Law 2385 progressive bullfighting ban
Law & Regulation
Enacted – Pending Effect
July 22, 2024
Summary
On 22 July 2024, Colombia enacted Law 2385, establishing a three-year transition period after which bullfights, rejoneo, novilladas, becerradas, and tientas are prohibited throughout the national territory. The law entered into force on its date of issuance under Article 7. The primary prohibitory rule — the ban on the listed bullfighting modalities — takes effect three years after enactment (July 2027). During the three-year transition, the activities may continue only where they constitute an uninterrupted traditional practice of the local population, restricted to their specific traditional occasions and locations; municipal and departmental authorities may not allocate public funds for constructing facilities or financing these activities. Law 2385 mandates a one-year period after the prohibition takes effect for reconverting state-owned bullrings into cultural, recreational, sports, or artistic spaces. The law explicitly excludes from its scope daily activities and practices in the national livestock industry, and as enacted excluded horseback riding, bull roping (toros coleados), corralejas, and cockfighting from the prohibition — a scope subsequently modified by the September 2025 Constitutional Court ruling, documented in a separate Development record. A constitutional challenge to the law was filed; the Constitutional Court upheld the law and extended its scope in September 2025.
Background Context
Before Law 2385, Colombia’s Constitutional Court had issued several decisions — including C-666 of 2010, C-889 of 2012, and C-041 of 2017 — that allowed traditional bullfighting and related spectacles as exceptions to general anti-cruelty provisions, recognising them as manifestations of cultural tradition in specific municipalities. Law 1774 of 2016 recognised animals as “sentient beings” in Colombian law and enhanced penalties for animal cruelty but did not prohibit bullfighting or cockfighting. Multiple legislative initiatives to restrict or prohibit bullfighting were introduced and failed in the 2010s and early 2020s. The administration of President Gustavo Petro, who took office in 2022, publicly supported phasing out bullfighting. AnimaNaturalis, World Animal Protection, and other NGOs had run campaigns and legal actions over multiple years challenging bullfighting and advocating for a ban. Municipal authorities in Bogotá had previously attempted to limit bullfighting via local regulatory mechanisms, partially constrained by national-level legal protections for traditional spectacles.
System Impact
Direction
Reduces Exploitation
Type
Alters Legal Basis
Significance
High
Law 2385 entered into force on 22 July 2024. From that date, the transitional provisions became operative: bullfights, rejoneo, novilladas, becerradas, and tientas may continue only where they constitute an uninterrupted local tradition, restricted to their specific traditional occasions and locations, subject to conditions regulated by the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Knowledges and the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development within two months of enactment. Municipal and departmental authorities are prohibited from allocating public funds for the construction of facilities or financing of these activities. An inter-institutional commission led by the Ministry of Labor, with SENA and sector organisations, was mandated to design labor and economic reconversion programs for workers whose principal income derives from the listed activities. DANE was mandated to create an administrative register of persons directly and indirectly dependent on these activities. The Ministry of Education and Ministry of Environment were mandated to issue guidelines for including animal protection in national environmental education strategies. In September 2025, the Constitutional Court declared Law 2385 constitutional and struck down the article phrase that had excluded toros coleados, corralejas, cabalgatas, and cockfighting from the law’s scope, extending the prohibition regime to those practices with a three-year deferral of effects.
Anticipated Effects
If implemented as written, the prohibition on bullfights, rejoneo, novilladas, becerradas, and tientas will take effect in July 2027, removing the legal authorisation for these modalities nationwide; no further commercial events of these types would be permitted under Colombian law after that date.
If reconversion programs are developed and implemented during the three-year transition, workers whose principal income derives from bullfighting activities would be supported in transitioning to other cultural, sports, or related sectors; the scope and effectiveness of these programs is not established in available sources.
Whether elimination of these spectacle modalities reduces the number of bulls bred specifically for bullfighting, or redirects those animals to agricultural production, depends on the structure of bull breeding supply chains that is not documented in available sources.
Significance Rationale
Assigned Reduces Exploitation (impact direction) because Law 2385 removes the legal authorisation for bullfights, rejoneo, novilladas, becerradas, and tientas throughout Colombia after a three-year transition, eliminating the legal basis for these exploitation systems within their scope. The law also directly prohibits public funding for these activities during the transition period, materially constraining their continued operation. Whether animals previously used in the prohibited events are redirected to agricultural production or other channels is not established in available sources.
Assigned Alters Legal Basis (impact type) because the primary mechanism is the scheduled removal of legal authorisation for bullfighting modalities and the simultaneous prohibition on public financing of these activities. The scale change — elimination of commercially authorised bullfighting events — is the consequence of this legal basis change, not its direct mechanism.
Assigned High significance because within the Entertainment & Sport sector involving bulls in Colombia, the law eliminates the legal authorisation for the primary commercial bullfighting modalities nationwide after a defined transition. Colombia is one of the primary bullfighting jurisdictions in Latin America; the law constitutes a system-level elimination of the relevant entertainment exploitation sector within its statutory scope.
The scale change is structural within its scope: commercial bullfighting modalities in Colombia are scheduled for elimination by July 2027 under Law 2385, with the operative prohibition not yet in effect as of record creation. The Constitutional Court’s September 2025 ruling confirming constitutionality — documented in a separate Development record — further consolidates this trajectory.
Key Actors
The Congress of the Republic of Colombia enacted Law 2385 on 22 July 2024; President Gustavo Petro sanctioned the law. The Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Knowledges is tasked with regulating bullfighting conditions during the transition period and coordinating cultural policies. The Ministry of Labor leads the inter-institutional reconversion commission. DANE is tasked with creating the administrative register of dependent workers. Territorial entities (departments and municipalities) are responsible for verifying compliance with conditions during the transition, and may suspend or cancel non-compliant events. AnimaNaturalis and World Animal Protection are documented as principal advocacy organisations that campaigned for the prohibition. The bullfighting sector — bullfighters, rejoneadores, arena operators, and associated unions — is directly subject to the transition framework and reconversion mandate.
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