Philippines 9G Cost and Timeline: Why No One Quotes a Single Total

Two Stages First: AEP Work Permit and the 9G Visa Have Different Charges

The normal path for 9G requires an AEP (labor department work permit) before the 9G visa is issued. These are two different agencies with two different fee schedules - labor department charges and immigration charges are counted separately. The fuller four-layer breakdown: how work visa costs are structured. How the two stages connect: the complete AEP-to-9G guide.

Who Pays: What the Employer Typically Covers vs. What the Employee Can

9G is initiated by the employer, and government charges plus the labor permit stage are usually covered by the employer; what an employee can personally cover is limited. Confirm whether you are asking as the employer or the employee before pricing - the two sides see different cost structures. What an agency can specifically do for the employer and how its fee is structured: 9G agency service: initiated by the employer.

Does Changing Employers Trigger Repricing

Yes. Changing employers is not simply "renewing" the existing 9G - it requires restarting the application with the new employer as the initiating party. The AEP stage usually has to be redone, because the work permit is tied to a specific employer and does not transfer to a new company. In other words, the cost structure for an employer change looks closer to a first application than a renewal, and both charges and any triggered extras need to be recalculated for the new employer's circumstances. Anyone planning to change jobs should understand this in advance, rather than assuming a change of employer is as simple as a renewal.

Filing 9G for Multiple Employees at Once: Does It Save Money

Government charges are calculated per person and do not discount just because filings happen together - there is no scale effect on that block. What can genuinely become more efficient through batching is the service fee - an agency handling several employees at once is working with familiar templates and processes, and can reasonably negotiate a better per-person service fee than for a single filing. But this only affects the service fee, not government charges, so keep the two separate in negotiation rather than treating charges as negotiable too.

Before negotiating the service fee, it helps to have a rough sense of how many employees the company expects to put through this route over the year — having that number in mind going into the conversation puts you in a stronger position, rather than negotiating from scratch each time a new employee comes up.

Leave Some Budget Room for Unexpected Delays

9G crosses two agencies and involves employer cooperation, and a delay at any point can generate extra communication or resubmission costs. Beyond the standard cost blocks, it is worth budgeting some margin for the unexpected rather than cutting it exactly to the estimate — a budget with no slack gets disrupted by a single delay.

It also helps to budget AEP and 9G as separate lines rather than one combined total — this makes it clear how much each stage actually costs, and gives you an itemised reference for the next renewal or the next employee's filing.

If a company is also evaluating whether to employ a foreign hire long-term, the ongoing cost of the 9G route — the first filing plus every subsequent renewal — is worth factoring into that hiring decision, rather than looking only at the initial cost of getting the visa issued.

How Long It Takes, and How to Ask for a Real Number

AEP and 9G processing times are not a single figure and cannot be unilaterally sped up, so we do not quote fixed days. When asking for a quote, require it broken into AEP charges, 9G charges, any extra triggered items, and service fee.

Tell our team about the employee and the company, and we can give you an itemised note against the current basis. Ask for an itemised breakdown →

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