OBJECTIVES:  To establish the use of health resources (drugs, clinical laboratory, diagnostic imaging, medical appointments and abcenteeism) and costs related to the care of early rheumatoid arthritis (ERA) in a Colombian real world, METHODS:  A cohort of 345 patients with ERA from two health care institutions in Bogota, Colombia, followed by two years (2013-2015). On the first appointment, patients were classified according to the disease activity (DAS), and were checked every three months. In this period, the use of resources and costs for each patient was identified. RESULTS:  The total cost for 345 patients was $2,323,373 USD. According to DAS in the first appointment patients were classified as: remission 13.3%, low 7.8%, moderate 42.9%, and high 35.9%. The 21.2% of the patients received biological treatment, representing a cost of care equivalent to 86.4% of the total cost. In the biological group, distribution of costs by initial DAS was remission 3.1%, mild 1.6%, moderate 30.8%, and high 64.5%; additionally, drugs accounted for 95.6% of the cost of care, followed by work abcenteeism with 3.3%. The 78.8% of patients received treatment with DMARDs, its cost of care was 13.6% of the total. The distribution of costs by initial DAS was remission 8.2%, low 8.2%, moderate 40.5%, and high 43.1%. In this group, the drugs represent 42.5% of the cost, and the abcenteeism 37.2%. The average cost of care per patient with biologicals was $27,505 USD and $1,160 USD DMARDs. The average of work abcenteeism by patient days were 64.2 and 31.3 respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The most expensive stage was high, followed by the moderate for the two groups of the study. The group that received biologicals on average is 23.7 times more expensive than the DMARDs group.