The step-by-step plan for Philippines

In this step you learn how you may come to live in the Philippines. With a Dutch passport you need no visa to enter. You may then stay thirty days. On arrival you show an onward ticket. If you want longer, you extend at the Bureau of Immigration, the immigration service, which everyone here simply calls the BI.

Whoever wants to stay chooses one of four routes:

• The SRRV. The Special Resident Retiree's Visa of the Philippine Retirement Authority, the PRA. For whoever is 40 or older and locks a deposit at a Philippine bank. It gives permanent residence.
• Extending as a tourist. You keep extending at the BI, up to 36 months at most. Many Dutch people start this way. It isn't a right of residence: you pay again each time.
• A Filipino spouse. The 13(a) visa: first a probationary year, then permanent.
• Work. The 9(g) visa, with a work permit from the Department of Labor.

Almost everything goes in English. English is an official language alongside Filipino. Every document that isn't in English you have translated.

A digital nomad visa? The Philippines put it in a decree in 2025, but you can't apply for it yet. Besides, it only applies to countries that give Filipinos such a visa themselves. The Netherlands has no separate nomad visa, so Dutch nationals probably fall outside it.

Know too that the travel advice of NederlandWereldwijd is yellow for most of the country, and red for the west of Mindanao and the Sulu islands. How that affects your choice of where to live, you read further on in this phase.

In this step you see what emigrating to the Philippines does to your AOW, your tax and your healthcare. With the Philippines those three differ.

The AOW. The Netherlands and the Philippines concluded a treaty in 2001 on the export of benefits, which has applied since 1 November 2002. Because of it the Philippines is among the 36 countries where the full AOW goes. Even whoever goes alone keeps the AOW for a single person. The survivors' benefit (the Anw) goes along too. Child benefit doesn't.

Tax. There is a tax treaty from 1989. Under it your company pension goes to the country where you live. But the Philippines only taxes a foreigner on income from the Philippines. So in practice your company pension is taxed nowhere. Your AOW and a government pension stay taxed in the Netherlands. How that works out, you read in phase 3.

Healthcare. The Philippines isn't on the list of treaty countries for healthcare. So there's no CAK. Your Dutch basic insurance stops when you deregister. After that a policy of your own is your healthcare.

Your AOW build-up stops. The treaty arranges the payment, not the build-up. Whoever lives in the Philippines and doesn't work in the Netherlands is usually no longer insured. Each year until your AOW age then costs 2 percent of your later AOW. You can insure yourself voluntarily with the SVB. The application has to be in within one year.

In this step you choose where you want to live. The Philippines is a country of islands, and the differences between Manila, the large islands and the small islands are large. Whoever knows the country from holidays doesn't know it yet.

Read the travel advice of NederlandWereldwijd first. This is in it:

• Red, do not travel. The west of Mindanao: the Zamboanga peninsula, the provinces of Misamis Occidental and Lanao del Norte, Soccsksargen and the region the travel advice calls ARMM. Also the Sulu archipelago (Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi) and the Sulu Sea, except the Tubbataha reefs.
• Yellow for the rest. You can go there, but there are security risks, such as terrorism and piracy in the Sulu and Celebes Seas.
• Typhoons. Tropical storms come between June and November. According to PAGASA, the Philippine weather service, there are twenty a year on average, of which eight or nine cross the country. The peak is from July through October.
• Volcanoes and earthquakes. Around Bulusan, Kanlaon, Mayon and Taal there are no-go zones of 2 to 6 kilometres. Taal lies 60 kilometres south of Manila.

So for each place, look at three things:

• Healthcare. Ask where the nearest good hospital is, and whether your policy covers transport there.
• The storm. Ask how the house is built, whether it stands high, and where you go if a typhoon comes.
• The connections. On a small island you depend on boat and plane. In the typhoon season they sometimes stop.

Live for a few weeks in the place you choose, preferably also for a while in the rainy season. With a Dutch passport you may stay thirty days, and you can extend that stay.

In this step you see what the move will cost you. The application differs greatly per route:

• The SRRV asks for a deposit of 15,000 to 50,000 dollars, depending on your age and whether you have a pension. On top come 1,500 dollars processing fee, 300 dollars per family member and 360 dollars every year.
• Extending as a tourist costs again each time. According to the BI's fees you pay 2,430 to 4,400 pesos for extending one month, about 35 to 63 euros, plus 50 dollars for the ACR I-Card.
• The 13(a) visa costs 8,620 pesos plus 50 dollars, and after a year the same again for permanent residence.
• A work visa costs from about 10,000 pesos a year, plus the work permit.

The money is further in three items:

• The health policy that replaces the CAK, and that comes back every year.
• The move by sea. A container is weeks on the way.
• The car. It can't come along: importing used cars is banned. Count on a car locally.

One euro is about 70 pesos, at the ECB rate of 19 October 2026. One dollar is about 0.89 euros.

In this conversation you decide together whether the Philippines fits, and when. You set down what each of you needs to say yes.

Going alone? Then have this conversation with the people you leave behind. The questions below work for them too.

Take three evenings. One conversation is too short for a decision like this. Agree on three evenings, a week apart:

• Evening 1, why. What do we hope to find in the Philippines? What are we leaving behind here? Would that really be different there?
• Evening 2, what we give up. Who and what will we miss? What are we dreading most? What do we do if it disappoints?
• Evening 3, the conditions. What has to be in place for each of us to say yes? When do we check together whether it's going well, for example after six and after twelve months? And what would be a reason for us to go back?

Write the conditions down. On the kitchen-table card it all fits on one A4.

Two things come with the Philippines that you have to look at together on those evenings:

• The route and the money. With the SRRV a deposit is locked, at least 15,000 dollars. As a tourist you have no fixed right to stay, and after 36 months the extending ends. Discuss what certainty you want.
• The distance and the healthcare. Family in the Netherlands you no longer see in passing. And your healthcare depends on your own policy. Agree what you'll do if one of you becomes seriously ill.

Divide the work. Agree who takes on which part of this plan: the papers for your residence, the house and the cancellations, the school, the move. That way not one of you carries everything. Invite your partner into your plan; then you both see what's done.

Is one of you going without an income of their own? Whoever lives in the Philippines and doesn't work in the Netherlands usually no longer builds up AOW, the Dutch state pension. For every year you're not insured, you later get 2 percent less AOW. You can insure yourself voluntarily with the SVB. You have one year for that, counted from the moment you're no longer insured. Also discuss whether that partner keeps an account and money of their own, and how you decide together on large expenses.

Married, registered or living together? In the Philippines that matters. With the SRRV the legal spouse counts as a family member. The 13(a) visa only exists on the basis of a valid marriage to a Filipino. Whoever lives together without being married needs a route of their own each. Check at your route further on in your plan what applies to you.

Are children coming? How you tell them depends on their age:

• Up to about four. Tell them shortly before the move and keep fixed routines, such as the bedtime ritual and the cuddly toy in the hand luggage.
• Primary school. Tell them well in advance and let them look along: photos of the school, the neighbourhood and the house. Let them choose something, such as their room.
• Teenagers. Involve them in the decision itself. For them, saying goodbye to friends weighs the most. Agree how they keep in touch and when they'll see their friends again.

How school works in the Philippines, and which permit a child needs, you read in the article about school with this step.

Who learns the language, and when? English is an official language, and the forms of the BI and the PRA are in English. Whoever speaks English can join in right away. On the street and at school you also hear Filipino and a regional language. Agree who still needs to brush up their English, and whether someone learns a few words of Filipino.

Choose the day you want to leave. The plan counts back from that date: when the papers from the Netherlands have to be in, when you deregister and when you submit your application.

Count four clocks:

• Your stay without a visa ends after thirty days. Extend before that day.
• For the SRRV your certificate of conduct, and your medical certificate too, is at most six months old when you submit.
• If you've already been in the Philippines for more than ninety days at your SRRV application, you also need a Philippine police certificate, the NBI Clearance. For the 13(a) visa that applies from six months.
• With a pet: the import permit is valid for sixty days, and the health certificate at most ten days old.