Philippines

The Philippines lets a foreigner buy indefinite stay outright, granted at approval, without a job, a spouse or a business. That single fact shapes everything else: the money routes are unusually strong, and the routes for people who work for a living are unusually thin.

Can you stay in Philippines long term?

Yes, through four doors. Which door you take decides whether you end up a resident or a permanent guest.

Money buys stay. The SRRV puts indefinite multiple-entry status in your passport a few weeks after a deposit of USD 15,000 to USD 50,000 (2026 schedule), depending on your age and whether you have a pension. The SIRV does something similar for USD 75,000 of Philippine equity, except the money is at risk and cannot be taken back out. Neither is permanent residence in immigration law. Both are special non-immigrant visas, so twenty years on one leaves you with no residence credit and no path to a passport.

Marriage is the only route that leads anywhere. A 13(a) visa, for the foreign spouse of a Filipino citizen, starts probationary, becomes permanent after a year, and makes you eligible to apply for citizenship after five years of residence. That five years is a minimum set by statute, not a schedule, and a court decides the outcome. There is no equivalent for unmarried partners, however long the relationship has run.

Work gets you a visa but not a future. A 9(g) lasts as long as the job does, in one to three year blocks, and dies with it. Time on a 9(g) does not count toward residence or naturalisation.

Everyone else is a visitor. Remote workers have no route at all: the digital nomad visa created by Executive Order No. 86 in April 2025 has no application channel, no form and no fee schedule anywhere on a government domain. The substitute is a tourist visa extended in blocks to a cumulative 36 months, which builds nothing and permits no local work. That cap is the hard stop. Leaving and re-entering does not cleanly reset it.

A retiree with a real pension can stay for life, a spouse of a Filipino can become a citizen, and a remote worker cannot settle here at all.

Ways to move to the Philippines

The marriage route (13(a)) is not in the table because it is not a programme you can apply for on your own terms. It is the strongest route in the country and it depends on a genuine marriage to a Filipino citizen.

The programmes

SRRV Classic. A deposit in a PRA-accredited bank buys indefinite multiple-entry stay, with the amount set by age and pension status. It is the country’s best product and the most misquoted one: the USD 10,000 and USD 20,000 tiers people still cite were abolished in the September 2025 restructure. Only Classic and Courtesy remain.

SRRV Courtesy. The same visa at roughly a tenth of the deposit, restricted to retired diplomats and international officials, retired military from countries with bilateral relations, former Filipinos, and people the PRA decides are high achievers. The cheap headline number is what draws agents in. Most applicants do not qualify, and a filing in the wrong category loses the fee.

SIRV. USD 75,000 into Philippine shares, a six-month probationary visa, then indefinite stay once the investment is proven. Real estate is excluded, the capital must be maintained at all times, and annual audits follow. It suits someone who wanted the equity exposure before they wanted the visa. It is a bad way to park money.

9(g) visa. Ordinary employment. The employer petitions, the job must survive a labour market test, and an Alien Employment Permit from DOLE is mandatory before the visa can be approved. It is renewable while the job lasts and gives nothing afterward. Regulated professions need a further permit from the PRC, which people discover late.

Digital Nomad Visa. Signed by executive order in April 2025 with a 30-day deadline for implementing rules and a 60-day pilot. Neither produced a live channel. As of October 2026 the DFA e-Visa portal still lists only temporary visitor subcategories. Anyone advertising DNV processing today is selling tourist visa assistance.

What the Philippines is bad at

Remote work, completely. The one visa designed for it has never opened, and eighteen months have passed since the pilot deadline. Every article describing a DNV application process is describing something that does not exist.

Settlement, for anyone who is not married to a Filipino or was not born one. The SRRV, SIRV, 9(g) and the DNV are all non-immigrant, so the popular routes lead nowhere by design. A foreigner can live here for two decades and still have no standing to naturalise.

Deposits that behave like deposits. The SRRV money sits in a dollar time deposit at whatever rate the accredited bank offers, and the only conversion into property requires a USD 50,000 accredited unit, which a pensioner on a USD 15,000 deposit can never reach.

And family rules that assume a married couple. Long-term partners of Filipino citizens, a large share of the actual expat population, have no derivative route and fall back to tourist extensions.

Guides

• SRRV Classic: tiers, deposit mechanics, property conversion, the annual fee
• SRRV Courtesy: who actually qualifies and why most applications fail
• SIRV: what counts as an investment, the probationary clock, the audit
• 9(g) visa: the AEP, the labour market test, what happens when the job ends
• Digital Nomad Visa: what EO 86 says, what exists, and why it cannot be applied for

Sources

• Philippine Retirement Authority, SRRV programme page and 2026 deposit schedule, checked 2026-10-22
• Board of Investments, SIRV frequently asked questions and Book V rules, checked 2026-10-22
• Bureau of Immigration, 9(g) pre-arranged employment visa and visa waiver pages, checked 2026-10-22
• Official Gazette, Executive Order No. 86, s. 2025, signed 24 April 2025, checked 2026-10-22
• DFA e-Visa portal, visa policy listing, checked 2026-10-22

Last updated 2026-10-22.