Colombia's Labor Reform (Law 2466 of 2025): What Employers Must Adjust

A labor reform rarely hits a company as one big event. It arrives through the next payroll run. Colombia's Law 2466 of 2025 moved the hour at which night pay starts, raised the Sunday and holiday surcharge in steps, cut the maximum working week and set a deadline for updating internal work rules. A company that did not adjust pays the difference, sometimes with interest.

At Soulbit Academy we explain the reform from the employer's side, for a company with 10 to 100 employees, including foreign companies that hire in Colombia through a local entity. This is the overview article: what changed, what applies as of October 2026, and what to adjust in payroll, contracts, internal rules and budget. We do not repeat the hourly-rate or severance calculations here, and we point to dedicated guides for those.

What Law 2466 of 2025 is and who it applies to

Law 2466 of 2025 is Colombia's labor reform. It amended the Substantive Labor Code and was enacted on June 25, 2025. It applies to every private employer with workers under an employment contract, whatever the company's size. The official text is in the Function Pública regulatory database.

The law is broad. For a finance team, six areas matter most: maximum working hours, night work, the Sunday and holiday surcharge, overtime records, contract type and the internal work regulation. The law also covers apprenticeship contracts and platform workers, which need a separate review with a labor lawyer.

The law did not take effect all at once, so the employer's first task is to build a calendar. If your company is foreign and employs people in Colombia, the same rules apply to your Colombian payroll. A contractor agreement does not remove them when the relationship works like employment, a point we cover in how to pay payroll in Colombia.

Law 2466 of 2025 timeline: what applies as of October 2026

As of October 2026, most of the reform is in force, and one step is still pending: the 100% Sunday and holiday surcharge on July 1, 2027. Table 1 lists each rule with its date so your team can compare it with what payroll applies today.

Topic	Rule in force	Since
Night surcharge	35% on the ordinary hourly rate; night starts at 7:00 p.m.	December 25, 2025
Sunday and holiday surcharge	90% on the ordinary hourly rate	July 1, 2026
Sunday and holiday surcharge (next step)	100% on the ordinary hourly rate	July 1, 2027
Maximum weekly hours	42 hours, spread over 5 or 6 days, with no salary cut	July 15, 2026
Overtime records	Name, activity and hours, day or night, for each worker	June 25, 2025
Fixed-term contract	Maximum of 4 years including extensions; open-ended is the general rule	June 25, 2025
Internal work regulation	Update within 12 months of the law taking effect	Deadline passed on June 25, 2026

Did all the rules of Law 2466 of 2025 start on the same day?

No. The law was enacted on June 25, 2025, but Article 10 set the new night shift to apply six months after enactment, and Article 14 phased the Sunday and holiday surcharge over three dates. The 42-hour week arrived on July 15, 2026, through the reduction schedule in Law 2101 of 2021. A payroll can be up to date on one rule and late on another.

The night-shift date is the one that causes the most confusion, because some sources give different dates. We follow the text of Article 10 and its second paragraph: six months after enactment, which is December 25, 2025. If your company works at night, ask your lawyer from which pay period the change applied to you.

The 42-hour week, night work and surcharges: what to change in payroll

The maximum ordinary working week in Colombia is 42 hours since July 15, 2026, spread over five or six days of between four and nine hours, with no loss of pay for the worker. The employer cannot cut pay because hours went down. What changes is the schedule: you decide how to spread the 42 hours and what to do with the hours that used to complete the week.

The night surcharge is still 35%, but it now covers more hours. If a worker ends a shift at 9:00 p.m., two hours that used to be paid as day hours now carry the night surcharge. For a contact center or a warehouse, that change repeats every month.

The Sunday and holiday surcharge weighs most on the budget, because it rises in steps. It went from 75% to 80% when the law was enacted, to 90% on July 1, 2026, and will reach 100% on July 1, 2027. When night work falls on a Sunday or holiday, the surcharges stack on the ordinary hourly rate. How to compute the hourly value deserves its own analysis, which we do not cover here.

An illustrative example, with assumed figures unrelated to any client: a company has 10 workers who each work 4 Sundays a month in 8-hour shifts. That is 40 Sunday shifts a month. With the surcharge at 90% instead of 80%, each shift adds 0.8 ordinary hours of pay (8 hours times 10 percentage points), or 32 extra ordinary hours a month. That number is multiplied by each person's hourly rate. At the 100% step in 2027, the gap doubles relative to this first adjustment.

The law also changed control of overtime. Article 12 requires the employer to keep a record of each worker's overtime with name, activity and hours, split into day and night. It removes the prior Ministry of Labor permit for overtime, but allows the Ministry to suspend the employer's ability to authorize overtime for up to six months if it does not pay it. For finance, the record is the evidence behind each extra payment.

What can an employer do if it cannot reduce Sunday shifts?

It must budget the 90% surcharge now and 100% from July 2027, and consider whether to redistribute compensatory rest days to reduce the number of Sunday shifts. Neither option removes the duty to pay. Both keep the payroll in line with the law.

Contracts, leave and internal regulation: what to review in your documents

Law 2466 of 2025 makes the open-ended contract the general rule and caps the fixed-term contract at four years, extensions included. An employer that chains fixed-term contracts has to check how many extensions each worker has had, and whether the contract used reflects a real temporary need.

Article 6 also regulates automatic extension, which happens when neither party gives notice of non-renewal. A contract that renewed without anyone noticing changes the calculation of any later severance, so review your contracts before year end. Termination and final pay are covered in how severance and final pay work in Colombia.

The internal work regulation had 12 months from the law taking effect to be updated, and that deadline passed on June 25, 2026. As of October 2026, a company that has not updated it is late. The regulation should reflect the new hours, surcharges and procedures, and be available to workers.

The reform also widened paid leave, including medical appointments, school duties as a parent and court summons. If your leave policy predates the law, update it. Apprenticeship contracts and platform workers have their own changes, which we do not develop here. Payroll and PILA social security contributions stay linked: any change in pay must flow into the contribution base.

Law 2466 of 2025 checklist for finance teams

An employer complies with Law 2466 of 2025 when it can show, with documents, that its payroll, contracts, regulation and budget reflect the rules in force. Table 2 organizes the review by area.

Area	What to check	Evidence to keep
Payroll	That the night hour starts at 7:00 p.m. and the Sunday surcharge applies 90%	System settings and a test payslip
Schedules	That the 42 weekly hours are spread over 5 or 6 days with no pay cut	Shift chart signed by the worker
Overtime	That a record exists per worker with name, activity and hours	Completed form reconciled with payroll
Contracts	That contract type fits the need and fixed terms do not exceed 4 years	Contract matrix with start dates and extensions
Internal regulation	That it is updated and available to workers	Current version and proof of publication
Budget	That 2027 includes the 100% Sunday and holiday step	Monthly labor cost projection
Social security	That the contribution base includes the new surcharges when they count as salary	PILA return reconciled with payroll

Order matters: first fix the payroll settings, because each month of delay accumulates differences, then schedules, records, contracts, regulation and budget. A well-configured payroll system removes much of the manual work, and what to check in Colombian payroll software explains where to look.

What risk does an employer run by not adjusting payroll to the reform?

The risk accumulates. Each payment with a surcharge below the current rate creates a difference owed to the worker, and that difference carries into final pay at termination. If social security contributions were computed on a lower base, the UGPP can audit the period up to 5 years back. Correcting early costs less than a claim.

Also review electronic payroll. Each change in values, surcharges or concepts must show in the document transmitted to the tax authority, as we explain in electronic payroll in Colombia.

What Soulbit does today for your payroll and what it does not

Soulbit does not calculate payroll or apply Law 2466 of 2025: computing surcharges, hours, contributions and benefits remains with the employer, its accountant or its payroll software. Soulbit also does not replace the labor lawyer who reviews contracts and internal regulation.

What Soulbit offers is the step after the calculation. With Soulbit Salaries, the employer holds a balance in stablecoins such as USDC and USDT or in fiat, and disburses payroll, recurring or in a batch, to workers' Colombian bank accounts, using a local bank rail, institutional custody, KYB and AML/KYT monitoring. For a company that has adjusted payroll to the reform, that flow avoids rebuilding the disbursement each time the net amount changes, as shown in paying payroll with stablecoins in Colombia.

Some limits are worth stating plainly. Soulbit's mobile apps are not available yet. The card is not available either. Soulbit offers human support, but not legal, tax or accounting advice. And it does not change the calculation you owe: a fast disbursement of a wrongly calculated net amount is still a wrong payment.