Cheap Dollar: What to Watch If Your Business Deals in Foreign Currency

The Colombian peso hasn't been this strong in years.

By mid-July 2026, the TRM (Colombia's official exchange rate) was hovering around $3,250, a level not seen since July 2019. And so far this year, the peso has posted one of its largest appreciations on record. Good news, ''partially'', it all depends on where you're standing.

If your company bills clients abroad, the useful question is a different one. And it's an uncomfortable one: how dependent is your business on dollar volatility, something nobody controls? It's worth taking a calm look at it.

The essentials, fast

• In mid-July 2026 the dollar hit its lowest level in more than six years, with the TRM around $3,250.
• Forecasts for the close of 2026 range from $2,800 (Alianza Valores) to around $3,630 (Citi's analyst survey). Nobody really knows.
• The key, if you operate in foreign currency, isn't guessing the TRM. It's reducing your exposure and deciding when to convert.

Why is the dollar so cheap in Colombia?

It didn't happen overnight. The drop is part of a trend that accelerated from late May onward, passing through levels of $3,600, $3,400, and $3,300.

What pushed it down? Several things at once: a central bank (Banco de la República) rate of 12% that's attracting capital looking for yield, record remittance inflows, high oil prices, and, according to several analysts, the political shift after the elections, along with fiscal expectations around the incoming government. The TRM ended up at its lowest level in more than six years.

What's curious is that Colombia is going against the grain. While many currencies barely move against the dollar, the peso has gained ground quite forcefully. That's why so many analysts are calling it an atypical pattern.

Felipe Campos, Investment and Strategy Manager at Alianza Valores, told infobae that almost no currency is beating the dollar this year, and the few that are, oil-linked currencies, are appreciating far less than the peso. So this isn't a global wave. It's mostly local.

How far can it fall? Even the experts don't agree

Here's where it gets interesting. For the very same year-end, market experts are projecting very different things.

Campos, in his most optimistic scenario for the peso, sees the rate falling below $3,000 and approaching a floor of $2,800 — though that's conditional on the new government following through on its fiscal plan. Citi's analyst survey, on the other hand, puts the TRM at around $3,527 by the close of 2026: a rebound. And Credicorp Capital estimates the dollar is already near its floor, around $3,230–$3,250, for the second half of the year.

Same December. Three readings: $2,800, $3,240, $3,630.

Who will get it right? We don't know the answer. If even the experts can't agree, building your strategy around a single forecast is, at bottom, a bet.

Who benefits and who gets hurt?

A strong peso spreads the impact unevenly.

Exporters are probably the ones who feel it most. Especially agricultural sectors: coffee, flowers, bananas, palm oil, sugar, avocado. They've been warning for a while that the appreciation is eating into their competitiveness. And it's not a minor detail: a sensitivity analysis by ANIF, using data from the National Federation of Coffee Growers, estimates that a $100 move in the dollar can shift the value of coffee exports by around $34 billion pesos.

On the same side are freelancers, consultants, and remote teams who get paid in dollars. Same work, fewer pesos once they convert.

On the other side, importers and anyone with USD-denominated costs get some breathing room. Raw materials, machinery, technology, supplies: it all gets cheaper. Anyone paying for software, cloud services, or vendors abroad sees their costs drop.

And what about those on both sides at once?

There are more of them than it seems. They get paid in dollars and also pay in dollars. At that point, it's no longer about the exchange rate. It's about how the operation is structured.

The blind spot: being forced to convert

• The most fragile position isn't holding dollars. It isn't holding pesos, either. It's being forced to convert everything, right now, at that day's TRM. With the dollar cheap, that obligation forces you to let go of your dollars exactly when they're worth the least in pesos.

Here's an example. A digital services company bills foreign clients in dollars. And it also pays its servers, its licenses, and a couple of contractors in dollars. If the bank forces it to convert every incoming payment to pesos the moment it lands, and then to buy dollars back to cover those costs, it loses money on every conversion. Twice. For a move that, in practice, didn't need to happen at all.

In other words, the problem was never the cheap dollar. It was not having a way to pay in dollars what you earn in dollars, and converting to pesos only what you actually need to operate here.

That's where it starts to make sense to have an account that lets you operate directly in dollars. If you receive payments in USD and also pay vendors in that currency, you skip several conversions that, over time, end up costing real money.

Five things to keep on the table

Beyond the forecasts, here's what's worth analyzing:

• Look at your net exposure. How much comes in and how much goes out in dollars each month. That balance decides whether a cheap dollar helps or hurts you, far more than any headline about the TRM.
• Natural hedging is the simplest lever. Matching income and expenses in the same currency lowers your exposure without exotic instruments or a crystal ball.
• Watch out for the small costs. Each spread looks marginal on its own. Added up over a year, they aren't.
• Peso liquidity isn't negotiable.
• And the accounting and FX-regulatory side is specific to each company. Obligations to the DIAN (Colombia's tax authority) and the Banco de la República's foreign-exchange regime vary case by case. Check it with your finance team.

Questions business owners and finance teams keep asking

• Why is the dollar falling in Colombia in 2026? It's a mix of factors: a central bank rate of 12%, remittances at record levels, rising oil prices, and the political shift after the elections. The peso is going through one of its biggest appreciations of the century, and by mid-July the TRM was hovering around $3,250.
• Should I hold onto the dollars or convert them to pesos? It depends. If you also have costs in dollars, paying them directly in USD saves you conversions. Converting to pesos should be driven by your cash flow, not by a forecast. And yes: check it with your advisor.
• What is a business dollar account? An account a company uses to receive, hold, and pay in dollars, all in one place. In VIIO's case, it includes a local US account for receiving USD payments, payments to vendors abroad, and fund disbursement settled in COP or USD, all while operating from Colombia without the usual banking intermediaries.

A dollar at multi-year lows isn't managed from the headline. Nor from the flashiest forecast.

It's managed through the structure your company uses to handle its foreign currency, one that works for you today, with a strong peso, and also once the rate turns around.

At bottom, you don't need to guess the TRM. You just need to depend on it less.

VIIO is a Colombian platform that offers a business dollar account. It's built to receive international payments, pay vendors and employees abroad, and disperse funds settled in COP or USD, all from Colombia, with clear costs and without the usual banking intermediaries.

A note from our team: this is informational content, not financial, foreign-exchange, or investment advice. Before moving your foreign currency, talk to your accountant or trusted advisor, who knows your specific situation better than any article.