El Tiempo Paywall: How to Read El Tiempo Articles for Free
El Tiempo, Colombia's paper of record, meters its articles and reserves some for subscribers. How the eltiempo.com paywall works and how to read a full story.
Paywall behaviour last tested
El Tiempo is Colombia's paper of record, published in Bogotá since 1911 and owned today by the Sarmiento Angulo group, the business empire behind Grupo Aval. It is the most-read newspaper in the country and the one Colombians turn to for national politics, the peace process, the economy and the regions, alongside a large output of lifestyle, entertainment and international news. Its site, eltiempo.com, is one of the busiest in Latin America, and a reader arriving from a search result or a WhatsApp link quite often meets a prompt asking them to register or subscribe before the story opens. This guide explains how the paywall works and how to read a full article.
How the El Tiempo paywall works
El Tiempo runs a metered paywall with a layer of subscriber-only content on top. Most news stories are free to open a handful of times a month, after which a registration wall and then a subscription prompt appear. Some pieces, typically analysis, columns and exclusives, are marked for subscribers from the start. The meter is tracked in a browser cookie, and the subscription offer is pushed hard across the site.
The gate is enforced in the browser. The article text is delivered in the page so that Google can index it, and a script then checks whether you are logged in or over your limit and covers the body with the subscription box. A reader that fetches the page without running that script receives the complete article. Our explainer on metered versus hard paywalls sets out why that distinction matters, and El Tiempo sits on the softer side of it.
Our tests on 20 October 2026 through Skip the Paywall:
- A 678-word El Tiempo world report on fishermen recovering hundreds of iPhones from the sea after a container ship sank in the Strait of Hormuz loaded in full, all 34 paragraphs.
- A 573-word El Tiempo regional report on the governor of Cundinamarca, Jorge Emilio Rey, reporting seven forest fires being fought across five municipalities loaded in full, all 38 paragraphs.
- A 531-word El Tiempo story on Miss Jamaica suing the Miss Universe organisation after suffering a brain haemorrhage in a fall during the show loaded in full, all 30 paragraphs.
Read an El Tiempo article in full
- Copy the article link. El Tiempo links look like eltiempo.com/mundo/medio-oriente/ or eltiempo.com/colombia/otras-ciudades/ followed by a long slug and a numeric id, so the pattern is eltiempo.com/<section>/<subsection>/<slug>.
- Paste it into the box on the home page and press Read Article.
- The story appears in a clean reader view with the headline, byline and full text.
The reader shows the article in Spanish, exactly as El Tiempo published it. If you want it in English, your browser's built-in translation works on the reader page in the normal way.
Other approaches
- Newsletters. El Tiempo sends free email bulletins, including a morning briefing and topic newsletters, that summarise the day's stories and link to them.
- Library access. El Tiempo is carried on PressReader, which many public libraries in Colombia, the US, Canada and the UK offer free to cardholders, and the print replica is also sold through the paper's own digital edition.
- Private windows. The monthly meter lives in a cookie, so a private window resets it, though subscriber-only pieces stay closed.
- Related free sources. Colombian government statements, Congress records and court rulings are published free, and much of El Tiempo's political reporting can be checked against them.
How it compares with other Latin American papers
El Tiempo behaves much like the other big regional dailies we have tested. Argentina's Clarín and Puerto Rico's El Nuevo Día both load in full through the reader, and so does Chile's La Tercera, tested on the same day as El Tiempo. The exception in the Spanish-language press is Spain's El País, which does not work: elpais.com blocked every request in our 17 October 2026 tests, so there is no El País guide. The full list of sites that work is kept current.
Subscribe if you read it regularly
El Tiempo runs the largest newsroom in Colombia and keeps correspondents in regions that few other outlets cover. If you read its reporting every day, a digital subscription, which is usually discounted for the first months, is the right way to keep that coverage going.
Try it with an article
Paste the URL of an article from El Tiempo and read it in a clean reader view. Free, instant, no signup.
Frequently asked questions
Who owns El Tiempo?
The Sarmiento Angulo group, the Colombian business group that also controls Grupo Aval, has owned El Tiempo since 2012. The paper was founded in Bogotá in 1911 and is widely regarded as Colombia's newspaper of record.
Does the reader work on subscriber-only El Tiempo articles?
In our 20 October 2026 tests all three El Tiempo articles loaded in full, including a world report and a regional story. El Tiempo delivers the article text in the page and hides it with a script, which the reader does not run.
Does it work on El País too?
No. El País blocked every request in our 17 October 2026 tests, so it is not on the list of supported sites. El Tiempo, La Tercera, Clarín and El Nuevo Día all pass.