The SIRV Checklist of Things People Skip

Group one: four things to do before the money moves

What these share: done now they cost a few conversations, done later they cost re-arranging an asset that has already landed.

One: say which arrangement you mean. The umbrella phrase covers several differently-administered things, and discovering deep into a conversation that the two sides meant different things is the standard opening failure here. See which arrangement people actually mean.

Two: form before amount. The same sum in different forms can produce opposite conclusions, and no amount converts a non-qualifying form into a qualifying one. Establish what the money becomes, in whose name it is held, whether it can be exited and under what restrictions.

Three: draw the funding path. Which account, which bank, in whose name, into what vehicle. If it cannot be drawn, or participants draw it differently, the arrangement has not been designed — which means this is not the moment to remit, it is the moment to finish the diagram.

Four: check your own record first. Past refusals, overstays and required departures, plus whether your name is spelled consistently and whether old passport numbers are still on hand. Checked at the front this costs almost nothing; discovered on filing day, the asset has long since landed.

All four sit before the money moves — the only place on this route where checking genuinely saves money. Ask a consultant to verify against current rules →

Group two: three things around filing

Five: go to the right office. The published entry specifies the Makati Immigration Extension Office, not the main office in Intramuros, Manila. Do not expect a separate provincial window; confirm the current receiving arrangement before travelling rather than after landing.

Six: the endorsement must be the original, and must not be damaged. It is stamped twice on the route — on the face after the record check clears, and on the reverse during internal processing. Copies and scans cannot carry those stamps, and folding across the stamping area causes the same trouble.

Seven: confirm document status against current requirements. The passport must scan cleanly for the payment slip, with a legible data page and ample remaining validity. The National ID Card Number requirement comes from Memorandum No. 2025-122 and is absent from older guides; where its status is uncertain, ask in advance rather than substituting another document.

The full nine-step route is in the nine-step route and the two checks.

Planning the timing: three variables, not a day count

Time on this route should be managed with three variables rather than a total. No promised day counts appear here; agency-side durations follow published entries and current arrangements, and a total has no general answer at all.

Variable one: document validity. Many evidentiary documents run from the date of issue and expire during the wait if obtained too early. So acquisition is reverse-planned: find the shortest-lived document, place it nearest to filing, and arrange the rest ahead of it. That rule alone saves a round of rework.

Variable two: the lawful stay remaining on your current status. The process spans two agencies, and an insufficient stay forces you mid-way into handling something unrelated to the investment — mishandled, it leaves a record, and records are what gets checked later. The Charter sets explicit remaining-stay requirements on some residence transactions, which shows the timetables interlock.

Variable three: the parallel time dependants add. A spouse and minor children are generally separate applications, each adding a document set and an acquisition period that must be aligned into the same window rather than queued behind yours.

And one reminder: the deciding-and-funding stretch is usually the longest, and it is entirely yours. Anyone quoting a total without asking when your funds will be in place has invented the number. On classifying money and time, see three kinds of money, three stretches of time.

How to judge who to listen to: three checkable things, not a list

The answer to “who should I use” should not come from any list, including ours. This route asks you to move money to another country first, so a method beats a name every time.

Three checkable things. Formal registration details that you can verify yourself. An accreditation number matching the business, obtained and then verified by you rather than recited to you. And whether the contracting party, the receipt issuer and the receiving account carry exactly the same name — any mismatch stops you here, however reasonable the explanation.

Three warning signals. Any guarantee about outcomes or day counts: those who can do the work do not need to promise, and those who promise often cannot. Describing the two steps that published entries assign to the Board of Investments liaison as “we handle it directly” — at minimum ask which specific action is meant. And refusing to itemise a quote: principal, agency fees, service fees and third-party costs differ entirely in character, and merging them into one figure is itself a signal.

One further test, unrelated to who is “best” but more useful: whether the other side is willing to say “that follows current publications, let me verify and come back to you”. People who say that are usually more reliable than people who answer everything instantly.

On what an agency can and cannot do for you, see the boundaries of SIRV agency service; on documentary checks and contract terms, see how to check an agency. This article names no competitor and rates none.

Verify registration, accreditation and the three matching names yourself, and you need no list at all. Ask a consultant to verify against current rules →

Group three: three things after the grant

Eight: write down the obligations and their timings. Holding the status brings periodic reporting, declarations on investment changes and document renewals, on whatever items and timings currently apply; confirm before acting. Do this on the day the status is granted, not when a reminder arrives.

Nine: ask before you change something, not after. Divestment, reduction, closure and switching projects all bear on status, and the consequences belong in the design of the investment structure. See what happens to status afterwards.

Ten: treat document custody as real work. File the original endorsement, the copy of the approved order, receipts and remittance records in date order. The passport passes through different hands during the process, so agree in advance when it is handed over and returned, and keep a record of each handover — a passport out of your hands for long stretches is itself a risk to manage.

Ten items in one sentence: every expensive mistake on this route was skipped at the exact moment when doing it would have been cheap. To run the ten against your own case, talk to the Yixing visa and HR team. Yixing is a Chinese-language consultancy registered in Makati, Philippines, holding SEC registration CS202009551 and Bureau of Immigration accreditation CA-202624381-1. We are not affiliated with any government agency and make no representation about approval outcomes; consult a licensed attorney on your own matter. This article draws on published items such as the 2026 Bureau of Immigration Citizen’s Charter. Qualifying investment forms, thresholds and current acceptance status follow whatever the Board of Investments and the Bureau of Immigration publish at the time; no figures are given here.