Bre-B for businesses in Colombia: what works now, what comes in 2027

Bre-B went fully live on 6 October 2025. By September 2026 it was handling about 8 million transactions a day, up from 2.5 million in November 2025, and participants had grown from around 40 institutions to about 250 (Portafolio, citing Banco de la República). As of 3 August the system had 35.6 million users and 111.5 million registered keys.

For a merchant the practical question is what you can use this quarter and what you have to wait for.

Can you accept Bre-B from customers today?

Yes. The customer sends money to your business key — a phone number, ID document, e-mail or alphanumeric code — or scans a QR. QR interoperability was added in 2026, so one code at the till or on a checkout page accepts payments from different banks and wallets.

Merchant adoption is rising fast. Figures from a Colombian payments company, reported by Portafolio, show 161,468 active merchant keys on 1 September versus 91,138 at the end of May, up 77%. These are the company's own numbers, not independently verified, but they point the same way as the central bank's data.

Bre-B is a small-ticket rail: 65% of transactions are under COP 50,000. If you sell food delivery, services, online courses or digital goods, that is your basket size.

What Bre-B still can't do for companies

Corporate features are not there yet. Banco de la República expects to finalise the rules before the end of 2026, with the features rolling out during 2027 as each institution adapts its systems. Vanguardia covered the planned business payments again on 26 October.

The plan includes:

• payroll in a single operation, even when employees bank elsewhere;
• bulk supplier payouts without recipients needing an account at the payer's bank;
• collections (recaudos) carrying invoice number, billing period, payee and obligation;
• all of it inside existing banking apps.

No regulation number or limits have been published, so treat any "corporate Bre-B" pitch with caution until the rules are out.

Why invoice data matters more than payouts

In our view, the most useful part for online businesses is reference data on each payment. Today a transfer to a key arrives without an order ID, so matching relies on amount and time.

Example. Say an online school receives 300 payments a day of COP 45,000. Identical amounts within the same hour are routine, and every unclear one is matched by hand. If payments carry an invoice number, as the recaudo rules promise, those reconcile automatically. Until then, the workaround is a unique QR or payment link per order from a provider that supports it.

Will Bogotá tax Bre-B payments?

On 4 August 2026 Bogotá's finance department said its tax reform does not apply ICA or withholding to Bre-B and digital wallet transactions, and that the bill text would be amended to make this explicit. The reform was still before the city council at the time. Watch the final wording, but there is no reason to price in an extra tax now.

What to do in November

If you sell in Colombia and don't accept Bre-B, you are missing a fast, cheap option for small baskets. Add QR and key collection now and keep payouts on your current setup until 2027. Keep cards and PSE bank transfers too: for larger and B2B payments they remain the norm.

See our Colombia payments page and the Latin America overview, or read how Mexico regulates its rail in our piece on SPEI rules. Need Bre-B collection for your project? Send us a request.

This article was prepared by the PayFlow editorial team with the help of AI, based on the public sources listed above. It is for information only and is not legal or financial advice; provider terms change — check current terms with an operator.