Philippines SRRV Cost 2026: Deposits and Fees

Key takeaways

The cheapest Classic deposit is USD 15,000, and it only exists for pensioners aged 50 and over. PRA's own table sets four Classic tiers: USD 15,000 and USD 25,000 for pensioners aged 50-plus and 40 to 49, USD 30,000 and USD 50,000 for non-pensioners in the same two bands. There is no USD 10,000 tier and no Smile option on it.

The deposit is not the cost. The fees are. A USD 1,500 processing fee, USD 300 per joining dependent and USD 360 a year in PRA annual fees are non-refundable; the visa deposit is released when membership is terminated. Ten years as a single Classic retiree is about USD 5,100 in fees against a USD 15,000 deposit you still own.

A lifetime pension is worth USD 15,000 to USD 25,000 off the deposit, and the qualifying threshold is USD 800 a month single or USD 1,000 a month with dependents. A USD 950 pension clears it alone and fails it the moment a spouse joins, which moves the deposit from USD 15,000 to USD 30,000.

Putting the deposit into a condominium needs a property worth at least USD 50,000. On a 50-plus pensioner's USD 15,000 that is 30% of the price, and PRA's pre-selling checklist allows the deposit to cover the final payment only, with the outstanding balance no larger than the deposit. Two official PRA documents word the USD 50,000 floor differently; we flag it below.

Leaving has a published price, and it is the figure missing from every comparison page. Cancelling an SRRV costs USD 10 plus PHP 1,000 per member; downgrading to a temporary visitor's visa costs USD 10 plus PHP 5,520. PRA's own worked example totals USD 20 and PHP 6,520, about USD 122 at the reference rate we used.

On this page

Every figure below is attached to the PRA page or form that states it, because the gap on this programme is not the headline deposit, which several guides now get right: it is the fee schedule either side of it, and the conditions attached to the one option everyone advertises. PRA's SRRVisa page is the source for deposits, the processing fee and the annual fees; the servicing-request schedule for conversion, cancellation and re-stamping and what each costs; the two October 2022 conversion checklists for the property rules; PRA's accredited-banks page for the wire charges; the Bureau of Immigration's visa list for what the Philippines does and does not call a golden visa. This site's renderer does not emit heading anchors, so the list below is a map rather than jump links.

• What the Philippines SRRV cost is before the deposit
• The deposit is the big number and you get it back
• A pension is worth more than fifteen years of age
• Turning the deposit into a condominium needs USD 50,000
• What it costs to leave the programme
• The bank charges and the duties that outlive the application
• How the Philippines SRRV cost compares in the region
• What to check before you remit anything

What the Philippines SRRV cost is before the deposit

Start with the money that does not come back, because it is the only part of the Philippines SRRV cost that is a cost in the ordinary sense. PRA lists a processing fee of USD 1,500 for the principal applicant, USD 300 for each joining dependent, and an annual fee payable on joining and every year after that for as long as you hold the visa.

The annual fee is where the programme is unusually generous, and almost every page misses why. It covers the principal and up to two dependents in one payment:

So a spouse costs USD 300 once and nothing per year. Run it out over a decade and the shape of the programme appears: one Classic pensioner pays USD 1,500 plus ten annual fees of USD 360, which is USD 5,100. A couple pays USD 5,400 over the same ten years, because the second person adds a single USD 300 application fee and sits inside the USD 360.

A family of four is the case where the arithmetic turns. Two children are the second and third dependents, so the fees become USD 1,500 plus three times USD 300, then USD 460 a year rather than USD 360 — about USD 7,000 over ten years — and the deposit doubles, because PRA requires a further USD 15,000 of visa deposit for each dependent beyond two, former Filipinos excepted.

PRA also says how the annual fee is paid, which matters if you are not in the country: in cash in dollars or pesos at the PRA office, or deposited to PRA's Land Bank of the Philippines account. A September 2024 advisory added credit card payment through Landbank's Link.BizPortal.

The deposit is the big number and you get it back

The visa deposit is a requisite dollar time deposit held in a PRA-accredited bank, remitted as an inward remittance from a bank abroad. It is a condition of membership rather than a payment to the government, and PRA's servicing schedule sets out the process for withdrawing it when membership is terminated and for withdrawing the interest it earns in the meantime.

Here is the full current table, Classic and both Courtesy variants:

Courtesy is not a cheaper version of Classic that anyone can ask for. PRA restricts it to retired diplomats, officers of international organisations recognised by the Department of Foreign Affairs, retired military from countries with recognised bilateral relations, and high achievers in academia, business, arts, culture, music, sport and philanthropy — plus, in its own variant, former Filipino citizens who have not reacquired citizenship. If you do not fit one of those descriptions, the real floor is USD 15,000.

Two things follow that the headline figures hide. The deposit earns interest and the interest is yours: PRA runs a request process for paying it out, and for deposits at a private accredited bank the account is in the retiree's own name, tagged to PRA. And PRA's published interest rates are not usable for planning — the monthly sheets on its interest-rate page are scanned PDFs with no text layer, and the most recent one posted when we checked on 30 October 2026 was May 2026. Ask the accredited bank for a rate on the term you intend to hold.

The practical reading is that the SRRV is closer to a bond you post than a programme you buy, which is what makes it cheap compared with most of the market. Our cheapest golden visa guide ranks these programmes on money you never get back rather than on the sum you have to show, and on that basis the SRRV sits near the bottom.

A pension is worth more than fifteen years of age

Two variables set the Classic deposit, and they are not equally powerful. Moving from the 40-to-49 band into the 50-plus band saves USD 10,000 either side of the pension line. Proving a lifetime pension saves more than that in both bands:

PRA's test for a pension is specific and it is monthly: proof of a lifetime pension of at least USD 800 a month for a single applicant, or USD 1,000 a month for an applicant with dependents. Annualised, that is USD 9,600 and USD 12,000.

The dependents clause produces a cliff worth pointing at. A retiree with a USD 950 monthly pension applying alone clears USD 800 and deposits USD 15,000. The same retiree bringing a spouse is tested against USD 1,000, fails by USD 50 a month, and deposits USD 30,000 instead. A gap of USD 600 a year in pension income moves the deposit by USD 15,000, and nothing in the fee schedule warns you about it.

If the pension is close to either threshold, the sequencing question is worth asking before the remittance rather than after: PRA allows a spouse and children to be added either on the initial application or once the principal already holds an approved SRRV, and the pension test attaches to the application being made.

Turning the deposit into a condominium needs USD 50,000

This is the feature every agent leads with and nobody prices: under Rule VIII-A of the rules implementing Executive Order 1037, an SRRV Classic holder may apply to convert the visa deposit into an active investment, meaning ownership of a condominium unit or a long-term leasehold of at least 25 years over a condominium, townhouse, or house and lot.

The conditions are in PRA's own checklists, and they are stricter than the pitch:

Set the floor against the deposit and the promise shrinks. A 50-plus pensioner's USD 15,000 is 30% of a USD 50,000 unit, so the other 70% has to come from somewhere else. The pre-selling checklist makes that explicit: the visa deposit may be used only for the final or last payment, and the balance of the property must be less than or equal to the deposit. On a USD 50,000 unit with a USD 15,000 deposit, you must have already paid about USD 35,000 of your own money before PRA releases anything.

The pre-selling route carries two more conditions worth reading twice. PRA requires a surety or performance bond equal to the amount of the visa deposit, and the retiree undertakes to deliver the title within 180 days: "Failure to deliver the CCT within the said 180 days period shall require the exact amount of the withdrawn visa deposit to be returned." The deposit is lent against a deadline, not spent.

And the title does not come back clean. Every converted property is annotated at the Registry of Deeds with a restriction stating that "the sale, transfer, or encumbrance of this property is subject to the approval of the Philippine Retirement Authority" while the owner holds an SRRV. Converting the deposit turns a liquid time deposit into an asset you cannot sell without a government sign-off.

Two official PRA documents word the USD 50,000 floor differently, and we cannot reconcile them. The conversion checklist says the deposit may be converted "provided that the CCT is under the principal retiree's name and the value of the property is at least US$50,000.00 in Philipine Peso equivalent" — PRA's typo. The servicing-request page's document list instead asks for a Deed of Absolute Sale "indicating the selling price of at least US$50,000.00 or amount of visa deposit", which reads as though a smaller deposit could be matched by a smaller property. Ask the Investment Unit which applies to your tier before you sign anything, and budget on USD 50,000 until they tell you otherwise.

What it costs to leave the programme

Almost no comparison page states this, and it is published. Termination of membership can be voluntary, or involuntary on the death of the member or on revocation for breach of PRA's rules, and PRA's servicing schedule prices both stages of the exit:

PRA publishes the combined case itself: "A principal retiree with no dependent member who is still in the Philippines upon cancellation of SRRV shall pay a total fee of US$ 20.00 and Php 6,520.00." At the Bangko Sentral reference rate we used, that is about USD 122, and it scales per member rather than per family.

One exit condition is a genuine clawback risk rather than a fee. The SRRV exempts a holder from customs duties and taxes on a one-time importation of household goods and personal effects up to USD 7,000. If you used that exemption and then voluntarily terminate membership within three years of the visa being issued, PRA's cancellation checklist requires the certificate of payment or bill of lading for that shipment. Treat the exemption as earned over three years, not granted on arrival.

Getting the deposit out is a documentary exercise rather than an expensive one: PRA asks for full bank details including SWIFT, IBAN and routing where applicable, a notarised affidavit of quitclaim and release, and in a death case the estate-tax settlement and either letters testamentary or an affidavit of self-adjudication or extra-judicial settlement. The fee stays at USD 10 and PHP 1,000 either way.

The bank charges and the duties that outlive the application

Three small charges are in PRA's own instructions and in none of the cost guides we read. The deposit must arrive by wire, and PRA's remittance instruction for the government bank says to "include at least US$50 to cover bank charges", with any excess credited to the applicant's account. If you ever have to re-deposit, the instruction is to add at least USD 30 for intermediary bank charges. Paying fees to PRA's Land Bank account by telegraphic transfer carries a USD 5 Land Bank charge, which the retiree bears.

Timing is worth a line too, because the bank certificate is a gate on the application rather than a formality. The Development Bank of the Philippines provides PRA with a notarised bank certification 7 to 10 working days after receiving the remittance; the accredited private banks do it in 3 to 5 banking days, and opening an account with one of them first requires a Letter of Introduction from PRA.

Then there are the obligations that continue after approval, which are the real difference between a one-off purchase and a membership. If a converted investment ceases to exist — the condominium is sold, conveyed or transferred, the lease is terminated, or the money is taken out of the Philippines — PRA requires you to substitute another allowable investment, and where there is no substitute, to re-deposit the requisite visa deposit into an accredited bank to keep the membership alive.

That is a reasonable rule and an easy one to walk into by accident, because it turns an ordinary property sale into a PRA filing. Two guides on this site cover the neighbouring questions: golden visa health insurance requirements for the cover question that follows any long-stay permit, and our golden visa cost comparison for why a published threshold and an unpublished fee stack is the normal shape of this market rather than the exception.

How the Philippines SRRV cost compares in the region

Compared with its neighbours the SRRV is cheap in the only way that matters, which is that most of the entry sum stays yours. The table below is one basis only: the lowest published entry sum for each programme, as priced in our own guide to it, and whether that sum is refundable in principle.

Figures in that table are each taken from the guide linked in the row, on the date stated there, not re-converted here. The comparison it supports is narrow and worth making anyway: a THB 650,000 Thailand Privilege membership and a USD 15,000 SRRV deposit are not the same kind of number, and ranking them side by side as prices is how the cheapest programme in the region ends up looking mid-table.

The second half of this question is the label. The Philippines has no golden visa, and the Bureau of Immigration's own visa list is the quickest way to see it: immigrant, non-immigrant and special visa categories, and no golden visa among them — the list does not even carry an SRRV page, because the SRRV is issued by the Bureau through PRA rather than applied for at the Bureau. Our golden visa countries guide takes the same approach to the label across the market.

What the Philippines has besides the SRRV is the Special Investor's Resident Visa, issued by the Bureau of Immigration through the Board of Investments. The Department of Foreign Affairs' consular pages put it at a minimum investment of USD 75,000 for an applicant aged at least 21 with no derogatory record, with a probationary visa valid for six months and an indefinite visa that lasts as long as the investment is maintained, and 180 days to convert the deposit into an eligible domestic enterprise. Condominium units and wholesale trading are excluded from qualifying investments, which rules out the asset most SRRV applicants are thinking of. Its fee schedule lives in the Board of Investments' own checklists, which were unreadable to us behind a bot wall on 30 October 2026 and which third-party pages quote inconsistently, so confirm those with the Board directly rather than from any figure online.

What to check before you remit anything

Four checks, in the order the money moves. First, the tier. Pensioner status and age band decide the deposit, and the pension threshold moves with dependents — confirm which figure PRA is testing you against before the remittance, not after, because a USD 950 pension is two different answers depending on whether a spouse is on the application.

Second, the bank. Choose between the government bank and an accredited private bank before you send anything, because the private banks need a PRA Letter of Introduction first, and the certification that unlocks your file takes 7 to 10 working days at the government bank against 3 to 5 at a private one. Add the USD 50 buffer PRA asks for.

Third, the conversion, if the property is the point. Ask the Investment Unit in writing whether a USD 50,000 property value or the amount of your deposit is the floor for your tier, given the two official wordings. Then price the title annotation and the PRA approval you will need to sell, because those are permanent and the brochures do not mention them.

Fourth, the exit. USD 10 plus PHP 1,000 to cancel and USD 10 plus PHP 5,520 to downgrade are small, and the three-year condition on the duty-free importation allowance is not. If a shipment of household goods is part of the plan, note the date the visa is issued.

Every figure in this guide is PRA's published number, read on 30 October 2026, and PRA does not publish an effective date for the current table — its advisories page carried no notice of the change when we checked. Fees and thresholds in this sector move without announcement, so verify each one against the source links below before you pay anyone, and treat our totals as planning arithmetic rather than a quote. Nothing here is advice on tax, immigration or residency outcomes, and no programme described guarantees admission.

Related guides on Domicila

• Thailand Elite visa cost — the nearest regional comparison, and five tiers priced from the operator's own pages.
• Malaysia golden visa cost — MM2H's four categories and PVIP, from the government's own fee tables.
• Indonesia golden visa cost — all twelve official routes, including the cheapest at USD 25,000.
• Cheapest golden visa — the low end of this market ranked on money you never get back.
• Golden visa cost comparison — every threshold, in the currency it is actually set in.
• Digital nomad visa cost comparison — the cheaper answer if the plan is a few years rather than retirement.