The network covers Philippines within the South-East Asia region. Payslips there are drawn up in PHP, and dealings with a local firm are conducted in Tagalog and English.
The business centres where the network is looking for a correspondent as a priority are Manille, Quezon City, Cebu, Davao.
The country lies outside the European Union and outside the European Economic Area: the A1 certificate has no standing there. Whether the employee remains in the scheme of origin then depends on the bilateral social security agreement, if any, concluded with the sending country; where no such agreement exists, dual affiliation must be expected and budgeted into the assignment.
The answer to this question changes everything: it determines to whom you may entrust your payslips locally, and what you must ask for before signing. It has been verified country by country with the local authorities.
In Philippines, running payroll on behalf of third parties is reserved by law to no registered profession: any company may take it on. The absence of a legal barrier shifts the checking onto you, and that is why the network itself verifies the registration, the tax and social security standing and the insurance cover of every firm before listing it.
Le Republic Act 9298 réserve aux CPA la « practice of public accountancy », c'est-à-dire l'attestation d'états financiers pour un tiers ; la tenue de paie, le calcul des bulletins et le dépôt des cotisations restent libres. Le cabinet qui signe des états financiers doit en outre détenir une accréditation du BOA, et celui qui représente un client devant le BIR une accréditation de tax agent.
The Philippines are a third country for Europe, with a fragmented social architecture split across three separate bodies: the Social Security System for social insurance, PhilHealth for health cover and the Pag-IBIG Fund for housing and savings. Each requires its own registration, filings and remittances; there is no single window.
Payroll is settled in Philippine pesos, and a euro area employer therefore carries the currency exposure on its wage bill. English is an official language alongside Filipino and serves as the working language of the administration, the courts and business: contracts, payslips and dealings with the authorities are in English, which considerably lightens the task of setting up a local team.
Payroll is not a reserved profession. The accountancy legislation reserves the public practice of accountancy, meaning the attestation of financial statements for a third party, to Certified Public Accountants; computing payslips and remitting contributions remain unrestricted. Representing a client before the revenue authority, by contrast, requires accreditation.
Philippine law tightly frames regular employee status, acquired at the end of a probationary period whose maximum length is fixed by statute, and writing is the norm for the contract itself. The classification of the role and the nature of the contract determine almost everything else: this is the point to settle before hiring.
Registration, for its part, is multiple. A company registers with the Securities and Exchange Commission, obtains its certificate of registration from the Bureau of Internal Revenue, then a mayor's permit and a barangay clearance from the local unit. Four windows, four files, and a sequence that must be respected.
Registration as an employer with the three funds is added to that. Only then does payroll become possible.
It is the employer that deducts tax from remuneration, files periodic returns and carries out a year-end reconciliation for each individual. Contributions are reported separately to each of the three funds, on their own timetables.
Remuneration includes a mandatory annual bonus, payable before the end of the year and computed on wages earned: it must be budgeted from the hiring date. Dismissal grounds are strictly framed by Philippine law, which imposes a two-stage written procedure that it is risky to shorten.
The network asks 9 documents of any firm wishing to represent it in Philippines. The table gives, for each of them, the exact wording in use locally, the body that issues it and the period during which it remains admissible. These are the terms to use in an application to the local administration.
Of these 9 documents, 7 are required of every applicant and 6 have a limited period of validity, the shortest being 3 months. 1 of these documents exist only in Philippines and have no equivalent in the common core of the network.
| Local wording | Issuing body | Validity | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEC Certificate of IncorporationSEC Certificate of Incorporation À accompagner du dernier General Information Sheet (GIS), déposé chaque année dans les trente jours de l'assemblée générale : c'est la seule pièce SEC qui atteste la composition actuelle du conseil et de l'actionnariat. | Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) | No expiry Required | Official website |
| Mayor's Permit / Business Permit et Barangay Business ClearanceMayor's Permit / Business Permit Renouvelable chaque année avant le 20 janvier. C'est l'équivalent philippin de la preuve d'activité réelle : une société avec SEC valide mais Mayor's Permit expiré n'est pas en règle. | Local Government Unit (city ou municipality) et barangay du siège | 12 months Required | Official website |
| BIR Certificate of Registration (BIR Form 2303)BIR Certificate of Registration Le formulaire 2303 porte le TIN et la liste des impôts auxquels la société est assujettie, dont la « Withholding Tax on Compensation » indispensable à un employeur ou à un prestataire de paie. | Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) — Revenue District Office de rattachement | No expiry Required | Official website |
| BIR Tax Clearance Certificate (for bidding purposes)BIR Tax Clearance Certificate Délivrée sur demande, valable un an, elle atteste l'absence d'arriéré exigible et l'usage du système eFPS. À défaut, accepter les accusés de dépôt eFPS des déclarations 1601-C et 1702 de l'exercice écoulé. | Bureau of Internal Revenue — Collection Enforcement Division | 12 months Required | Official website |
| SSS Certificate of Employer Registration / Certificate of Good Standing, PhilHealth ER2, Pag-IBIG Employer RegistrationSSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG employer registration and good standing certificates Il faut les trois : aux Philippines la protection sociale est éclatée entre SSS (retraite et prévoyance), PhilHealth (santé) et Pag-IBIG (logement). Le SSS Certificate of Good Standing est celui qui atteste l'absence d'arriéré de cotisations. | Social Security System (SSS) ; Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) ; Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG Fund) | 3 months Required | Official website |
| Professional Indemnity InsuranceProfessional Indemnity Insurance Aucune obligation légale pour un prestataire de paie ou de comptabilité. La couverture existe sur le marché philippin mais reste peu répandue chez les petits cabinets : c'est un critère de sélection GCFFS, pas une pièce réglementaire. | Assureur agréé par l'Insurance Commission | 12 months Where applicable | Official website |
| PRC Professional Identification Card (CPA) et BOA Certificate of Accreditation du cabinetPRC CPA licence and Board of Accountancy firm accreditation La tenue de paie et de livres pour un tiers n'est pas réservée. En revanche, la « practice of public accountancy » (signature d'états financiers) exige une licence CPA de la PRC et, pour le cabinet, une accréditation du BOA renouvelée tous les trois ans. Y ajouter, le cas échéant, l'accréditation BIR de tax agent. | Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) — Professional Regulatory Board of Accountancy (BOA), au titre du Republic Act 9298 | 36 months Where applicable | Official website |
| Government-issued ID du President / Corporate Secretary et Secretary's CertificateGovernment-issued ID of the officer plus Secretary's Certificate L'usage philippin veut que tout engagement au nom d'une société soit accompagné d'un Secretary's Certificate notarié désignant le signataire habilité : le demander en même temps que la pièce d'identité. | Pièce fournie par le candidat ; le Secretary's Certificate est notarié | No expiry Required | Official website |
| NPC Certificate of Registration (Data Processing Systems et Data Protection Officer)NPC Certificate of Registration Enregistrement obligatoire si l'entité emploie 250 personnes ou plus, traite des données personnelles sensibles concernant au moins 1 000 personnes, ou pratique une décision automatisée ou du profilage. Un bureau de paie franchit vite le seuil des 1 000 personnes : le certificat, valable un an, est renouvelable. | National Privacy Commission (NPC), au titre de la Circular 2022-04 et du Data Privacy Act (RA 10173) | 12 months Required | Official website |
The Philippine file is the most fragmented of the group: four registration authorities and three social funds, each with its own document and its own renewal cycle. Assembling a partial file amounts to proving nothing at all.
A classic trap is to confuse the certificate of incorporation issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which never expires, with the general information sheet, which must be from the current year and alone reflects the present position of directors and share capital.
The mayor's permit, for its part, is renewed in January. A file received in February with the previous year's permit is incomplete, without any bad faith on the candidate's part.
Registration with the National Privacy Commission is expressly mandatory above a volume of sensitive data that a payroll provider reaches automatically. It is nonetheless very often overlooked in application files.
Le dossier philippin est le plus fragmenté du lot : quatre guichets d'immatriculation (SEC, BIR, LGU, barangay) et trois caisses sociales distinctes, chacun avec sa propre pièce. Piège classique : confondre le SEC Certificate of Incorporation, qui ne périme jamais, avec le General Information Sheet, qui doit être de l'année en cours. Autre piège : le Mayor's Permit se renouvelle en janvier, donc un dossier reçu en février avec un permis de l'année précédente doit être complété. Enfin l'enregistrement NPC est souvent négligé alors qu'il est explicitement obligatoire dès 1 000 personnes en données sensibles, ce qu'un prestataire de paie atteint mécaniquement.
The network opens 3 partner slots in Philippines, not one more. No firm is listed there yet: all 3 slots therefore remain open to applications.
No listed partner in Philippines has asked to appear in the public directory. The contact details of a firm are passed on to the client only when an assignment is awarded.
Filing an application does not amount to admission: every request is reviewed one by one. There is no minimum turnover requirement, and the partner selected invoices its fees directly.
Submit an application: we review your file, we check the documents required on the ground and we give you an answer, whether it is positive or not.
In the Philippines we expect a firm to hold the Certified Public Accountant professional identification card issued by the Professional Regulation Commission for the responsible partner, and accreditation of the firm with the Board of Accountancy where it signs financial statements. Accreditation as a tax agent with the Bureau of Internal Revenue is expected where it represents clients. The file brings together the Securities and Exchange Commission certificate, the current year general information sheet, a valid mayor's permit, the tax registration certificate and the certificates from all three social funds.
Describe your requirement. No firm is listed in Philippines yet: we review the request, then entrust it to a local firm that the network identifies and vets, or to the partner of a neighbouring country covering this territory. Your contact details are passed on to the selected firm alone.
Request a provider in PhilippinesMobility is rarely arranged one country at a time. The neighbouring profiles follow the same outline.
These countries account for most of the requests received: each one has, in addition to its profile, six pages devoted to a single aspect of local payroll.
The information gathered on this page comes from the registers, administrations and bodies listed below, consulted when the reference base was compiled. It is given for guidance and does not replace the advice of a professional established in Philippines.