How to change your name in Colombia

After marriage

Nothing happens to a surname on marriage in Colombia. Your name is the one on your registro civil de nacimiento: your given names, then two surnames — the first surname of each parent, in the order the parents agreed when they registered the birth (article 53 of Decreto 1260 de 1970, as rewritten by Ley 2129 de 2021; a disagreement is settled by lot). Marrying does not add, remove or reorder any of it.

There is nothing for the cédula or the passport to pick up, because the marriage record itself carries no married name. Article 69 lists what a registro civil de matrimonio must say — the place and date, the parties' names, civil status, domicile and identity, their parents' names, the official or priest who celebrated it, any children legitimated, and the notaría and date of any capitulaciones — and a new surname is not on the list. So there is no form, no deadline and no fee for a name on marriage, because there is no act to perform.

The old form "María Pérez de García" was a social custom rather than a legal name, and it has largely faded. The law still notices it: the second paragraph of article 94 lets a married woman add or suppress the husband's surname preceded by the preposition "de", by escritura pública, in the cases where she had adopted it or the law had established it. The decree puts that sentence in its own paragraph, separate from the once-in-a-lifetime change in the first paragraph, but it does not say in so many words whether using it spends the once-only allowance; ask the notary before you sign.

If you want your spouse's surname as part of your actual name, that is the change-by-choice route below. It is your own act — your spouse does not sign it, and the marriage is not a condition of it — and, because the law allows it once, most couples register the marriage and change nothing.

After divorce

Because marriage changes no name in Colombia, divorce restores none. There is no former name to come back, no notification to make, no deadline to miss and no document to reissue: the cédula and the passport carry your name and not your marital status, so neither of them needs touching. The passport office asks for nothing after a divorce.

What the divorce does change is your civil-status record. If both spouses agree, the divorce can be settled before a notary: article 34 of Ley 962 de 2005 lets the spouses agree, by mutual consent and through a lawyer, by escritura pública, the divorce of a civil marriage or the cessation of the civil effects of a religious one, and says that a notarial divorce has the same effects as one decreed by a judge. If they do not agree, it is a judicial process, and only the spouses are parties to it (Código Civil, article 157). Once the decision is final the bond and the sociedad conyugal are dissolved, while duties to the children and, where they apply, maintenance duties between the spouses survive (article 160).

Fault grounds have a clock on them. Article 156 gives one year from the day the spouse learned of the facts for grounds 1 and 7, one year from the facts themselves for grounds 2 to 5, and caps grounds 1 and 7 at two years from when they happened. Divorce by mutual consent has no such window.

The decision is then written into the register: article 72 of Decreto 1260 de 1970 says the judgment or escritura is inscribed on the marriage folio on sight of an authentic copy, and the office sends copies of that inscription to the central office and to the offices holding each spouse's birth record. If you had added a husband's surname with "de", this is when people usually suppress it, by the escritura pública in the second paragraph of article 94.

A divorce granted in another country is a separate problem. A divorce of a marriage celebrated abroad is governed by the law of the conjugal domicile (Código Civil, article 163), while a divorce decreed abroad of a marriage celebrated in Colombia dissolves the bond only if the ground is one Colombian law admits and the respondent was personally notified or summoned under the law of their domicile (article 164). Before a Colombian registry office will note a foreign judgment, the judgment has to be recognised here: that is the exequátur, and the Sala de Casación Civil, Agraria y Rural of the Corte Suprema de Justicia is the court that grants it.

For any other reason

One route covers every other reason. Article 94 of Decreto 1260 de 1970, as replaced by article 6 of Decreto 999 de 1988, says the person on the record may dispose, "por una sola vez", by escritura pública, of the modification of the register, to "sustituir, rectificar, corregir o adicionar su nombre" — to substitute, rectify, correct or add to their name — "todo con el fin de fijar su identidad personal". Fixing your personal identity is the whole of the reason the law asks for. No court, no petition, no notice in a newspaper, no waiting period.

What you may change is wide: the name in Colombian law is the given name, the surnames and, where there is one, the pseudonym (article 3), and the escritura can reach any of them. The decree publishes no list of forbidden names and sets no condition beyond the purpose in the text. The act belongs to the person on the record — the parágrafo added to article 53 by Ley 2129 de 2021 speaks of the registered person doing it on reaching majority — and for a minor the Colombian consulate in Frankfurt, which publishes its procedure, takes the request signed by whoever holds patria potestad, with a special power of attorney if one parent cannot attend.

Where and what it costs. Any notaría in Colombia can draw the escritura; the Superintendencia de Notariado y Registro's directory finds the one nearest you. The 2026 notarial schedule, in force since 6 February 2026, prices a cambio de nombre or a correction of a civil-status record at COP 64,200, to which IVA and the notarial paper with its copies are added. Bring a valid cédula de ciudadanía with a photocopy of both sides and a copy of your registro civil de nacimiento, and state the exact name you are adopting. A Colombian consulate can draw the same escritura for a Colombian living abroad — the Cancillería lists Cambio de Nombre among the escrituras públicas its consuls grant, and notes that it can be done only once — at its own fees, which are in the last section of this guide.

Then the escritura has to land, and the order is fixed because each office asks for the document the last one issued. It is inscribed on your registro civil de nacimiento, for which a new folio is opened, and the original and the substitute carry notes referring to each other (article 94, third paragraph). So: take a copy of the escritura to the office that holds your birth record, ask for a copy of that record with the annotation on it, rectify the cédula at the Registraduría, and change the passport last. The Frankfurt consulate's sheet adds the warning worth reading twice — after a name change you have to redo every document that carries the old name, diplomas and driving licence included, and property has to be sorted out at the Oficina de Registro de Instrumentos Públicos with the new identity document and the annotated birth record.

A second change. In Sentencia C-114 de 2017 the Constitutional Court held the words "por una sola vez" constitutional "en el entendido de que tal restricción no será aplicable en aquellos eventos en que exista una justificación constitucional, clara y suficiente" — on the understanding that the limit does not apply where a clear and sufficient constitutional justification exists, the Court's leading example being a name that has to match a person's gender identity. Outside such a case the notarial route is spent, and a further change is a matter for a judge.

If you married outside Colombia

Colombia takes the form of an act from the law of the place where it was made. Article 21 of the Código Civil says the form of a public instrument is governed by the law of the country where it was granted; article 19 keeps your capacity to marry — your age, that you were not already married — under Colombian law wherever you are; and article 23 says a civil status acquired under the law in force when it arose keeps standing. A marriage that is valid where it was celebrated is therefore valid in Colombia.

It becomes usable here once it is inscribed as a registro civil de matrimonio. Until then nothing subject to registration proves anything before a Colombian authority or in a Colombian proceeding (Decreto 1260 de 1970, article 106), and it has no effect as against third parties (article 107). That is what registration is for: a spouse visa, a bank, an inheritance, a Colombian divorce. Article 67 admits marriages celebrated abroad where at least one spouse is Colombian by birth or by adoption; a marriage abroad between two foreigners is not entered in the Colombian register at all.

Where you register depends on where you live. Abroad, the Colombian consular officers keep the register (article 118), so you book at the consulate for your district: the Cancillería asks for the declarant in person, the original cédula de ciudadanía with a photocopy, one faithful copy of the marriage certificate or record, and one copy of each spouse's identity document — the cédula for a Colombian, a valid passport for a foreigner. Documents issued by foreign authorities must be apostilled or legalised as the case requires and translated by an authorised translator if they are not in Spanish. The service costs nothing at a Colombian consulate, and registering a civil-status act is free inside Colombia too (article 111 of the same decree, and the 2026 notarial schedule). Article 67 sends foreign marriages registered inside the country to the first civil-registry office in the capital. Article 67's thirty-day deadline applies to marriages celebrated inside Colombia; no deadline is published for a marriage celebrated abroad, and there is no penalty for registering years later.

The apostille depends on where the certificate came from. Colombia and the United States are both parties to the Hague Apostille Convention, so a US certificate carries one apostille from the competent authority of the state that issued it and needs no consular legalisation. Where the country of celebration is not a party, the certificate is legalised through the Colombian consulate there instead. Colombia's own apostille service, for Colombian documents going the other way, is the Cancillería's.

An online ceremony — one run by an officiant in another country while you were physically in Colombia — sits in a gap. Neither the Registraduría nor the Cancillería publishes any rule about marriages celebrated by video, and Colombian law has not been tested on one: the published requirement is the foreign civil record, apostilled or legalised and translated, and such a certificate reads the same whether the couple stood in the room or joined by video. No Colombian consulate publishes a refusal of these marriages, and none publishes an acceptance either, so treat the position as unsettled rather than settled in your favour. The argument in its favour is the one in article 21 — the form of the act is the law of the place where it was granted — and the apostille is what proves that the place issued it.

Build my checklist for Colombia

The steps above become a checklist you can work through and tick off, with the office, the form and the fee on every one. It is free, and it is the whole plan if Colombia is where your records are.

If you live in the United States

If you are a Colombian citizen living in the United States, your US records — Social Security, driver license, bank, employer, and a US passport if you hold one — change with the US checklist, and a US marriage certificate needs no apostille for a US agency. Colombia only has to hear about the marriage if you want something from it: a spouse visa, a Colombian record of your marital status, or an inheritance or a divorce heard in Colombia. If you do want that, register it at the consulate for your district, which costs nothing: the declarant appears in person with the original cédula and a photocopy, a faithful copy of the marriage certificate (apostilled and translated), and a copy of each spouse's identity document.

Your Colombian passport and cédula keep the name on your registro civil de nacimiento whatever your US documents say, and a US court order changing your name does not reach the Colombian record. To move the Colombian name you sign the escritura de cambio de nombre — your consulate will draw it, for USD 184 plus USD 18 for each copy — then send a copy to the office in Colombia that holds your birth record, ask for a copy of that record with the annotation, rectify the cédula (USD 64.27 at a consulate) and last renew the passport (USD 86). Keep the order: each office wants the document the previous one issued.

A US divorce is the one case where the consular route runs out. A consulate can register a marriage, but a foreign judgment needs an exequátur from the Sala de Casación Civil, Agraria y Rural of the Corte Suprema de Justicia before a Colombian registry office will note it on the marriage folio, and that is a proceeding in Bogotá, usually through a Colombian lawyer.

Your US records, from Social Security to your state license and the everyday accounts, change with the US checklist; it prepares each form and letter in the order the agencies check them.

Change Your Name is a self-help form-preparation service, not a law firm; this page is general information about Colombia, not legal advice.