If you have a Colombia-based bank account, you are already familiar with how to deposit funds from a different country. But how do you get your money back OUT to your international bank account? I recently tried Wise, WorldRemit, and Remitly, but those services don’t support getting my money OUT of Colombia 🤨

So, I did some research and found three methods that work: ACH Transfers, Global66, and DolarApp.

Note: I strongly recommend that you do your own research on these apps and services, because this journal entry is focused entirely on how they apply to ME personally.

ACH Transfers

You can go to your bank, fill out a form, and do an ACH transfer. If the amount is over, say, 20 million pesos (about U$D 5,000 at the current exchange rate), you’ll likely have to go through additional verification steps with your bank. All this means that there’ll likely be a delay, because the Colombian banks have to abide by certain regulations regarding money flowing in and out of the country.

Also, ACH transfers can be quite expensive 💸💸💸🤯 Therefore, I recommend this method only for emergency situations where you really have no other options, like the ones I’m about to tell you about.

Global66 and DolarApp

These apps and services are similar. You download the app to your phone, create an account, “fill” your digital wallet with money from your Colombia bank account, and then you can transfer those funds to your international bank account.

One “gotcha” to keep in mind: when creating the account you should provide a Colombia address. If not, your account WILL be blocked or suspended pending further verification. In my case, I reached out to Global66 via WhatsApp, and they were responsive enough. They took my Colombia address, updated my profile, and successfully unblocked my account.

Populating your wallet can be done via PSE for free, and it’s “immediate”. If there are no issues with your international bank, the outgoing transfer can take from 48-72 hours. Of course there are limits to the amounts. As far as fees go, Global66 charges a percentage of the amount you’re transferring, while DolarApp charges a flat rate of U$D 3.00. Also, the DolarApp mobile app has the option for English language. For these two reasons, I plan to favor DolarApp moving forward.

Hopefully this short article puts your mind at ease knowing that if you DO need to give up and GTFO out of Colombia muy rápido 😅 you can get your money out as well.

Safe travels!