INTRODUCTION: within the study of the various dental position anomalies, it is fundamental to study the frequency and characteristics of malocclusion among Colombian children and adolescents. OBJECTIVE: to describe characteristics and types of dental malocclusion among Colombian children with of 5, 12 and 15 years of age. METHODOLOGY: Secondary analysis of ENSAB IV based on clinical modules of the mentioned ages, variables such as molar relation, canine relation, maxilla-mandibular discrepancies, horizontal and vertical overbite. The descriptive analysis was carried out with variables such as frequency of alterations and malocclusion severity. RESULTS: The study included 2276 children 5 years of age, 2183 12 years of age and 2046 15 years of age. There was a higher male component in the 5 and 12 age groups (52.1% and 50.4% respectively). The clinical component showed that 30% of children in the 5 year group had and inadequate bilateral molar relation, at 12 years was 25% and at 15 years 32%. The highest group of alterations per age group showed that in the 5-year group, 36% had one or two alterations; in the 12-year group, 62.1% had three to five occlusal alterations and the 15-year group had 17.9% with five or more alterations. Severe dental malocclusion was observed in the in the 5-year group with 8% and 4.4% having bilateral distal molar relation with class II and class III bilateral canine respectively, and 0.8% and 11.6% had bilateral mesial molar relation with class II and class III bilateral canine respectively. The 12-year group presented 12% and 0.6% with molar relation class II bilateral with class II and class III canine bilateral respectively, while 0.3% and 4.6% presented molar relation class III bilateral with class II and class III bilateral canine respectively. The 15-year group presented an 11.5% with molar relation class II bilateral with class II bilateral canine, while 0.4% and 9.4% had molar relation class III bilateral with class II and class III bilateral canine respectively. CONCLUSIONS: There are differing malocclusion patterns with dissimilar combinations of dental alterations which may increase the complexity of treatment. There are not many published studies in Colombia revealing the real magnitude of malocclusions and differentiated clinical variables for each age group.