Employer of Record in the Philippines: 20 Providers Compared (2026)

Employing someone in the Philippines: key facts

Philippine labor law runs mostly national, through the Labor Code and DOLE wage orders, but the minimum wage itself is set region by region.

Minimum wage

NCR-28 exists because its twin, NCR-27 (same PHP 60.00/day increase), was blocked by a Pasig court injunction before taking effect — NCR-28 is a standalone order issued outside that injunction’s scope, with no back pay for the gap (nwpc.dole.gov.ph, checked 2026-09-30). Regions outside NCR, Cebu and Davao aren’t covered here.

Employer contributions

SSS and PhilHealth rates are unchanged for 2026, the final step of their respective phased-increase laws reached in 2025 and 2024. 13th-month pay is mandatory on top of these but isn’t a social-insurance contribution — see 13th salary and bonuses below.

Working hours and overtime

• Standard hours: 8 hours/day (Labor Code Art. 83); no separate statutory weekly cap, but a 6-day/48-hour week is the common default (chanrobles.com, checked 2026-09-30).
• Overtime on a regular day: hourly rate plus at least 25% of that rate (Art. 87) (laborcode.ph, checked 2026-09-30).
• Overtime on a rest day or holiday: the rest-day/holiday rate for the first 8 hours, plus at least 30% of that rate for the excess (laborcode.ph, checked 2026-09-30).

Annual leave and public holidays

• No general statutory annual/vacation leave. The only mandatory paid leave for rank-and-file staff is Service Incentive Leave (SIL): 5 days/year after 1 year of continuous service, convertible to cash if unused (ndvlaw.com, checked 2026-09-30).
• SIL doesn’t apply to staff already getting 5+ days of paid vacation, managers, or employees of firms with under 10 workers.
• 2026 regular holidays (100% pay if unworked, 200% for the first 8 hours if worked): Jan 1, Apr 3 (Good Friday), Apr 9, Aug 31, Nov 30, Dec 25, Dec 30.
• 2026 special non-working days (no pay if unworked, 130% if worked): Feb 17, Apr 4, Aug 21, Nov 1, Dec 8, Dec 24, Dec 31 (kamiworkforce.com, checked 2026-09-30), aggregated from the Malacañang proclamation rather than fetched directly.

Probation

• Maximum 6 months (180 calendar days) from the first day of work, unless an apprenticeship agreement sets a longer period (Labor Code Art. 296) (ndvlaw.com, checked 2026-09-30).
• An employee allowed to work past probation is automatically a regular employee.
• Security of tenure and basic labor standards (minimum wage, rest days, overtime) apply from day one, probationary or not.

Notice and severance

No separation pay is owed if closure or cessation is due to serious business losses. A fraction of 6+ months of service counts as a full year for these calculations.

13th salary and bonuses

• Mandatory for every rank-and-file employee who worked at least 1 month in the calendar year (Presidential Decree 851) (lawphil.net, checked 2026-09-30).
• At least 1/12 of the total basic salary earned in the year; must be paid by December 24, and employers may split it into two installments.
• This is pay, not a social-insurance contribution — it doesn’t appear in the employer-contributions table above, but it is the single largest line in what an EOR actually bills for a Philippine hire (see cost section below).

Mandatory benefits

• Night shift differential: at least 10% of the hourly rate for hours worked 10pm–6am, non-waivable (Labor Code Art. 86) (lawphil.net, checked 2026-09-30).
• Holiday pay at the regular/special-day rates above.
• Retirement pay under RA 7641: absent a private plan, an employee aged 60–65 with 5+ years’ service gets at least 1/2 month’s pay per year of service — a real, often-overlooked cost for long-tenured hires.

Work permits

• Foreign nationals need an Alien Employment Permit (AEP) from DOLE, plus an immigration work visa — typically a 9(g) pre-arranged employment visa, or a Special Work Permit for short-term work (tripleiconsulting.com, checked 2026-09-30).
• The AEP is valid 1–5 years, tied to one position with one employer; the sponsoring employer generally must publish the vacancy 15+ days ahead to test local labor-market availability, unless exempted.
• An EOR can act as the AEP-sponsoring local employer for a foreign hire the same way it does for a local one; the underlying labor-market-test and visa requirements don’t change.

Currency and payroll

• Currency: Philippine peso (PHP); 1 USD = 62.756 PHP per the BSP’s reference rate for 2026-09-25 (bsp.gov.ph, checked 2026-09-30).
• Wages must be paid at least twice a month, at intervals of no more than 16 days; monthly-only payment isn’t permitted (Labor Code Art. 103) (chanrobles.com, checked 2026-09-30).

Is Employer of Record legal in the Philippines?

Allowed, with limits. No law bans EOR as such. The constraint is DOLE Department Order No. 174-17, which prohibits labor-only contracting: a contractor lacking substantial capital or investment in tools and supervision, whose workers do tasks tied to the client’s main business, or one that doesn’t genuinely control how the work gets done (SyCipLaw, checked 2026-09-30).

• A legitimate contractor under DO 174-17 must be DOLE-registered, with paid-up capital or net worth of at least PHP 5,000,000, pay a PHP 100,000 registration fee, and hold a certificate valid 2 years. Failure to register creates a presumption of labor-only contracting (SyCipLaw, checked 2026-09-30).
• If an arrangement is found to be labor-only contracting, the client is deemed the direct employer of the EOR’s workers for all purposes, and principal and contractor are solidarily liable for wages and Labor Code entitlements (ndvlaw.com, checked 2026-09-30).
• Security of tenure is a constitutional and Labor Code right that attaches from day one, including during probation; an EOR’s contract can’t waive it (ndvlaw.com, checked 2026-09-30).

The practical risk sits where the worker does core, client-integrated work indistinguishable from a regular client employee — the fact pattern labor-only-contracting claims are built on, regardless of what the EOR calls the arrangement. For the client: a labor-only finding makes it the direct employer with full back-wage and illegal-dismissal exposure, and solidary liability applies regardless of any indemnity clause in the commercial contract. Separately, a foreign client whose EOR-employed worker signs contracts or runs core revenue activity in the Philippines still carries its own permanent-establishment exposure — EOR addresses labor-law employer status, not PE risk (ndvlaw.com, checked 2026-09-30).

Who actually employs your hire in the Philippines

Vendors describe their entity model globally far more often than they confirm it for the Philippines. Here’s what each vendor’s own Philippines page says:

Fifteen of these 20 don’t say whether the Philippines is served by their own entity or a partner’s. That matters under DO 174-17: if the entity employing your hire fails the substantial-capital and real-control test, the client is left holding the labor-only-contracting risk. Before signing, ask: “Is the entity employing my hire wholly owned by you, is it DOLE-registered under DO 174-17, and can you name it?”

How to choose an EOR in the Philippines

Want the clearest evidence of who’s employing your hire? Deel and Remote state a Philippines-specific entity claim rather than a global count, and Atlas HXM and Justworks name the Philippines on their owned-entity pages. None publishes a DOLE registration number — this is vendor evidence, not a registry record.

Weighing price against disclosure? Boundless publishes the lowest Philippines-specific figure, from €175/month. Borderless AI’s $579/month comes with an explicit no-setup-fee, no-deposit statement — more disclosed detail than most, even though the price matches its global rate.

Hiring a foreign national who needs a visa? Native Teams and Papaya Global both name DOLE’s role in the Alien Employment Permit process; neither claims to sponsor the visa itself, since the AEP and Bureau of Immigration requirements apply the same way regardless of provider.

Worried about labor-only contracting specifically? Favor a vendor with a Philippines-specific entity statement (Deel, Remote, Atlas HXM, Justworks) over one repeating only a global “owned + partner” line, since the latter gives you nothing to point to if DOLE ever asks who your hire’s real employer is.

What it costs to employ someone in the Philippines through an EOR

The EOR, not the client, is the legal employer, so NCR statutory rates apply in full regardless of headcount. At these salary levels SSS and Pag-IBIG already sit at their 2026 caps; PhilHealth is capped only on the higher salary.

Source: kamiworkforce.com, checked 2026-09-30. Both salaries are illustrative NCR figures; both exceed the SSS and Pag-IBIG caps, and the calculation assumes the full gross figure counts as “basic salary” for 13th-month purposes, with no separate non-integrated allowances.

The EOR’s own fee is on top of that. Published Philippines-specific figures in our data run from €175/month (Boundless, well below the rest) to $300-600/month (Atlas HXM’s own stated range) and PHP 408,480/year (about $543/month) at Deel. Borderless AI confirms $579/month and Skuad $199/month (discounted from $349) specifically on their Philippines pages, though both match the same number each publishes for other countries. Most other vendors — Remote, Justworks, G-P, Oyster, Papaya Global, RemoFirst, Native Teams, RemotePass, Rivermate, Pebl — only repeat a global list price ($99-$699/month) on their Philippines page, and Rippling, Remote People and Safeguard Global are quote-based with no number at all.

Hidden costs: Borderless AI states no setup fee and no security deposit specifically on its Philippines page. Rivermate’s €399-499/month band comes with a refundable deposit and, per its global FAQ, no onboarding, offboarding or termination fee. No other vendor in this set discloses a Philippines-specific setup fee, deposit, minimum term or termination fee — where the table above shows no figure, treat it as unpublished, not zero.

When you don’t need an EOR

• A genuinely independent contractor. Cheaper and closer to the real relationship if the person sets their own hours and tools and can serve other clients. See how to pay contractors in the Philippines and our hiring guide.
• Your own Philippine entity. The only route that removes the labor-only-contracting question entirely, since there’s no outside contractor in the relationship for DO 174-17 to test.

What changed in 2026

• 2026-01-01 — SSS holds at its final 15% total rate (10% employer), MSC ceiling PHP 35,000 — the last step of the RA 11199 schedule, reached in 2025.
• 2026-01-01 — PhilHealth premium holds at 5% (2.5% employer), floor PHP 10,000/ceiling PHP 100,000 — confirmed no hike for 2026, the final step of the Universal Health Care Act schedule.
• 2026-07-24 — Wage Order No. NCR-27 is blocked by a Pasig RTC injunction before taking effect; the underlying case remains pending.
• 2026-09-07 — Wage Order No. NCR-28 issued as a standalone PHP 60.00/day increase (to PHP 755.00 non-agriculture), effective 2026-09-26.

Numbers vendors haven’t updated

Vendor pages checked for this guide quote Metro Manila’s minimum wage anywhere from PHP 533 to PHP 755/day, depending on when each was last updated. The current rate is PHP 755/day (Wage Order NCR-28, effective 2026-09-26). Six of the vendors in our data are below that: Deel (PHP 645/day, dated 2024), Papaya Global (PHP 570/day, 2024), Rippling (PHP 533-570/day), Oyster (PHP 695/day, Wage Order NCR-26), Playroll (PHP 695/day) and Rivermate (PHP 645/day). Remote is the one vendor page in our data that already shows the current PHP 755/day figure.

How we built this page

Facts were collected and checked on 2026-09-30 and 2026-10-01 against DOLE/NWPC wage orders, the Labor Code, SSS/PhilHealth/Pag-IBIG circulars and payroll-guide aggregations where a primary document wasn’t directly reachable. Vendor entity claims were checked against each vendor’s own Philippines-facing page; a Philippines SEC company search was attempted for several vendors but the registry’s own portal returned errors, so no entity claim here rests on an independent registry record — we recorded a vendor as “not disclosed” rather than assuming ownership. The ranking above puts Philippines-specific entity statements and prices first. Nobody pays for placement on this page.