What Territorial 12 is
Territorial 12 is one of the concurso de meritos processes coordinated by the Comision Nacional del Servicio Civil, the CNSC, which is the constitutional body in Colombia charged with running merit-based selection into empleos de carrera administrativa. The CNSC does not itself belong to any of the executive, legislative or judicial branches: it is an autonomous organo created by article 130 of the Constitucion Politica to guarantee that entry into and promotion within the public service happens on merit rather than by free appointment. Territorial 12 is the twelfth in a running series of territorial processes, each of which bundles vacancies from a group of gobernaciones, alcaldias, institutos descentralizados and other entidades territoriales under a single acuerdo de convocatoria so that aspirants can compete under one common set of rules and one calendar rather than one per entity. Direct fetches to cnsc.gov.co were blocked from this environment when this page was written, so the figures below should be re-verified against the current acuerdo on the CNSC portal before an aspirant relies on them for an inscription.
The scale of it
Territorial 12 offers 1,102 vacancies across 23 entities in the departments of Atlantico, Bolivar, Cundinamarca, Caldas, Huila, Meta, Norte de Santander and Risaralda. The vacancies span the niveles asistencial, tecnico, profesional and asesor, with the specific requisitos of each empleo published in the OPEC, the Oferta Publica de Empleos de Carrera. The CNSC coordinates the process centrally but the actual application of the pruebas escritas is subcontracted to a universidad operadora selected by the Comision, which is also how the CNSC keeps the operational scale of a national concurso off its own balance sheet.
Who can apply
Any Colombian of legal age who meets the specific requisitos of the empleo listed in the OPEC can apply. Inscription happens through SIMO, the sistema de apoyo para la igualdad, el merito y la oportunidad, and an aspirant can only inscribe to one empleo. Territorial 12 runs in two modalidades. The modalidad ascenso is reserved for public servants already in carrera administrativa in the participating entities who want to promote to a higher empleo, with a further reserva de discapacidad within the ascenso stream. The modalidad abierto (ingreso) is open to the general public and is where most of the applicant volume lands: inscripciones for the abierto general ran from 25 May to 12 June 2026 on the CNSC schedule.
How the process runs
The stages are those fixed by Decreto Ley 760 of 2005 and Ley 909 of 2004 and repeated in every CNSC acuerdo. First, the prueba sobre competencias basicas y funcionales, an eliminatory written test that measures the aspirant against the competencies attached to their nivel and to the specific empleo. Second, the prueba sobre competencias comportamentales, which measures conduct associated with the empleo, and which is applied on the same day. Third, the valoracion de antecedentes, a documentary review that scores educacion formal above the minimum required and experiencia above the minimum required, according to the tabla published in the acuerdo. Fourth, the conformacion de la lista de elegibles, which orders the aspirants by weighted final score and is the definitive output of the process: the lista de elegibles has a vigencia of two years, and the entidad is required by law to nombrar from the top of that list rather than continue to appoint provisionales.
Provisionales, de carrera and why this matters
A large share of Colombian territorial empleos are today filled by funcionarios provisionales, appointed on a temporary basis while no lista de elegibles exists. Provisionales do not enjoy the fuero of carrera: they can be replaced at short notice, and they are not the intended default under Ley 909. Every CNSC concurso is, in that sense, an attempt to turn a provisional plantilla into a de carrera plantilla, and Territorial 12 is one of the largest ongoing pushes in that direction outside of the Docente and Orden Nacional processes. Costs to participate were fixed for 2026 at 58,400 Colombian pesos for the niveles asistencial and tecnico and 87,550 pesos for the niveles profesional and asesor, payable through the SIMO gateway to Bancolombia. Paying the derecho de participacion alone does not inscribe an aspirant: the SIMO form itself must be completed and locked before the window closes, and no inscripciones are accepted after the fecha limite fixed in the acuerdo.