What Does an SRRV Actually Cost? The 4 Blocks Behind a Philippines Retirement Visa Price, and Why No One Quotes a Single Total

Philippines Retirement Visa Cost: Why No One Quotes You a Single Number Up Front

Straight answer: nobody can hand you one total before they know your situation, and this page deliberately contains no figures at all. There are two reasons, and neither of them is a sales tactic.

Reason one: the official parameters are not ours to fix. Age thresholds, the form the deposit takes, and the annual-fee basis are whatever the Philippine Retirement Authority (PRA) currently publishes. Different sources have circulated different versions of these in recent years, so before you file, have our team confirm the current basis for your own case. Anything hard-coded into a web page becomes wrong the day the agency adjusts it, and you would be planning a capital transfer around a stale number.

Reason two: the number of line items depends on you. Two people applying for the same visa can face checklists that differ by several items. Are you applying alone, or with dependants? Every additional dependant duplicates a whole set of medical, police and relationship documents. Have you been in the Philippines more than 30 days since your last admission? That adds an NBI clearance, although the Bureau of Immigration's 2026 First Edition Citizen's Charter expressly exempts applicants aged 70 and above from NBI. Have you overstayed by more than 6 months? That adds a tourist visa extension order. Were your civil documents issued abroad rather than by the Philippine Statistics Authority? Then apostille enters the picture.

So the useful question is not "what does it cost" but "which items does my situation trigger, who sets each one, and which lines are pass-through". This page breaks the money into 4 blocks: the principal (which is not a fee at all), government charges, third-party costs, and the cost of holding and exiting. What the visa actually is and who it suits is covered separately in the full SRRV guide; to have each line checked against the current basis, talk to Yixing's visa and HR team.

One boundary is worth drawing here, because this route is constantly confused with it: Philippine law has no such thing as a "green card". What Chinese-speaking readers call a green card or permanent residency is at least 4 different things under different agencies: immigrant visas under CA 613 (the 1940 immigration act) issued by the BI Legal Division, such as 13(A), 13(G) and Section 13 quota immigrant visas; the SRRV, recommended by the PRA and implemented by the BI; the SIRV, endorsed by the Board of Investments and implemented by the BI; and naturalisation, which is not with immigration at all but with the courts. Their requirements do not transfer between routes — see what a "Philippine green card" actually means and the four permanent residency routes. Two claims must also be put to rest: buying property does not come with residency — a purchase in the Philippines confers no immigration status of any kind, see whether buying property grants status; and a long-term status does not automatically carry the right to work — employment rights depend on what the visa category itself carries.

Tell our team your age bracket, whether dependants are joining, and your current stay status, and you can get an itemised breakdown against the current basis. Ask for an itemised breakdown →

Block One: The Principal Is Not a Fee — Separate It With 3 Questions

The most expensive misunderstanding on this route is treating the principal as a cost. The sum that sits inside the retirement programme is your own capital held in a designated place under conditions. A fee leaves your hands permanently; the principal does not. Adding the two together produces a frightening number that means nothing, and it is the single most common reason people abandon the idea before they have understood it.

There is a hard piece of corroboration for this. In the Bureau of Immigration's 2026 First Edition Citizen's Charter, the conversion-to-SRRV checklist runs to 6 standard items, and this one appears as "inward remitted SRRV deposit / proof of investment". Its status on the list is evidence — proof that the money was remitted and is in place. It is not a payment receipt. The steps where money actually changes hands sit elsewhere in the process flow, which tells you the charter itself treats these as two different things.

Three questions separate principal from fee, and they work on any quote you are handed:

• Can it move? Is it locked for the holding period, or convertible into another form under defined conditions? That belongs to whether the deposit can be withdrawn or converted and is not repeated here.
• Who holds it? Whose name is it in, where does it sit, who can dispose of it. If anyone asks you to send this money to a personal account or to an agency's own account, that is one of the hardest red flags there is — stop. Where the principal sits is not a negotiable detail.
• How does it come back? On what conditions and through which steps does it return when you exit. That belongs to exiting the programme and recovering the deposit.

If a quotation has not pulled the principal onto its own line and stated whose name it will be held in, you are not looking at a quotation. You are looking at a total.

Block Two: Government Charges — Set by the Agencies, and This Route Crosses Two of Them

Block two is statutory charges, and their defining feature is that they are set by the agency, published through official channels, and attach to the transaction rather than to the person. The same transaction costs the same whoever files it. There is no negotiating room here and no such thing as a "contact price". If someone offers you a discount on this block, that is not a discount — it is something else, and you should treat it as a warning.

What makes the SRRV unusual is that it crosses two agencies. The PRA assesses you and your funds and issues an endorsement letter; the Bureau of Immigration implements the visa. Each side has its own schedule of charges, so ask about them separately rather than asking for one government total.

The BI leg carries a rule most applicants never hear. Under the 2026 First Edition Citizen's Charter, the 5 SRRV-related BI transactions — conversion, re-stamping, revalidation, cancellation, and cancellation with downgrading — are all handled by the Legal Division, all classified as G2G (Government to Government), and the "who may avail" column names PRA Liaison Officers responsible for endorsing complete applications to BI. In other words, the immigration leg is not something you or your agency files over a counter. It is one government office dealing with another.

The charter also spells out the payment sequence: you obtain an Order of Payment Slip at the Central Receiving Unit (Windows 17–18, 20 and 26, Ground Floor, BI Main Office), an assessor assesses the fees for your transaction, the slip is issued, and only then is payment made. Assess, then issue, then pay — that ordering is itself the answer to "why can't you just tell me the number". The charter records the amount column as "standard fees" and leaves the figures to be published separately, current at the time you file.

How the two legs sequence against each other is covered in the two-stage order of PRA and BI.

Block Three: Third-Party Costs — Medicals, Police Clearances, Apostilles, and One Full Set per Dependant

Block three goes neither to the government nor to your agency; it goes to third parties, and it is the block people forget, because it is scattered across several steps and often across two countries. It is also the main reason two applicants for the same visa spend different amounts.

Reading the conversion checklist in the 2026 First Edition Citizen's Charter, these are the third-party items:

• Medical clearance. The charter requires it to come from a PRA-accredited hospital or clinic, and it is valid for 6 months from the date of issuance. Not any clinic will do, which removes the option of choosing whichever one is nearest or cheapest.
• Police clearance. The charter requires it from your country of residence, again valid 6 months from issuance. The issuing fee, the running around, and the authentication that follows all sit in this block.
• NBI clearance. Required if you have stayed in the Philippines for over 30 days from your last date of admission, with an express exemption for applicants aged 70 and above. What it is and how it works: the NBI clearance explained.
• Authentication and translation of foreign documents. A joining spouse files a marriage certificate and a joining child a birth certificate — PSA-issued where applicable, apostilled from the issuing country otherwise. Apostille happens at home, on your home country's timetable and at its prices, entirely outside Philippine control.
• Dependants. This is the multiplier. Each additional dependant broadly repeats the set above. It is not a small surcharge; it is a copy per person.

The right way to ask about this block is to insist that pass-through and service fee be listed separately. Anything paid on your behalf to an agency or a third party should have a matching receipt; if it cannot be matched, it was not pass-through. Which documents and in what order: the document checklist and where each side is filed.

Block Four: What It Costs to Hold and to Leave — the Part Most Quotes Skip

Block four starts after the visa is issued. It is not part of "what does it cost to get", but it follows you for years, and a quotation written to win the first transaction usually says nothing about it.

Holding. The route carries an annual maintenance obligation. The basis for the annual fee is whatever the PRA currently publishes, and this page does not state amounts. What you actually need to know in advance is not the figure but what happens if it goes unpaid. It is not a simple matter of catching up later: arrears pull in notices, a change of standing, and a restoration process that requires extra steps. That chain belongs to annual fee arrears and reinstatement, and it is worth reading before you commit to a long-term plan.

Two smaller items also get missed. First, passport renewal: when you get a new passport book, the implementation sticker has to be re-stamped into it. The charter lists this as "re-stamping", classifies it as Simple, and routes it G2G through a PRA Liaison Officer. It is not a fresh application, but it is a real cost. Second, the annual obligations attached to your identity card rather than to the visa: what the ACR I-Card is.

Exiting. The charter splits the exit into 2 different transactions, and the dividing line is where you physically are. Holders applying to cancel while outside the Philippines go through "cancellation"; holders applying while inside the Philippines go through "cancellation with downgrading". Both require a PRA endorsement letter bearing the "No Derogatory Record" stamp, both sit with the Legal Division, and both are G2G. How the principal comes back and what it passes through: the exit and deposit-return process.

Only once block four is on the page can you judge whether this route is worth it over your intended horizon, rather than knowing only what year one demands.

How to Ask So You Actually Get a Number: 4 Demands and 5 Phrases That Should Stop You

Getting a real number is not about pressing harder for a total. It is about reshaping the question so it can only be answered line by line. Any firm that has genuinely run this route can meet the 4 demands below. A firm that cannot, most likely has not run it.

• Demand one: itemise, no all-in price. At minimum, split into the principal, PRA-side charges, BI-side charges, third-party costs (medical, police clearance, authentication and translation), and the service fee. The principal gets its own line and is never folded into a total.
• Demand two: mark which lines are pass-through. Pass-through means paid on your behalf to an agency or third party and backed by a matching receipt; a service fee is what the firm charges for its own work. Blended together, neither can be checked nor refunded. How agency fee structures are built: the anatomy of an agency quotation.
• Demand three: the contracting entity and the receiving account must be the same name. A payee that differs from the party signing your contract is the single hardest red flag on this list. Ask for an Official Receipt in the company's name, matching the contracting entity.
• Demand four: ask for the accreditation number and check it. A BI Accreditation No. is something you are entitled to ask for and verify. How to run that verification yourself: vetting a retirement-visa agency and how to choose a visa agency.

Five phrases that should stop you, every one of them a red flag: (1) "all-inclusive fixed price" — this route crosses 2 agencies plus multiple third parties, so nothing can be all-inclusive; (2) any language that fixes the outcome in advance, such as guaranteed approval — no private firm decides what an agency decides, and no one can promise it; (3) "we can't break it down" — anyone who has done it can; (4) instructions to send the principal to a personal or company account; (5) a payee name that does not match the contract. If money has already changed hands and gone wrong, see recovering money from an agency. For individual disputes consult a practising lawyer; this article is not legal advice.

Send us your situation and we will confirm the current basis and give you a four-block itemised note. Ask for an itemised breakdown →

Yixing is a private consultancy with no government affiliation. SEC Registration No. CS202009551; BI Accreditation No. CA-202624381-1 (valid to 2027-06-30); DOLE accreditation; PRA accreditation.