9G Visa Philippines: The 9G Work Visa and AEP Alien Employment Permit — Requirements, Timeline and Pitfalls

How to Get a 9G Visa in the Philippines: AEP First, Then 9G

Ready to apply for a 9G? Requirements, documents, process and filing help are all on Philippines 9G work visa

To be legally employed in the Philippines, a foreigner follows a two-step path — AEP then 9G — issued by two different agencies, both mandatory:

• AEP (Alien Employment Permit): issued by DOLE. It is the prerequisite for any foreigner working in the country, proving the role genuinely needs a foreign hire and that no suitable local candidate exists.
• 9G Work Visa (Pre-arranged Employment Visa): issued by the Bureau of Immigration (BI). You can only apply after you have an AEP. It ties your legal stay and right to work to a sponsoring employer.

In short: the AEP answers "can this company hire you," and the 9G answers "can you live and work here long term." Both require employer sponsorship, so it usually starts with a properly registered Philippine company as sponsor. If you are coming to invest or retire rather than be employed, the route differs — see SIRV/SRRV investor and retirement visas. The process involves newspaper postings and multiple agencies; Yixing's visa and HR services can handle it end to end.

If what you need is the 9G application itself — what to prepare and how long it takes — start with our Philippines 9G work visa page.

Step One: Getting the AEP Alien Employment Permit

The AEP is the foundation of the path and must be initiated by the employer. What DOLE really scrutinizes is the "labor market test" — proof that no qualified Filipino is available for the role. Key elements include:

• Job posting: the position typically must be publicly advertised for a period through designated channels to show no suitable local candidate was found.
• Skills transfer plan: how the foreign employee will pass knowledge to local colleagues — an important factor in approval.
• Role and qualifications match: the duties must align with the applicant's education, credentials, and experience.

Once approved, the AEP is issued as a permit card and becomes the mandatory prerequisite for the 9G. The posting's timing and format requirements are commonly overlooked, and that is where many applications stall. Yixing's expat compliance team can prepare the posting record and skills transfer plan to reduce the risk of rejection.

“No suitable local candidate” is not a DOLE house rule — it is the statutory test, and it runs to two sentences. Book One, Title II of the Labor Code of the Philippines (Presidential Decree No. 442, 1974) is headed “Employment of Non-Resident Aliens”, and Article 40 provides: “Any alien seeking admission to the Philippines for employment purposes and any domestic or foreign employer who desires to engage an alien for employment in the Philippines shall obtain an employment permit from the Department of Labor.” The second paragraph sets the condition for issuing it: “The employment permit may be issued to a non-resident alien or to the applicant employer after a determination of the non-availability of a person in the Philippines who is competent, able and willing at the time of application to perform the services for which the alien is desired.”

Break that sentence into its three adjectives and you know where the file has to do its work: competent, able and willing. An objector who can show all three at once puts your application in play. The job posting evidences that willing candidates were actually sought; the job description and credential match address competent and able; the skills transfer plan answers the unstated fourth question — how the capability stays in the Philippines. Each document maps to one word; none of them is filler.

The test predates the Labor Code by more than three decades. Section 20(a) of the Philippine Immigration Act of 1940 (Commonwealth Act No. 613), governing authorisation for prearranged-employment visas, already required: “Such authorization shall be given only on petition filed with the Commissioner of Immigration establishing that no person can be found in the Philippines willing and competent to perform the labor or service for which the immigrant is desired and that the immigrant’s admission would be beneficial to the public interest.” Eighty-odd years on, the test is word-for-word the same; only the issuing agency and the form numbers have changed. Full text: CA 613 on the Bureau of Immigration website; for the current AEP procedure, see the DOLE Bureau of Local Employment AEP page.

Step Two: 9G Visa Requirements, Process and Realistic Timeline

With the AEP in hand, you apply to the Bureau of Immigration for the 9G. A 9G typically carries a validity of 1–3 years, is renewable, and is firmly tied to the sponsoring employer. The process generally runs: a joint employer–employee filing (with the AEP and employment contract) → BI review and background checks → issuance and stamping once approved.

Typical 9G visa requirements include:

• A joint application by employer and employee, plus the employment contract;
• Company SEC / DTI registration documents and corporate income tax returns;
• Job description, local recruitment posting record, and skills transfer plan;
• Passport, ID photos, and proof of education and qualifications;
• Notarized statement of the company's workforce composition.

The exact checklist depends on BI's current rules and your case; translation, authentication, and notarization are the most time-consuming parts.

It is worth reading how the Bureau defines the 9G in its own words. Under the entry “Conversion to Pre-Arranged Employment (Commercial) Visa - Section 9(G)”, the BI Citizen’s Charter 2026 (1st Edition) states: “The 9G visa, also known as the Pre-Arranged Employment Visa, is a non-immigrant visa that allows foreign nationals to be employed by a Philippine-registered company. It is “pre-arranged” because it requires a local employer to petition for the foreign worker. This visa is mandatory for anyone holding a position in a commercial enterprise. The 9G visa is employer-specific; if you resign or change employers, your current 9G visa must be downgraded back to a tourist status before a new employer can petition you.” A district office entry puts the scope more concretely: “this service is a conversion to a 9(G) Pre-Arranged Employment Visa in the Philippines allows foreign nationals with a valid Alien Employment Permit (AEP) to transition from a tourist (9A) visa to a working visa, allowing multiple entries for one (1) to three (3) years.” The “who may avail” field on the same entry names three classes: the foreign national employed in commercial trade, the spouse, and the unmarried child below twenty-one (21) years old — the dependants question is answered in that one line.

Two structural facts you can verify in the source document. First, service entries named for “Pre-Arranged Employment / 9(g)” appear more than seventy times across the 2026 Charter, spread over the main office and the regional and satellite offices — which is why the checklist and the timeline for the same 9G differ from one office to another. Second, the overwhelming majority of those entries are classified “Highly Technical”, the top tier in the Charter’s scheme, with only a handful marked Simple.

That classification is not an adjective — it carries a statutory clock. The Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018 (Republic Act No. 11032, approved 28 May 2018) sets three tiers, which the Charter reproduces verbatim: “...shall not be longer than three (3) working days in the case of simple transactions and seven (7) working days in the case of complex transactions from the date the request and/or complete application or request was received. For applications or requests involving activities which pose danger to public health, public safety, public morals, public policy, and highly technical application, the prescribed processing time shall in no case be longer than twenty (20) working days...” The same section adds: “The maximum time prescribed above may be extended only once for the same number of days, which shall be indicated in the Citizen’s Charter.” — one extension only, of equal length, and the agency must notify the applicant in writing before the period lapses, stating the reason and the final release date. It does not promise you a visa in twenty days — time spent curing deficiencies does not count, and the Charter states the clock is tolled for system downtime, force majeure or pending third-party verification — but it gives you something to measure against. Sources: BI Citizen’s Charter 2026 1st Edition (PDF) and Republic Act No. 11032 (Official Gazette PDF).

Working Legally While You Wait: the PWP Provisional Work Permit

The AEP and 9G together take a while to process, so can an employee start work during the wait? Yes — but they need a PWP (Provisional Work Permit). It is a bridging document during 9G processing, letting a foreign employee work legally before the formal visa is granted and closing the gap between "person on the ground" and "visa still in progress." The PWP is temporary and still resolves to a formal 9G — in practice, many companies build their onboarding timeline around it. Whether a PWP is needed and how it dovetails with the AEP/9G timeline is best coordinated by a professional consultant to avoid crossing the "working without a permit" line.

After You Arrive: ACR I-Card and Biometrics

Getting the 9G is not the end of the paperwork. Foreigners staying long term must also obtain an ACR I-Card (Alien Certificate of Registration Identity Card) and complete biometrics capture (fingerprints and photo). The ACR I-Card is the physical proof of your legal residence status, frequently needed for bank account opening, immigration clearance, and renewals. It goes hand in hand with the 9G and cannot be skipped. Only when the AEP, 9G, PWP, and ACR I-Card are sequenced in the right order and at the right time is an expat employee truly set up in full compliance.

See also: Dependent Visa Age Limit in the Philippines; A "Second Home" Is Not Immigration; SSS Maternity Benefit in the Philippines; My Employer Did Not Pay 13th Month Pay.

See also: 9A Cost and Timeline.

See also: 9g revocation versus cancellation.

See also: Can a 9G Be Filed During Probation.

See also: deportation consequences.

See also: philippines blacklist reasons.

See also: Philippines exclusion blacklist.

See also: Visa Application Form.

Renewals, Changing Employers, and How Yixing Helps

A 9G is not "set and forget." A few rules matter, or you risk illegal stay or illegal work:

• Renew before expiry: renew the 9G ahead of expiration and update the AEP before it lapses — keep both timelines aligned.
• Invalid on job change; must be redone: the 9G is bound to the sponsoring employer. Leave for a new company and the old 9G becomes invalid — the new employer must apply for a fresh AEP and 9G. You cannot carry the visa to a new job.
• Do not work on a tourist visa: this is a violation and can lead to fines, blacklisting, or deportation.

“You cannot carry the visa to a new job” has a statutory source, and the penalty clause is harder than most people assume. Article 41 of the Labor Code (PD 442) is headed “Prohibition against transfer of employment”: “After the issuance of an employment permit, the alien shall not transfer to another job or change his employer without prior approval of the Secretary of Labor.” The same article closes: “In addition, the alien worker shall be subject to deportation after service of his sentence.” — deportation follows after the sentence has been served, not instead of it. On the immigration side there is a matching hook: Section 37(a)(7) of CA 613 lists as a ground for deportation “An alien who remains in the Philippines in violation of any limitation or condition under which he was admitted as a nonimmigrant” — holding a 9G while not actually working for the sponsoring employer sits squarely inside that wording.

These steps are sensitive to timing and document continuity — one gap can disrupt an employee's work. Yixing, based in Makati, can manage the whole chain — AEP posting and skills transfer plan, 9G documents, PWP bridging, ACR I-Card, and renewals — and coordinate it alongside company registration so your sponsoring entity and work permits line up. Whether you are posting your first employee or handling several at once, start with a free consultation and let our visa and HR consultants map out your timeline and checklist.

Two follow-on reads: how long a 9G actually takes, stage by stage, and what has to happen when an employee changes employer — the step most companies discover too late.

The 9G's weakness is that your status hangs on your employer. For the other four routes and what they cost, see Philippines immigration requirements and the five routes compared.

If your 9(g) currently sits with a company you do not genuinely work for, the risk profile is entirely different — a single filing by that company removes your status the same day. On the three forms these arrangements take and four routes back to compliance, see 9G visa affiliation in the Philippines: risks and legal routes.