Overview

The José Antonio Páez International Bridge is a border crossing over the Arauca River that connects El Amparo (Apure) in Venezuela with the city of Arauca in Colombia. This is the only formal crossing point in the entire Venezuelan border territory with the department of Arauca in the Colombian territory.

The bridge connects the municipalities of Arauca and Páez in Colombia and the Apure State in Venezuela. Both countries share the bridge structure with a length of 200 meters, 2 lanes and a width of 7.3 meters.

Border crossers arriving in Colombian territory from Venezuela mainly seek to meet basic needs such as food and medicine, informal work and health care and usually return to their country of origin the same day.

Colombian border municipalities have enough supply to provide all types of consumer goods and healthcare services, among others, for both local citizens and migrants.

Daily Capacity

An average of 143 vehicles enter Colombia through the Rumichaca binational bridge and 149 leave the country heading to Ecuador every day.

The border is currently closed on the Venezuelan side for private vehicles. On the Colombian side, only freight vehicles with Colombian plates are allowed to cross the border up to the SAIME (Venezuelan Customs) border checkpoint located at 1 km distance from the international bridge. In addition, the entry of freight vehicles with Venezuelan plates is only allowed up to an informal unloading area located at 500 m from the Colombian side of the bridge. Bridge load capacity is 50 tons and no alternate routes are available for vehicle movement since the entire border area is located along a river (Arauca River.)

Customs

DIAN ARAUCA SECTIONAL DIRECTORATE

Contact Person Horacio Sierra

Phone number: 315 (865) 0515

email: hsierrae@dian.gov.co

According to Article 90 of Decree 1165 of 2019, all means of transport arriving in the national customs territory must pass through the posts enabled by the Directorate of National Taxes and Customs (DIAN).

Approximate times

Decree 1165 of 2019 establishes that the types of controls for customs procedures are as follows:

• Physical Inspection: This inspection lasts 1 working day, i.e., if cargo arrives on Monday, the vehicle will depart to its destination on Tuesday.
• Documentary inspection: This inspection lasts between 1 and 3 days maximum.
• Automatic Inspection: On the same day.

Supporting documents

All documents are specified in Article 349 of Decree 1165 of 2019.

• Shipment authorization form
• Transport form
• Invoice
• Packing list (if applicable)
• Transport documents
• Approval (if applicable)
• Customs mandate

These documents must be kept for 5 years at the customs agency processing the transport operation.

In cases when the transportation does not involve any cargo, public or private service companies transporting passengers only, or when it is a technical stop or landfall, the transporter shall give notice of its arrival to the corresponding customs office, at least 1 hour in advance.

Upon arrival at the border crossing point, travel documents are received and registered right there to present goods to the customs authority. Presented goods are understood as those of foreign origin listed in the Bill of Lading, which is reported via the DIAN web platform and must include at least the following information:

1. Identity of the means of transport
2. Travel information
   1. Origin of goods
   2. Place of destination
   3. Total weight and number of cargo units to be transported
   4. Transport document number
   5. Number and weight of packages
   6. Consolidated cargo indicator

Transport document information submitted via the DIAN web platform. The following information must be included at least for transport and consolidation documents:

1. Consignee taxpayer ID (other than that of the temporary or customs warehouse)
2. Tariff subheading
3. Type of cargo
4. Number and date of the transport document or consolidation document.
5. Number, weight and volume of packages, as applicable
6. Cargo unit identity, if applicable
7. Description of goods
8. Other transport contract specifications as required by the National Tax and Customs Directorate

The transporter must provide travel document information via the DIAN web platform before or upon the arrival of the means of transport.

Upon arrival of the means of transport to the national customs territory, the transporter or its authorized representative shall inform such information via the DIAN web platform. After receiving the arrival notice, the DIAN shall authorize the entry of the goods into the national territory. For customs purposes, the goods arrival date shall be the date of the acknowledgment of arrival notice receipt via the Electronic Data Processing platform.

For land transportation, there is no need to present the notice of completion of unloading. For consolidated cargo, the transporter is required to notify the international freight forwarder or multimodal transport operator immediately upon unloading to initiate their corresponding operations under their responsibility.

Finally, during the inspection, compliance between the cargo and the information provided in the bill of lading, as well as the documents supporting the business operation shall be verified, as well as compliance with the requirements set forth in special regulations, without prejudice to the power to conduct any good inspections, whenever DIAN deems it necessary.

At that moment, the import declaration (DUA in Spanish) is submitted via the DIAN web platform and accepted; then customs duties are calculated and paid at a bank or electronic transfer. After confirming declaration payment in the system, the release of goods is requested using the same platform. This release can be by physical or automatic inspection. In the first case, the DIAN inspector must verify that physical goods match the information in documents to finally issue the release and free disposition of goods. In the second case, the release and free disposition of goods are issued immediately.

Additional Information

Cargo handling areas are located within the perimeter urban block. These are private areas (primary zone) that are occasionally contracted for their services (weighing scales, goods loading and unloading.) There is not an area dedicated to cargo inspections.

Contact Person:

DIAN ARAUCA SECTIONAL DIRECTORATE - Contact Person: Horacio Sierra

Phone number: 315 (865) 0515

email: hsierrae@dian.gov.co