Re-entry Permit and Special Return Certificate (SRC) in the Philippines: Who Needs Which Before Flying Out, and How to Get It

Who Needs a Re-entry Permit and Who Needs an SRC: Sorted by Visa Class

The rule is by visa class, not by how long you have lived here: immigrant visas travel on a Re-entry Permit, long-stay non-immigrant visas travel on a Special Return Certificate, tourists get neither, and SRRV retirees are exempt.

The Bureau of Immigration put it in one sentence when it reminded departing residents to file: foreign nationals registered with the BI, holding valid immigrant and non-immigrant visas, including permanent residents, foreign students and workers with valid ACR I-Cards, are mandated to obtain exit and re-entry permits for each departure from the country. Here is how that sentence maps onto the visas people actually hold.

• Re-entry Permit (RP): immigrant class. The 13A visa by marriage (probationary and permanent), the 13 quota visa, the 13E returning resident, the 13G returning former natural-born Filipino, and the Permanent Resident Visa. The Charter's own wording for extensions is Re-entry Permit for ACR I-Card-based registered aliens with permanent resident visas.
• Special Return Certificate (SRC): non-immigrant long-stay class. The 9G pre-arranged employment visa, the 9F student visa (the Charter lists an ECC with SRC for Section 9F students), the 9D treaty trader or investor visa, the Temporary Resident Visa (TRV), and the 47(a)(2) special non-immigrant visa for PEZA and BOI enterprises, which follows a paper-based version of the process described later. Similar long-term non-immigrant categories follow the same logic; confirm at filing.
• Neither: 9A temporary visitors. A tourist has no status to preserve. Leaving ends the stay, and a tourist who has stayed six months or more needs an ECC-A instead, covered in the ECC guide. Coming back means being admitted as a new visitor.
• Exempt: SRRV holders. The Philippine Retirement Authority lists exemption from the Bureau's exit and re-entry permits among SRRV privileges, together with multiple entry and indefinite stay. Carry the PRA ID and confirm current guidance before each trip; the retirement visa itself is explained in the SRRV guide.

Dependents take the class of the principal: the spouse and children on a 9G travel on SRCs; the family of a 13A holder on RPs. Minors are issued a Certificate of Exemption (CE-B) in place of the ECC-B, still with the RP or SRC attached.

One thing this document is not: a multiple-entry visa. That confusion, and the three instruments people mix up, is untangled in the multiple-entry visa guide. If you are unsure which class you are in, your ACR I-Card states the visa type; Yixing's visa team can read it with you before you book.

How It Pairs With the ECC-B: One Receipt, Two Functions, Annual Report Attached

You do not file two applications. The Bureau issues the exit clearance and the return document together as one receipt, and the online version checks your annual report at the same time.

The Charter's definition is worth quoting because it settles most arguments: the ECC-B or CE with RP/SRC is issued to those who have an immigrant or non-immigrant visa with a valid ACR I-Card and are leaving the country temporarily. It is a single-use receipt that also serves as Re-entry Permit for immigrants and Special Return Certificate for non-immigrants, and is valid for one year or six months.

Read that as two functions on one piece of paper:

• The ECC-B half is the exit clearance. It certifies that a registered foreign national leaving temporarily has no derogatory record and no unsettled obligation with the Bureau. What an ECC is, the ECC-A for tourists, and who is caught by the six-month rule are all in the ECC guide and are not repeated here.
• The RP or SRC half is the return document. It records, against your ACR I-Card, that you left with the Bureau's knowledge and may re-enter on the same status within the validity window.

Who may avail, in the Charter's words: holders of a valid ACR I-Card, except temporary visitor visa I-Cards and those exempt from registration, who are free from derogatory records and are departing for a temporary sojourn abroad but intend to return. Every word does work. A tourist I-Card does not qualify. An expired I-Card does not qualify. A derogatory hit routes you to the Certification and Clearance Section before anything is issued. And the phrase intend to return is why the Bureau treats a departure without this receipt as a signal that you might not.

The online transaction is named ECC-B/RP/SRC with AR Compliance. The system checks whether your annual report for the current year has been filed. If it has not, expect the system to stop you until the report is settled, which is why the annual report deadline early in the year matters for anyone planning to travel; the mechanics are in the annual report guide.

What you carry is the official receipt, on paper or as the emailed electronic version, showing the ECC or CE-B number and the RP/SRC number and validity. The departure officer checks it; the arrival officer, on your return, checks the RP/SRC record in the system against your passport and ACR I-Card. Keep the receipt until you are back and through immigration.

Single Use, One Year or Six Months: What the Validity Actually Means

The receipt is single-use and the return window is either one year or six months; which one you get follows your travel record, and the window has nothing to do with your visa's own validity.

Single-use. One receipt covers one departure. The Commissioner's reminder says each departure, and the Charter calls it a single-use receipt. If you fly out in March and again in July, you file twice. Older guides and some agents still talk about multiple-use re-entry permits; the current Charter's ACR I-Card-based transaction does not describe one, so plan per trip and confirm at filing if you are told otherwise.

One year or six months. The Charter's fee schedule explains the split without any need to quote figures: the assessment of the re-entry permit or special return certificate depends on the traveller's record, a one-year assessment for the first travel in the year and a six-month assessment for subsequent travels within the year. In plain terms, your first trip of the year is typically issued with a one-year return window and later trips in the same year with a six-month window.

What the window means. It is the period within which you must re-enter to be admitted on your existing status. It is not your visa validity, not your ACR I-Card validity and not your passport validity. Three separate clocks run while you are abroad, and the one people forget is this one. How to read all three, and what to do if one runs out while you are away, is the subject of the visa-expired-while-abroad guide.

Extending it from abroad. The Charter has a dedicated transaction, ACR I-Card-based Extension of RP or SRC, for permanent or temporary residents who departed with an expiring or expired RP or SRC and intend to return. A representative in Manila files: a request letter addressed to the Commissioner through the Chief of the Alien Registration Division, a copy of your ACR I-Card, your passport bio page with the latest departure and arrival stamps, a copy of the official receipt of your RP/SRC/ECC payment, and either a BI accreditation ID or a Special Power of Attorney with the representative's government ID. An already-expired RP/SRC carries a motion-for-reconsideration component on top of the extension. Six-month and one-year extensions are both available under the Bureau's current schedule.

What it does not cure. For immigrants, the separate rule on continuous absence, and how a long stay abroad can put permanent residence itself in question, is dealt with in the absence-limit guide; a valid RP is necessary but is not the whole story.

Where to Get It: e-Services Online, a BI Counter, or the Airport

Three channels exist: the e-Services portal around the clock, any BI office during working hours, and the airport one-stop shop as a last resort. Paper-based ACR holders have a fourth, slower path.

Online (e-Services). Requirements per the Charter: a copy of your valid ACR I-Card, your valid passport, a registered email and a registered e-Services account. Log in, choose Emigration Clearance Certificate-B, read the pop-up and click Proceed, complete the required fields and submit. The system validates first; in the Charter's words, visa and ACR I-Card must be valid and active to proceed, and if either has expired an automated pop-up tells you to renew the card or update the visa before continuing. Card renewal is covered in the ACR I-Card renewal guide. You then pay through the third-party gateway (Landbank Link.Biz or Maya) and the system runs the eligibility check. Without issue, an Approved email arrives with the official receipt showing the ECC or CE with RP/SRC number and validity. With a namesake issue that the Certification and Clearance Section clears, the same email arrives after a short manual check. With an issue not cleared, you receive For Compliance and instructions to obtain a Certificate of Not the Same Person at the CCS; certificates issued before 2017 are not accepted by the system. The end product is a system-generated email containing the electronic ECC-B with RP/SRC and the receipt.

Counter. Bring the ECC application form (BI Form 2015-08-001), a photocopy of your ACR I-Card front and back, and photocopies of your passport bio page, the visa implementation page and your latest stamp. At the Main Office the Certificate Section windows receive the form, run the derogatory check, assess and issue an Order of Payment Slip; you pay at the cashier; the receipt is encoded with the ECC/CE-B number and the RP/SRC validity and released to you. The Charter's total is about half an hour. The Bureau's reminder says any BI office nationwide can process it, and that NAIA terminals, including a 24-hour one-stop shop at Terminal 3, can do it at the departure area. Treat the airport as insurance, not a plan; a namesake hit at the airport is a missed flight.

Paper-based ACR holders, chiefly 47(a)(2) visa holders of PEZA and BOI enterprises: the Charter describes a manual SRC with ECC-B, requiring the BI form, the paper ACR, the DOJ indorsement for the 47(a)(2), passport copies, photographs, the SSRN and manual fingerprinting at the Biometrics Section, with a processing time counted in working days. Book this well ahead of the flight. The status itself is explained in the 47(a)(2) guide, and what it means for BPO employees on that visa in the BPO language specialist guide.

Tourists reading this by mistake: your online lane is different. See extending a tourist visa online.

Timing Before the Flight: A Sequence That Does Not Fail

Work backwards from the flight in four checkpoints, and the receipt will never be the reason you miss a plane.

Thirty days out: check the three expiry dates and the annual report. Your visa, your ACR I-Card and your passport should all outlast the trip; the online lane refuses an expired card or visa outright. If the card expires while you are away, renew it before leaving. If your visa or its extension is being processed and the visa will lapse while you are abroad, ask the Bureau about the Interim Extension (grace period) service, which the Charter describes for holders of TRV, treaty trader, pre-arranged employment and special working visas whose application or extension is still in process beyond the validity of the visa. Confirm that the annual report for the year has been filed; the online transaction checks it.

Fourteen days out: file online. Most clean files are approved the same day. If the response is For Compliance, you now have two weeks to visit the Certification and Clearance Section for the Certificate of Not the Same Person, which is the one step that cannot be rushed at an airport.

Seven days out: counter fallback. If the portal is down, your card was recently renewed and not yet reflected, or you are paper-based, go to a BI office with the form and copies. Provincial offices and satellite offices are usually faster than the Main Office for this transaction.

The day before: print. Print the approval email or receipt, carry your ACR I-Card, and keep both with your passport. At departure the officer checks the ECC-B and the RP/SRC; on return the officer records the re-entry against the RP/SRC number. Keep the receipt until you are back inside.

Two situations that change the sequence. If your passport is renewed while abroad, your visa and RP/SRC are recorded against the old passport number; carry the old passport with the new one and expect a re-stamping or revalidation transaction at the Bureau after you return. If your 9G is still being implemented and your passport is with the Bureau, none of this applies yet; the stage-by-stage answer is in leaving while a 9G is being processed.

A cross-check that costs nothing: before booking, ask your HR, school liaison or accredited filer which class you are in and whether anything on the file (a pending amendment, an unpaid annual report, an expiring card) would stop the online lane. Under the Bureau's current rules the answer is usually simple; it is the exceptions that cost people flights.

Leaving Without It, and Travelling While a Conversion Is Pending

Leaving without the receipt does not cancel your visa on the spot, but it removes the Bureau's record that you meant to come back, and that is what creates trouble at re-entry and later. Travelling while a conversion is pending depends entirely on which status the system currently sees.

Leaving without it. For an immigrant, departing without a Re-entry Permit means the return is examined against the absence rules, and a long absence can put the residence itself in question; the rule and the recovery route are in the absence-limit guide and are not repeated here. For a 9G or 9F holder, departing without an SRC means the officer on return has no record preserving the status; the common outcome is admission as a temporary visitor, after which the employer or school has to work with the Bureau to restore the position. Because the ECC-B is issued on the same receipt, leaving without it also means leaving without exit clearance, which can be raised at the departure counter. If you are already abroad and realise the receipt was never obtained or has expired, the representative route in the validity section above, and the wider recovery sequence in the visa-expired-while-abroad guide, are the way back.

Pending conversion, case by case.

• Tourist to 9G, application pending. You are still a tourist in the system, so there is no SRC to obtain; the questions are who holds your passport and whether leaving is read as abandonment at that stage. That is a different article: the 9G-in-process guide.
• 9G to 13A, or probationary 13A to permanent, application pending. The online lane issues according to the status currently recorded on your ACR I-Card, so a valid 9G traveller gets an SRC and a probationary 13A holder gets an RP. The Charter's Interim Extension service explicitly covers probationary immigrants by marriage whose amendment to permanent resident is still in process, which is the tool if the underlying visa would lapse mid-trip. The conversion itself is explained in the 9G to 13A guide.
• Any pending filing where you need proof. The Bureau issues a Pending Visa Application Certification at the Main Office confirming that a visa application is under process. It reassures an airline or an embassy abroad; it is not a return document and does not replace the RP or SRC.

The rule that survives every case: ask the Bureau, or your accredited filer, before you book, not at the departure counter. Yixing files these transactions under BI Accreditation No. CA-202624381-1 and is registered with the SEC (CS202009551); we cannot promise how an officer will rule on a borderline file, only that the file will be complete. This article is general information under the Bureau's current rules and not legal advice; for a contested status, consult a practising lawyer.