Colombia's PILA payroll filing: what it is, how to pay and what happens if you are late
Colombia's PILA payroll filing: what it is, how to pay and what happens if you are late
The PILA filing is the document a company uses to pay, in a single operation, its employees' health, pension, workplace risk, family compensation fund, SENA and ICBF contributions. It is submitted through an authorized operator, paid on the date set by the calendar according to the last digit of the tax ID (NIT), and it must report the changes that occurred during the period. If it is not paid, an employee can receive a full salary and still end up without coverage.
The underlying confusion is almost always the same: paying payroll is taken as compliance. It is not. These are two different payments, to two different recipients, on two different dates. This article separates the two, shows what a filing contains, how changes are reported, what a late payment costs and how to correct a mistake without making it worse. The rates shown are the stable ones in the system; caps and values that change every year are explained as a mechanism, so you can check them against the rules in force.
What the PILA is and what it is not
The Integrated Contribution Settlement Form is a collection mechanism. It gathers into one file the contributions that used to be paid separately to each entity: one submission, one receipt, one payment. That is its real contribution: reducing six procedures to one and leaving a single trail of what the company paid, and for whom.
It is not payroll. Payroll calculates what is paid to the employee (salary, transport allowance, overtime, deductions); the PILA pays the system. An employee can have flawless payroll and a contribution history full of gaps, because the money reached the worker and not health or pension. Confusing the two documents explains a good part of the trouble around this topic.
Nor is it a tax return, even though the DIAN uses it as supporting evidence. It is proof that labor obligations were paid, which is why entities ask for it when they verify deductions and contributions.
Which contributions are paid in a single filing
Six items with different logic, and it is worth understanding what each one does before looking at the rates. Health funds the employee's mandatory plan and that of the household. Pension builds retirement savings. Workplace risk (ARL) covers accidents and work-related illness, and its rate depends on the risk level declared for the activity. The family compensation fund pays family subsidies, recreation and part of social credit. SENA and ICBF are parafiscal contributions: technical training and child welfare, respectively.
| Item | Who contributes | Rate on the contribution base | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health | Employee 4 % and employer 8.5 % | 12.5 % | That the base reflects the real salary, not the minimum |
| Pension | Employee 4 % and employer 12 % | 16 % | That the departure notice is properly reported |
| Workplace risk (ARL) | Employer only | 0.522 % at risk level I, the lowest | That the declared risk level matches the activity |
| Family compensation fund | Employer only | 4 % | That the assigned fund is the correct one |
| SENA | Employer only | 2 % | That the item actually applies to your company |
| ICBF | Employer only | 3 % | That the item actually applies to your company |
ARL rates are not a single number: they rise with the risk level of the activity, and a risk level reported incorrectly turns into a payment that differs from the one owed. With parafiscal contributions, the question is not only the rate but whether the item applies in your case; that depends on the size of the employer and on the rules for the year, so confirm it with your accountant before assuming the filing total matches the example.
The contribution base: a figure you cannot inflate or shrink
The contribution base (IBC) is the number on which every percentage in the table above is calculated. If the base is wrong, everything else is wrong, even when the rates are correct.
The rule is simple to state and hard to follow: the base must reflect the employee's real salary for the period. It has a floor and a ceiling expressed in current legal monthly minimum wages: you cannot contribute below one minimum wage or above twenty-five. Those two caps move every year with the minimum wage, so the exact figure is looked up, not memorized.
Some items are paid but do not count toward the base. The classic case is the transport allowance: it goes into the employee's pocket and is not part of the base, so it generates no contributions. Including it by mistake makes the filing more expensive with no benefit to anyone; leaving out an item that does count does the opposite: it leaves the employee with fewer weeks and the company with a visible difference.
Declaring below the real salary is the most expensive failure in this system, because it does not stay hidden: the difference surfaces when the filing is cross-checked against payroll, against invoicing, or against a claim from the employee. And when it surfaces, it is paid with interest and with a penalty.
Deadlines and the calendar set by the last digit of the tax ID
The payment date is not chosen by the company or by the payroll team: it is set by a calendar that assigns a day to each tax ID (NIT) ending. Two companies of the same size, with the same payroll, pay on different days because their NIT ends in different digits. That is the whole logic, and it is why copying a neighbor's date does not work.
The calendar is published every year and shifts with public holidays, so the right date is the current year's, checked on the portal of the operator you file with. A calendar saved from last year is a source of silent late fees: you pay one day late and interest has already started.
Two practical decisions prevent almost every scare. The first is to pay several days ahead, not on the due date: the portal can go down, the bank can reject the transaction, and the business day is spent on retries. The second is to close payroll before building the filing, because the filing is fed by payroll and not the other way around; if payroll is corrected afterwards, the filing is out of date.
How changes for the period are reported
The filing is not a static snapshot of the previous month. Every period has events that change the calculation, and those events are reported as changes. They go in the same file, on the employee's line, and they are the only way the system knows what happened between one month and the next.
| Change | What it alters in the filing | What happens if it is omitted |
|---|---|---|
| Hire | The employee appears with a base from the start date | A period without contributions and later an adjustment with interest |
| Departure | Marks the last period contributed for that person | The company still shows an employee it no longer has |
| Disability leave | Reports the period and the type of leave | The payment is inconsistent and recognition is delayed |
| Vacation | Reports the days taken and adjusts the base to what was accrued | A gap between the filing and the pay slips |
| Paid leave | Reports the leave and its effect on the period | The employee appears contributing for days not worked |
| Salary change | Changes the base from the date of the adjustment | Contributions are paid on a salary that is no longer real |
| Risk level change | Changes the workplace risk rate | Underpayment or overpayment on the risk item |
Two warnings about changes. The first: a change with the wrong date is worth almost the same as a missing change, because the system calculates by days. The second: departure is the most forgotten change and the most expensive one, because without it the company remains obliged to keep contributing for someone who has already left, or receives charges for periods in which it had no employees.
A full example: the filing for a salary of 2,500,000 pesos
An employee with a salary of 2,500,000 pesos and a transport allowance of 200,000 pesos. The allowance does not count toward the base, so the base is 2,500,000. With that figure the six items are calculated, separating the share deducted from the employee from the share paid by the company.
| Item | Rate | Deducted from the employee | Paid by the company | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Health | 12.5 % | 100,000 | 212,500 | 312,500 |
| Pension | 16 % | 100,000 | 300,000 | 400,000 |
| Workplace risk (ARL) | 0.522 % | 0 | 13,050 | 13,050 |
| SENA | 2 % | 0 | 50,000 | 50,000 |
| ICBF | 3 % | 0 | 75,000 | 75,000 |
| Family compensation fund | 4 % | 0 | 100,000 | 100,000 |
| Filing total | 200,000 | 750,550 | 950,550 |
The filing total is 950,550 pesos. Of that amount, 200,000 comes out of the employee's pocket and 750,550 out of the company's, which is the real cost of having that person on payroll beyond salary and allowance. The calculation is replicated by changing the base: every item is a direct multiplication, with no tiers or progressive tables.
From there comes a sum almost nobody runs: the cost of the filing is roughly 30 % of the base salary. If your margin per employee is lower than that, the problem is not the filing: it is the price of the service.
What happens when payment arrives late
A late payment is not cancelled: it is paid, but with default interest calculated on the amount and on the time elapsed. The default interest rate is updated periodically, so the exact figure is checked at the moment of payment, not estimated from memory.
The second effect is less visible and more delicate: the employee's coverage. While the filing is not up to date, the employee can have trouble accessing services, getting a disability claim recognized, or, later on, obtaining credit that requires proof of contributed weeks. The employee did their part, the money was deducted from their salary, and they still carry the consequence.
The third effect is administrative: the company's clearance certificates. Without an up-to-date filing, an entity can refuse a certificate, stall a procedure or demand the account be brought current before continuing. In tenders and in processes with large clients, that document is requested and verified.
And there is a fourth effect that surprises newcomers: default interest is charged even when the mistake was the operator's or the bank's, not only when it was the company's. That is why it pays to keep the transaction receipt with date and time, and not just a screenshot of the completed form.
How to correct a filing already submitted
The filing can be corrected. That is a partial relief, because the correction does not erase the previous period: it adjusts it. If the correction increases the amount payable, it creates a larger amount due with interest; if it reduces it, a credit balance remains that is applied or refunded depending on the case.
The most common example is declaring below the real salary. With the same employee from the previous exercise, suppose the filing was submitted with a base of 1,500,000 instead of 2,500,000.
| Item | Filed with a base of 1,500,000 | Correct with a base of 2,500,000 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health 12.5 % | 187,500 | 312,500 | 125,000 |
| Pension 16 % | 240,000 | 400,000 | 160,000 |
| ARL 0.522 % | 7,830 | 13,050 | 5,220 |
| SENA 2 % | 30,000 | 50,000 | 20,000 |
| ICBF 3 % | 45,000 | 75,000 | 30,000 |
| Fund 4 % | 60,000 | 100,000 | 40,000 |
| Total | 570,330 | 950,550 | 380,220 |
There are 380,220 pesos to pay, plus interest for the time between the filing and the correction. If the difference is found six months later, interest runs on that amount for each month or fraction; the final figure is settled by the operator at the rate in force. The correction is made for the exact period, not as an average: the system asks for the month, the employee and the item.
One detail that gets overlooked: correcting without paying the difference leaves the correction half done. The filing is submitted, the system shows the adjustment, and the debt is still alive, now with interest that has already started running.
Who is responsible when it is not paid
The employer. Without nuance. If the company deducted the employee's share and did not remit the contribution, the obligation does not shift: it remains with the company, which also owes what it deducted. The employee cannot be forced to pay twice for a deduction already taken.
That is why the filing cannot be fully delegated. You can hire an operator, an accountant or a software provider to submit it, but responsibility for payment is not something you hire out: it stays. When something fails, the entity bills the company, not whoever ran the procedure.
Hence a simple, cheap practice: reconcile each month the amount deducted in payroll against the amount remitted in the filing. If the two numbers do not match, there is a problem before a third party finds it.
Common mistakes and how to spot them
The mistakes in this area are not exotic. They are the same five or six, repeated, and almost all of them are caught with a ten-minute review before paying.
- Paying payroll and forgetting the filing. Symptom: the employee has the money and the company has no proof of contributions. Consequence: gaps in the contribution history and a debt that grows with interest.
- Declaring the base at the minimum. Symptom: the filing total is suspiciously low against payroll. Consequence: a difference, interest and a penalty, plus an employee with fewer weeks than they are entitled to.
- Not reporting a departure. Symptom: the filing still includes someone who no longer works there. Consequence: overpayments or charges for periods without employees.
- Including the transport allowance in the base. Symptom: the base does not match the contract salary. Consequence: you overpay every month, with no benefit to the employee.
- Using last year's calendar. Symptom: the payment date falls one day after the real deadline. Consequence: late fees on a payment believed to be on time.
- Correcting without remitting the difference. Symptom: the filing shows as corrected and the balance stays open. Consequence: interest runs on a debt believed to be closed.
An honest close before you pay
None of this replaces your accountant or a labor lawyer. The filing has cases that a table cannot resolve: employees with two employers, variable salaries with commissions, apprentices, contractors who contribute on their own account, periods split by leave. If your case is one of those, the general rule works as a map, not as an answer.
What you can do without depending on anyone is the basic check before paying: that the base matches the real salary, that the month's changes are reported, that the date comes from the calendar in force, and that the amount deducted in payroll matches the amount remitted. That ten-minute review prevents most of the problems described here.
And when the underlying issue is that payroll does not reconcile with invoicing or with inventory, the filing only shows the symptom. Kardex Tauro helps keep that part in order; labor compliance remains a separate task, with its own date and its own responsibility.
