Colombia's central bank made a surprise move late last month when it paused rate hikes despite inflation still well above target.
The April reading suggests policymakers may have to undo that decision sooner than they planned.
Consumer prices rose 0.78% in April, slightly above the 0.73% economists polled by Reuters expected.
Annual inflation climbed to 5.68% from 5.56% in March, small in absolute terms but a clean break from a downward trend.
Inflation has now sat more than two and a half points above the central bank's 3% target for some time, and it's no longer falling.
Colombia's policy rate sits at 11.25%, while the central bank's own technical team now sees inflation ending the year at 6.4%, up from their previous forecast.
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Here's the complication. Colombia's inflation isn't being driven by hot demand, the kind that higher rates can cool.
It's being driven by oil prices, supply chain stress, and weather shocks, which are largely outside the reach of monetary policy.
That's exactly the argument from the central bank's pause camp, since higher rates squeeze businesses and consumers without addressing the root cause.
The hawks see it differently and worry that letting inflation drift higher could make it harder to pull back down later, even if the original trigger was external.
The split is real enough that the bank's own messaging has been mixed in recent weeks.
The next Banco de la República meeting is the one to watch, since a return to hikes would surprise markets that priced in a longer pause after April's decision.
A second uptick in May would tip the balance further, because one reading is noise and two in a row is a trend.
Colombia spent the last year as one of Latin America's loudest stories on disinflation, and April put a clean pause on that narrative.
If the May reading also moves higher, the central bank's pause may end sooner than markets are pricing in.
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