Licensing, staffing models and what a guarding contract really costs
Manned guarding is a regulated activity in most jurisdictions, and the licence is the first gate. Individual officers hold a licence for the activity they perform -- static guarding, door supervision, cash in transit, close protection -- and the company holds an approval of its own, with screening of employment history over a stated number of years before an officer is deployed. Buyers verify the licences rather than the assertion, and a bid based on a workforce that does not yet hold them is a delivery risk the evaluation is designed to find.
The price is a wage plus an on-cost, and the room for manoeuvre is narrow. Applicable wage floors, holiday and sickness cover, training time, and the relief factor needed to keep a post covered around the clock are close to fixed, so an unusually low bid is usually a signal about one of them. Where a contract is transferring from an incumbent, employment protection rules commonly move the existing officers across on existing terms, which fixes most of the cost before the bidder starts and makes the transferring staff information supplied at tender the most important document in the pack.
Specifications increasingly describe outcomes and the technology that supports them rather than hours on a gate. Assignment instructions, incident reporting, patrol verification, control room monitoring, response times to alarms and integration with electronic access and surveillance systems are all defined and measured. For sites with public access or vulnerable users, conflict management and safeguarding training are specified, and the buyer usually retains the right to require removal of an individual officer without cause, which the bidder has to be able to absorb.
This section describes how this category is bought generally, across the public buyers that publish it. The figures elsewhere on this page are measured for this market alone.
Who buys security services in Colombia?
GlobalGov holds 77 security services records from 67 distinct buying organisations in Colombia. The most frequent publishers are Municipio de Soacha. (3 records); Alcaldía Municipal de Magangue (2 records); Csb (2 records); Empresa de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano y Rural DEL Municipio de Envigado (2 records); Institución Universitaria Pascual Bravo Comprador (2 records); Instituto de Deportes y Recreacion de Medellin (2 records). Between them the 6 largest account for 17% of everything published, so buying here is spread across many separate authorities.
| Buying organisation | Records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Municipio de Soacha. | 3 | 3.9% |
| Alcaldía Municipal de Magangue | 2 | 2.6% |
| Csb | 2 | 2.6% |
| Empresa de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano y Rural DEL Municipio de Envigado | 2 | 2.6% |
| Institución Universitaria Pascual Bravo Comprador | 2 | 2.6% |
| Instituto de Deportes y Recreacion de Medellin | 2 | 2.6% |
What are security services contracts worth in Colombia?
77 of the 77 records publish a contract value. The median is $5,930 and the largest single published value is $77.6M. By size, 65 under $100k, 8 between $100k and $1M, 2 between $1M and $10M, 2 above $10M. The remaining 0 publish no value at all, so every figure here describes the priced subset only, and values are as stated by the buyer rather than as finally awarded.
| Contract size | Records | Share of priced |
|---|---|---|
| under $100k | 65 | 84% |
| between $100k and $1M | 8 | 10% |
| between $1M and $10M | 2 | 2.6% |
| above $10M | 2 | 2.6% |
How long do bidders get to respond to security services tenders in Colombia?
Across the 54 Colombia security services notices that publish both a publication date and a closing date, the median response window is 156 days. A quarter of them allowed 68 days or fewer and a quarter stayed open for more than 294. Short turnarounds are the exception rather than the rule here: only 2 (3.7%) closed within a fortnight of being published.
How often are security services tenders published in Colombia?
Colombia published 11 notices in this category in the last twelve months. That is 31% fewer than the 16 published in the twelve months before that. Over the last three years there were 75, spread across 23 separate months of activity since 9 February 2023. January is historically the busiest month. No new notice has been published in this category since 7 April 2026, 177 days ago, so treat the figures above as a record of the market rather than as this week's pipeline.
How does Colombia compare with other security services markets?
Among the 29 countries where GlobalGov holds a comparable security services market, Colombia ranks 16th by number of records. The largest is Netherlands (1,431 records against 77 here). Within Colombia itself, security services is the 41st largest of the 77 procurement categories tracked here.
Where do the Colombia security services records on this page come from?
These 77 records are collected from 2 official sources: SECOP II (42), SECOP II (35). GlobalGov is an independent aggregator and is not affiliated with any of them; each record links back to the notice on its issuing portal. The set is rebuilt nightly, and the counts on this page were taken on 2026-10-01.
Most recent Security Services tenders in Colombia
No individual notice in this category currently has a public record page. The market figures above are computed over all 77 records GlobalGov holds for it.
Other procurement categories in Colombia
Security Services procurement in other markets
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