Regulations for installing an EV charger in Colombia

Colombia's Technical Regulation for Electrical Installations has changed structure. The current text is the four books issued with Resolución 40284 of 23 June 2026 by the Ministry of Mines and Energy, published in the Diario Oficial on 1 July 2026, which amended the regulation adopted by Resolución 40117 de 2024. The transition period with the 2013 RETIE ended on 31 December 2025.

Three parts of that text matter for a charger. Article 2.3.5 of Book 2 sets what the unit must meet as a product. Article 3.17.7 of Book 3 sets how it is installed. And Book 4 sets how compliance with all of that is demonstrated.

If an installation proposal still cites 'section 20.7' as its basis, it comes from the 2013 regulation. That does not disqualify it on its own, but it shows nobody reviewed the template, and some requirements that matter — mounting heights, inspection intervals, certification — have changed.

Article 3.17.7 starts with design: the service, the feeders and the branch circuit the charger hangs from must deliver its power for the whole charging time without the conductors heating above 60 °C. That is the technical reason why plugging a charging unit into any socket in the house is not enough.

From there comes the most concrete requirement for a home: in residential or similar installations, the charger needs an independent electrical circuit of at least 20 A, dedicated to that purpose. It is not shared with the washing machine or the rest of the garage.

Protection comes second. Each connection point must be individually protected by a residual current device with an operating residual current not exceeding 30 mA, and that device must disconnect all live conductors, neutral included. Each point is also fed from its own circuit protected against overcurrent, a protective earth conductor must run from the unit's supply input to the vehicle, and the unit must automatically disconnect the vehicle in the event of a fault.

Finally, the physical layout, which works as a quick check that whoever installed it knew the current rules. The supply equipment is mounted no lower than 0.45 metres from the floor and no higher than 1.2 metres; outdoors, the minimum height rises to 0.6 metres. One connector cannot charge several vehicles at once, and cords and cables cannot exceed 7.5 metres in total unless the unit has its own cable management system.

Article 2.3.5 treats the charger as a product. It applies to fixed or portable charging systems for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles with four or more wheels; scooters, bicycles and motorcycles are outside its scope.

The unit must include protections that prevent electrical accidents to people and damage to the vehicle or the grid, and an interlocking mechanism. It must also carry a legible, permanent plate with four items: number of phases, rated voltage, producer name or registered trademark, and power consumed.

As a product covered by the regulation, the charger must prove compliance through a product certificate of conformity issued by an accredited certification body. It is the simplest check someone without electrical training can make: ask for the certificate for the exact model being installed. A unit with no legible plate or no certificate is a warning sign before you even look at the price.

And there is an obligation rarely mentioned during the sale: the owner or holder of the charger is responsible for having competent personnel inspect it technically, following the maintenance manual and at the interval the producer recommends. It is a small recurring cost, but it exists, and a serious proposal states that interval.

This is the change with the biggest practical consequences. Book 4 of the current RETIE includes installations of battery chargers for electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, regardless of their power, among those requiring full certification (section 4.3.2.1, item f).

Full certification means two documents: the declaration of compliance, signed by the competent person responsible for the work, and the inspection report from an accredited inspection body. It is not enough for the installer to say it complies; a third party has to verify it.

Article 4.3.2 refers to installations built, extended or refurbished while RETIE is in force, although the charger item sits in the section on new construction, and the regulation does not classify a charger as special equipment. If you are adding a charger to an existing installation, ask the installer to confirm in writing which certification applies to your case and who handles it. The prudent course is to require the inspection report and have its cost in the proposal, rather than discovering it when the administration or the insurer asks for it.

Ley 1964 de 2019 is Colombia's framework law on electric mobility. Its purpose is to promote the use of electric and zero-emission vehicles, and while much of its text addresses incentives and public infrastructure, three provisions are worth knowing if you are considering a charging point.

Article 7 requires public entities and commercial establishments offering parking to the public to allocate a minimum of two per cent of their spaces to preferential use by electric vehicles, in municipalities of special, first and second category under Ley 617 de 2000.

Article 9 sets fast charging infrastructure targets with a three-year deadline from entry into force: Bogotá must guarantee a minimum of twenty fast charging stations, and special category municipalities may guarantee a minimum of five. The difference in verb between the two cases is not accidental.

And article 10, the one that most affects a home, sets planning provisions so that new residential and commercial buildings have electrical service prepared for electric vehicle charging. If your building is recent, it is worth asking about that provision before requesting quotes: it may save you the most expensive part of the project.

This is the most frequent case in Colombian cities and the one that generates most questions, because it mixes a technical issue with a legal one.

The legal side is governed by Ley 675 de 2001, which regulates horizontal property. The question that determines everything is who owns the space where the charger goes and where the cabling runs. A privately owned parking space inside the complex is not the same as one held for exclusive use over common property, and neither is the same as running a supply through common areas to reach it.

In practice, almost any real installation touches common property at some stretch, if only the cable route. That puts the decision in the hands of the administration and, depending on the horizontal property bylaws and the scope of the work, the owners' assembly.

The route that generates least friction is to arrive with the technical project rather than an idea: where the power is taken from, where the dedicated circuit RETIE requires will run, what metering is proposed so that whoever charges pays for it, what protections are included and who signs the declaration of compliance. A request carrying that information is resolved far better than an open question at an assembly.

Metering deserves separate attention, because it is what usually blocks the conversation. If the charger hangs off the communal meter with no individual metering, everyone ends up paying for the consumption, and that is the legitimate objection that will surface. Proposing independent metering up front turns the debate into a formality. In an enclosed basement car park it is also worth asking about ventilation: for those spaces RETIE refers to section 625.52 of NTC 2050 and to the conditions set by the unit's producer.

The installation ends with paperwork, not with a working unit. It is the part most often skipped and the one that supports any later claim.

The minimum you should require is the RETIE declaration of compliance signed by the competent person, the inspection report, the certificate of conformity and warranty for the installed unit, and a diagram of what was built: which circuit was created, what protections it carries and where it is fed from. Without that diagram, any future work starts by guessing.

It is also worth setting out in writing who is liable for what and for how long. A charging point carries at least two distinct warranties — the equipment warranty from the manufacturer and the installation warranty from whoever did the work — and they cover different things and are handled by different people.

And since the regulation requires periodic technical inspection, ask from the outset who will carry it out, how often according to the producer's manual, and what it costs. That information belongs in the proposal, not discovered a year later.