Hey guys,

Honestly, I'm pretty sure I've been paying an exit tax on a lot of bookings leaving Colombia, and I guess I never really cared before. But as a Canadian I'm once again being charged a reciprocity fee to ENTER the country. They can get me once, I don't want to be paying on entry and exit to the country of Colombia. I was kind of alerted to this when booking an exit via United, here's what they had to say.

"All travelers departing from Bogota (their only gateway to the country) and selecting the prepay option (this is an employee site) will be charged the Resident Exit Tax (DG tax code) when the ticket is issued. If you are not a resident of Colombia and have pre-paid travel you will need to request a refund using the United.com form"

So I checked my Avianca ticket, and sure enough, DG $31.10 USD. Again, it's not the end of the world, but as a Canadian I'm being charged $85 CAD just to enter the country. So I don't think I should be getting dinged again for a resident tax that doesn't apply to me. Does anyone have any experience in getting this refunded, or how to go about it? Specifically in Medellin? Back in the day when departing the country I know there was a desk to get some kind of similar tax refunded. IIRC I did it a few times, but then I wasn't always charged the tax to begin with. I've just done a mock booking with Avianca and even when I've entered my nationality as Canadian, I can see still in the breakdown that 1 - Resident Exit Tax $31.00 is being levied. I tried a similar booking on Air Canada and it's being charged there too at $42 CAD.

I called Avianca to see what they'd say, and naturally I got nowhere other than told to file a complaint. But I explained to the guy on the phone, they're charging this tax to every single passenger, Colombians, Brazilians, Canadians, Americans...it's not right. There's gotta be a way to get this refunded. If it were named something else, it wouldn't bother me, but it's called a resident exit tax and I am not a resident.

Anyone know where to go to get this rectified? Or are we all just paying it and lining SOMEONE'S pockets, whether that's Avianca pocketing all the inapplicable taxes or if they're just passing it on to the government and they're pocketing it.