What to know
A refund of value added tax for tourists exists in law and cannot yet be claimed. The statute creating it was signed in December 2024, and no operator has since been accredited to pay a refund out. A visitor carries the tax on everything bought here.
Republic Act 12079, signed on 6 December 2024, lets a non-resident foreign passport holder reclaim the tax on goods bought in person at an accredited store, worth at least 3,000 pesos per transaction and carried out of the country within sixty days. The Department of Finance signed implementing rules in March 2025 and issued accreditation guidelines for refund operators that September. No accreditation had been announced as at September 2026.
A foreign visitor leaving the Philippines does not pay the travel tax. The Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority collects that levy under Presidential Decree 1183 and exempts a non-immigrant alien with non-taxable immigration status whose stay was under one year, proved by the last arrival stamp in the passport. Those who do pay it owe it on the departure itself, at 2,700 pesos in first class and 1,620 pesos in economy under Presidential Decree 1867, which took effect in July 1983. Reduced rates set by Batas Pambansa 38 of 7 September 1979 sit below that for named categories, the lowest of them for a dependant of an overseas Filipino worker.
The airport passenger service charge does not read immigration status: being a non-immigrant alien exempts nobody, and the arrival stamp that settles the travel tax settles nothing here. Manila International Airport Authority Revised Administrative Order No. 1, series of 2024, exempts infants of two and under, flight and extra crew, overseas Filipino workers, pilgrims, sports delegates and Medal of Valor awardees. Each of those is a status a passenger must hold and evidence, and a tourist holds none of them.
Manila International Airport Authority Revised Administrative Order No. 1 sets the charge at 950 pesos for an international departure and 390 pesos for a domestic one. It set its other revised charges from the day the airport was handed to its private operator, 14 September 2024, and this one from the first anniversary of that day. The 950 and 390 therefore replaced 550 and 200 pesos on 14 September 2025.
One line on a restaurant or hotel bill goes somewhere a visitor may not expect. Republic Act 11360, signed on 7 August 2019, amended article 96 of the Labor Code so that all service charges collected by hotels, restaurants and similar establishments are distributed completely and equally among the covered employees, managers excluded. The article it replaced gave employees 85 per cent and left 15 per cent with management. The Department of Labor and Employment's revised rules, in force since 18 February 2024, require the shares to be paid out at least once every two weeks, or twice a month at intervals of no more than sixteen days.
Heading off with a card? Read how to choose a travel money card - including why you should always pay in the local currency, not Australian dollars.
Working out what the trip costs? Put your daily spend and trip length through the travel budget calculator, or convert a single amount with the currency converter.