Bre-B for foreigners: pay by QR without a Colombian account

Every guide to paying in Colombia eventually tells you to get Nequi. It’s good advice for someone who already has a Colombian ID to verify against. For a visitor, though, that advice stalls at the sign-up screen: the app wants a residence document, a passport won’t do, and no amount of persistence gets you past that first form. You don’t need Nequi itself. You need the code it scans, and that’s a much shorter story.

Bre-B is Colombia’s national instant payment system, built and run by the central bank and live nationwide since late 2025. There’s no Bre-B sign-up; the way in is an account at a participating bank or wallet. A llave is the receiver’s key (a phone number, an ID number, an email or a code) registered through their bank or wallet. Receiving money takes one. Paying doesn’t: a payer never needs a llave of their own, because the code at the register does that job.

At the counter, that llave becomes a QR. Some are printed and static, with no amount inside; others are generated per sale with the amount already inside, and since early 2026 even the card terminals can put one on their screen. That’s the useful part: a Bre-B code is shared infrastructure, so anything that can pay Bre-B can pay it, including a wallet you brought with you, through a licensed local partner on the Colombian side.

1. 01

   You don't need Nequi to pay

   A Bre-B QR is a national standard that no single wallet owns. Any app that can pay Bre-B works, and Yodl can, so the sign-up wall stops mattering.

2. 02

   Hold stablecoins, scan, confirm

   Load USDC or USDT in Yodl, point it at the QR, check the peso amount against what you're charged, and approve on your phone.

3. 03

   The shop gets pesos

   A licensed local partner pays the merchant in pesos. The cashier sees an ordinary payment land, the same one a Nequi regular would send.

Nequi and Daviplata are the two mass-market wallets in Colombia, how a huge share of Colombians pay day to day, well beyond the register, and both plug into Bre-B: a phone number registered as a key through either one is reachable from any Bre-B participant. So when a vendor says “solo Nequi,” ask for their Bre-B code; if the shop has one, that is the one you pay, and if it only has the wallet’s own code, use cash. Per-shop registration isn’t guaranteed. The wallet is for residents; the Bre-B code is for everyone.

You don't need the wallet everyone pays with, just the code everyone pays.

Medellín vendors got burned by a run of fake payment-screenshot scams a few years ago, and some still wait to see the credit land on their own phone before they hand anything over. Let them; a real payment lands in seconds. Cash still has its place, at stalls, on buses, in street taxis and the smallest tiendas, and one modest ATM pull, pesos chosen at the prompt, covers a week of them. Anything with a register, pay by QR; it’s faster and cheaper, and you don’t need a local app for it.

1. 01

   Buying a Colombian SIM just to register Nequi

   The wall is the residence document, and a local number doesn't get you over it. Don't build your trip around finishing a sign-up you can skip when a Bre-B QR at the counter is already open to you.

2. 02

   Paying for a 'Nequi for tourists' service

   Workaround services that promise to set you up on someone's paperwork are a risk you don't need to take, and they leave your money in an account that isn't yours. For paying merchants, a Bre-B QR is already yours to pay.

3. 03

   Assuming tourists can't pay QR at all

   You can. Bre-B isn't locked to the resident wallets, so a visitor can pay the same code a local does, from a wallet they control.

4. 04

   Converting a brick of cash on day one

   Change a modest amount for the stalls and the bus, and let the register take the rest by QR. A week's worth of pesos in your pocket is a target on the street and an errand to change back.