Filming in Medellin: How the Permit Actually Works
Filming in Medellin splits into two worlds. Private locations (a rooftop, a finca, a club) are a day rate and the owner's rules. Public space (a street, a park, the Metro, Comuna 13) is a permit, and the permit has a process that foreign crews consistently get wrong. This article covers the public side, plus drones and Comuna 13, which are their own problems.
We are not a fixer. Medellin has several English-facing production services companies (Cala Producciones, Media Fixer Productions, Screen Colombia, Fixer in Colombia, Colombia Fixers, La Villa Producciones) and for anything beyond a small shoot you should be working with one of them. What follows is the map so you know what they are doing for you.
The public-space permit
Public-space filming in Medellin goes through the Ventanilla Unica de Eventos, the city's single window for events, using what the Alcaldia calls the Boton PUFA. Under Decreto 0907 de 2021 the filing has to land seven calendar days before the shoot. That is the number foreign productions miss most often.
FilMedellin, the city's film commission, accompanies the application and maintains a public location catalog, but it does not issue the permit. The issuing offices are the Subsecretaria de Espacio Publico, the Secretaria de Movilidad for anything touching traffic, the APP for parks, the DAGRD for risk management, and the police where needed. The commission's contact is filmedellin@medellindigital.gov.co and the permit information lives at filmedellin.com/permisos.
Fees for occupying public space exist and vary by zone. The only detailed public fee table in circulation is from 2023 and should be treated as stale; budget for it to have moved. As of mid-2026 the national film commission still described Medellin's fully digital PUFA module as in design, while the seven-day Ventanilla process is what is actually live.
The Metro and Metrocable are a separate operator permit. The city permit does not cover them.
Drones
A city film permit does not authorize a drone. Commercial unmanned aircraft in Colombia fall under RAC 100, which generally requires a registered aircraft for anything over 250 grams, a certified remote pilot, third-party liability insurance, and a flight authorization from Aerocivil. Medellin sits under the overlapping airspace of Jose Maria Cordova and Olaya Herrera airports. A rooftop launch in Poblado or Laureles without authorization is the classic failure. Use a licensed local operator; Visual Aerea is one that markets to productions.
Comuna 13
There is no film office for Comuna 13. The escalators and the graffiti corridors are public space, so PUFA applies, but the permit alone does not get you a working shoot. Access that works runs through the community organizations and the local guides who run the tourism economy there. Full Producciones and the Festival de Cine y Video Comuna 13 are cultural actors inside the community. Without that buy-in, crews get crowded out, find that wall access has a price nobody told them about, or get shut down over guide turf. Older reporting on informal charges to tourism businesses there is from 2023 and stale as a price list, but the access problem is not. Budget a local fixer and a community liaison. Treating the stairs as a free set is how it goes wrong.
Noise and closures
Ley 2450 de 2025, the national noise law, was sanctioned in March 2025. Its full implementing regulation was still being demanded in August 2026, but police already use Codigo de Policia fines. Night exteriors and generators in residential propiedad horizontal buildings are where shoots get stopped. Pico y placa restricts grip trucks on weekdays by plate number.
Private locations
Rooftops and penthouses inside a propiedad horizontal need the building's approval, not just the owner's, and many bylaws ban commercial activity. Fincas with lodging should hold an RNT if the crew is sleeping there. Day rates are the owner's call; there is no public tariff.
Next step
If you have a shoot in mind, tell us the type, the crew size, the dates, and the locations you are thinking about. We can introduce you to the right fixer and to private locations we know, and we will tell you which of your locations are a permit and which are a phone call.