and Deutsche Schule Medellín (German ZfA network / Itagüí — pasch-net.de). Six further internationally-accredited schools are well attested across sources as IB / Cambridge / CIS members: The Columbus School (Envigado, IB/US), Vermont School (IB), Colegio Colombo Británico (Envigado, IB), Colegio Montessori (IB PYP), The New School (Envigado, IB), and Marymount School (Cambridge curriculum + CIS/NEASC accreditation).

Notes

Only the AEFE and ZfA schools were confirmed one-by-one against the accreditor's public registry; the IB and Cambridge/CIS members' official directories (ibo.org, cambridgeinternational.org, cis.org) blocked automated access, so those six rest on strongly consistent secondary reporting pending direct registry reconciliation. The true accredited-international total for the Aburrá valley may be a little higher (several additional bilingual schools hold IB or Cambridge status). Count excludes purely bilingual schools with no external accreditation.