Letting Someone Work Before the Permit Is Issued: What the Company Carries

Labour side: filing deadline, unpermitted employment, reporting

The filing deadline. The application is filed within 15 calendar days of the employment contract or appointment letter, and late filing is itself penalised. "Internal approval is still running" does not move the clock, which starts at signing.

Unpermitted employment. Non-resident aliens require an employment permit under Article 40, and the permit binds person, position and employer, so a change of either generally means re-applying.

Ongoing reporting. A quarterly list of foreign employees within 30 calendar days of each quarter's end, plus reports of changes to company name, address, worksite, separation or cessation of business within 10 calendar days. A list that does not match actual headcount is itself a lead.

The overall framework is in employing foreign nationals in the Philippines.

Immigration side: petitioner status and the duty to cancel

A 9G is a pre-arranged employment visa, so the company is both petitioner and sponsor, and that relationship does not dissolve when the employee leaves.

After separation the employer has cancellation and closing duties, and skipping them carries derivative exposure — see the duty to cancel. Since the 3 September 2026 announcement, cancellation, card reprinting and agency accreditation go to a designated mailbox using a prescribed subject format.

One overlooked moment is card release: under Department Order No. 248, series of 2025, not claiming the card within 10 working days of the issuance notice without valid reason, or not submitting pre-release documents, is a listed ground for cancellation. Leaving the card uncollected manufactures a ground against yourself.

Nobody owns the list, the cancellations or the quarterly filings — that is the usual source of company-side risk → have Yixing run a foreign-workforce compliance check

Tax and contributions: payroll leaves the trail

Unpermitted employment is not invisible — quite the opposite. Payroll expense, withholding and the three contribution registrations each record that this person exists.

The permit file itself requires the worker's tax identification evidence, so the compliant route and tax registration are interlocked. Paying salary while bypassing the permit simply opens a gap between two sets of records.

Employer-side contributions are in how SSS contributions work; common payroll errors in the five payroll traps.

How inspections usually start

Complaints. Labour disputes, dismissed employees and competitors all trigger them — see how complaints work.

On-site inspection. Assessment may include personal appearance, a clarification conference, or inspection of the premises and the worksite, which is where deployment structures break — see when the worksite is not the employer's address.

Ratio computation. Ratio and understudy requirements follow actual deployment — see ratio and understudy rules.

The next filing. Renewal, new filings, cancellations — any of them put the company's history back on the table.

If it has already happened, fix it in this order

Stop the bleeding. Halt anything still growing and list the people, positions and dates. Without that list every later decision is guesswork.

Separate the fixable from the not. Where a contract is signed but nothing filed, assess the lateness against the 15 calendar day window from the contract date; where nothing is signed, sequence publication and signing properly — publication at least 15 days before filing, valid 45 days.

Use the formal channel. Since 3 September 2026 the four application types are portal-only, and under zero contact questions and clarifications go through the designated channel — see the 2026 online filing rules.

Bring in counsel where penalties or characterisation are involved. A consultancy straightens documents, timelines and routes; defence belongs to licensed counsel. The employee's exposure is in working without a permit.

Written against rules published as of September 2026; timelines and fees follow whatever the receiving agency currently publishes. Yixing is a privately registered Philippine consultancy (SEC CS202009551, BI CA-202624381-1) with no affiliation to any government agency; this is not legal advice.