Philippines Digital Nomad Visa: Rules for Founders

TL;DR: The Philippines Digital Nomad Visa was authorized by Executive Order No. 86 in April 2025, but it is still not issuing visas. Once it does, it will only cover remote work for clients or employers based outside the Philippines, not incorporating and running a Philippine-facing company. Founders who want to build a business here need a 9(g) work visa or a SIRV, not the DNV.

Where the digital nomad visa actually stands right now

President Marcos signed Executive Order No. 86 on April 24, 2025, directing the Department of Foreign Affairs to issue a new Digital Nomad Visa (DNV). The order gave the DFA 30 days to publish implementing guidelines, working with the Department of Justice, the Department of Tourism, the Bureau of Immigration, and the Bureau of Internal Revenue. A separate alert from EY’s immigration practice noted that the pilot program was meant to begin within 60 days of the order taking effect, putting a target launch date around June 23, 2025.

None of those deadlines were met. Checking the Philippine e-Visa portal directly, the only visa document type shown for temporary visitors is the existing 9(a) category. There is no Digital Nomad Visa listed anywhere in the portal’s navigation. The Bureau of Immigration’s own visa pages show the same non-immigrant categories it has always issued, 9(a) through 9(g), plus the special resident and quota visas, with no DNV among them. More than a year after the executive order was signed, there is still no working application channel, no published income threshold, no confirmed fee schedule, and no list of which nationalities actually qualify under the visa’s reciprocity requirement.

The gap has become visible enough that lawmakers have moved to address it separately. A member of the House of Representatives filed a bill to have Congress authorize the Bureau of Immigration to issue digital nomad visas directly, rather than leaving the program to rest on an executive order whose implementing rules never materialized. That bill has not passed as of this writing. The practical takeaway for anyone reading guides that describe the DNV as “open,” “operational,” or “processing applications smoothly” is to treat those claims with real skepticism and check the Bureau of Immigration and DFA sites yourself before making any plan that depends on this visa.

What the executive order actually requires, once it is live

Executive Order 86 sets out the Philippines digital nomad visa requirements that will govern the DNV once the DFA activates it. An applicant must:

1. Be at least 18 years old.
2. Show proof of remote work using digital technology.
3. Show proof of sufficient income generated outside the Philippines.
4. Hold health insurance valid for the full period of the DNV.
5. Have no criminal record.
6. Be a national of a country that offers a digital nomad visa (or equivalent) to Filipino citizens, and where the Philippines maintains a Foreign Service Post.
7. Not pose a threat to the internal or external security of the Philippines.
8. Not be employed in the Philippines.

The visa, once granted, runs for a maximum of one year, and the order allows a single renewal for the same duration, for a maximum combined stay of about two years. Multiple-entry privileges are included during that period.

What the order does not do is set numbers. It does not state a minimum income figure, a visa fee, or a specific list of which countries satisfy the reciprocity requirement. Guides across the internet quote a US$24,000 annual income benchmark, a US$2,000 monthly figure, or a US$200 to US$500 fee. None of those numbers appear in Executive Order 86 itself, and no implementing circular has confirmed them. Treat every specific figure you read about the DNV, including anything in older versions of this article, as unconfirmed until the DFA publishes its own guidelines and fee schedule. The same caution applies to the list of qualifying nationalities. Immigration alerts published soon after the order was signed already flagged that the reciprocity list had not been released, and that remains true.

The restriction that matters most if you want to found a business

Set aside the open questions about numbers and timing for a moment, because the structural restriction in Executive Order 86 matters more for this audience than any fee or deadline. The DNV is built as a remote-work visa for people whose clients or employer sit outside the Philippines. Condition eight above is explicit. An applicant “must not be employed in the Philippines,” and the order separately lists engagement in local employment as a ground for revoking the visa.

Nothing in the order authorizes a DNV holder to incorporate a Philippine company, register as its resident director or officer, employ Filipino staff under that status, or invoice Philippine clients for local work. The visa’s entire premise is that the money keeps coming from abroad and the work product goes back abroad. A founder who sets up a Philippine corporation, opens a local bank account for that company, and starts paying local employees is doing something the DNV was never designed to authorize, whatever the visa’s marketing language says about supporting “digital nomads who start local businesses.”

This is the single most common misunderstanding among foreign founders researching this visa. They read that the Philippines is courting remote workers and assume the same visa will cover setting up shop here. It will not, once it exists, and the underlying legal text is unambiguous about it.

If your plan involves any of the following, you need a different visa entirely:

• Serving as an officer, director, or executive of a Philippine-registered company, even one you own
• Employing Filipino staff under your own visa status
• Invoicing or contracting with Philippine-based clients as your primary income
• Holding a role that a Philippine government agency would recognize as local employment

DNV, 9(g), or SIRV: which one actually fits founding a business

The table below lines up the three routes side by side. The DNV column describes the visa as defined in Executive Order 86, since it is not yet available to apply for.

Two rows carry the whole decision. Look at whether you actually need to run a Philippine-facing business, and whether you have US$75,000 you want to commit as an investment rather than working capital tied to a job title. If you are the one signing contracts, managing staff, and dealing with regulators day to day, the 9(g) pre-arranged employment visa is the visa built for that. Take a founder opening a small customer-support office in Manila with five local hires and a peso payroll account. That setup needs staff on payroll and a local bank signatory from day one, which the 9(g) supports and the DNV, even once it launches, would not, since local employment is exactly what the DNV rules out. If you are committing a larger amount of capital instead and want residency that survives a change in your role or company structure, the SIRV is the better fit. Chamberlain has a full breakdown of 9(g) versus SIRV if you are weighing the two, and our Philippine visas practice handles both end to end.

The 9(a) tourist visa route many remote workers use today

Since the DNV is not actually available, most remote workers currently living in the Philippines are doing so on the ordinary 9(a) temporary visitor visa. Most nationalities receive 30 days on arrival without needing a prior visa, and the Bureau of Immigration allows repeated extensions after that, up to a maximum authorized stay of 36 months for visa-free nationals and 24 months for nationals who needed a visa to enter. Extensions are processed at Bureau of Immigration offices, typically in short increments, with a government fee due at each renewal. Fee schedules are set by BI circular and get revised periodically, so confirm the current amount with the Bureau or your visa facilitator rather than relying on a fixed number from any guide, including this one.

The catch is that the 9(a) carries essentially the same restriction as the still-unavailable DNV, just without any purpose-built remote-work framework behind it. The Philippine e-Visa portal states plainly that 9(a) visitors must be people “who will not receive any compensation from a company/entity in the Philippines for services rendered in the country.” The visa’s allowed “business” purpose covers attending meetings, negotiating contracts, and similar activities, not gainful employment or running operations. Working while on a 9(a), for a foreign or Philippine employer, is not authorized, and doing so exposes the visitor to deportation, fines, and blacklisting.

In practice, a remote worker drawing a salary from a foreign employer and doing no local work for pay sits in a legal gray area that the government has tolerated for years without a dedicated visa product, which is exactly the gap Executive Order 86 was meant to close. A founder is in a different position. If you are incorporating a company, signing a lease, hiring staff, and drawing income tied to that company’s Philippine operations, a string of 9(a) extensions does not give you the standing to do any of that, and it was never meant to.

Tax residency: when remote income still creates a Philippine obligation

Whichever visa you end up on, immigration status and tax status are separate questions, and it is worth being clear about the second one before you plan around it. Philippine tax law splits foreign individuals into resident aliens and non-resident aliens, and the distinction turns on a facts-and-circumstances test rather than one bright line. The Bureau of Internal Revenue and Philippine tax practitioners commonly use extended physical presence, an intention to establish a home here, family ties, and local economic interests as the deciding factors, with the length of your stay treated as a presumptive signal rather than an automatic switch.

Within that non-resident alien category, the National Internal Revenue Code draws a further line at 180 days in a calendar year. A non-resident alien present in the Philippines for more than 180 days is classified as engaged in trade or business and taxed at graduated rates on Philippine-sourced income, while one present 180 days or less is taxed at a flat 25% on Philippine-sourced income. Either way, the tax applies only to income sourced in the Philippines. For labor or personal services, BIR guidance generally looks to where the service is performed: work performed from the Philippines can be Philippine-sourced even when a foreign employer or client pays from abroad or sends the money to a foreign account, while work performed entirely outside the Philippines may be foreign-sourced. Cross-border arrangements can involve additional rules and facts, so the payment route alone does not determine the tax result.

The risk for remote workers is not limited to taking on Philippine-based clients or employers. Performing paid services from the Philippines can itself make that service income Philippine-sourced; running a local business can create additional exposure, while becoming a resident alien can change the applicable rates and filing obligations. Under Section 23(D) of the National Internal Revenue Code, an alien—resident or not—is generally taxable only on Philippine-source income, so resident-alien status does not by itself make foreign-source income taxable worldwide. Executive Order 86 does not create a special tax exemption for DNV holders, whatever some marketing copy around the visa implies. General Tax Code rules apply to digital nomads the same way they apply to anyone else, based on their actual residency facts, the place and nature of the work, and any applicable treaty or other rules.

What foreign founders should actually do in 2026

Do not build your relocation or business plan around the Digital Nomad Visa. It has been law for well over a year without a working application process, and there is no published date for when that changes. If you are researching this visa because you want to live in the Philippines while working for clients or an employer abroad, keep watching the DFA and Bureau of Immigration channels, since that use case is exactly what the visa is for once it exists.

If your goal is to found and run a company here, the DNV was never going to be the answer even if it launched tomorrow. The 9(g) suits founders who will be actively employed by the company they are setting up and prefer a lower upfront capital commitment. The SIRV suits founders committing US$75,000 or more who want residency independent of any single company or role. Both are available to apply for today, both come with a defined process and timeline, and neither depends on an executive order that Philippine agencies still have not implemented.

This guide is general information, not legal advice on your specific facts. Book a consultation if you want a fixed-scope review of which visa fits your plans before you file.