Company Registration Cost in the Philippines: Fees and Budget

What belongs in the registration budget

For a Philippine domestic stock corporation, registration spending combines the SEC assessment, applicable BIR stamp duties, local approvals, third-party work and any professional service you buy. Capital contributions and operating reserves belong in a separate funding calculation. The table provides the spending boundary; the actual amounts must follow the selected entity, city and documents.

All fee references were checked on October 28, 2026. The numerical examples below concern an ordinary par-value domestic stock corporation. An OPC, non-stock entity or foreign corporation license needs its own assessment. A DTI business-name registration concerns a sole proprietorship and does not incorporate a company.

Keep statutory charges, service invoices and company funding on separate lines. That makes a quote comparable and exposes a missing workstream without suggesting that every founder faces the same bill.

Calculate the SEC filing component from the share structure

The SEC registration calculator states a principal filing fee of one-fifth of one percent of authorized capital stock or the subscription price of subscribed capital stock, whichever is higher, subject to PHP 2,000 minimum. In arithmetic: F = max(PHP 2,000, 0.002 × max(A, S)), where A is authorized capital and S is the subscription price. Its legal research fee is 1% of the filing fee, with a PHP 10 minimum.

The calculation is only a component. The official SEC ZERO Regular guide shows a payment assessment with separate by-laws, stock-and-transfer-book registration, name verification, legal research, documentary stamp and handling entries. Use your application’s PAF for the payable total and confirm any payment-gateway charge before authorizing payment. The guide’s illustrated bill is not a quotation for your company.

Freeze the capital schedule before requesting the final assessment: authorized shares, par value, subscription price and initial issuance should reconcile. Authorized capital and cash paid in are different figures ; entering the cash contribution into the wrong field can understate the fee. If the assessed amount conflicts with your calculation, ask the processor which base or extra item explains it. Do not replace the issued bill with a blog estimate.

Keep current BIR stamp duties separate

Original-share stamp duty is a distinct tax. BIR Revenue Regulations 19-2025 implements a rate of 0.75% of the par value of originally issued shares for covered transactions from July 1, 2025 onward. For no-par shares, the stated base is actual issuance consideration. Confirm the taxable issuance and filing responsibility with the accountant; using total authorized capital automatically can overstate this line.

For example, PHP 250,000 of originally issued par value produces PHP 1,875 of this DST: PHP 250,000 × 0.0075. That is separate from any stamp charge on a registration certificate, contract or other instrument. A lease or funding instrument may create another transaction to review rather than being absorbed into the share calculation.

The BIR circular ending the annual registration fee stopped collection of the PHP 500 Annual Registration Fee effective January 22, 2024. Remove that obsolete recurring charge from a new budget. The October 2025 BIR Form 1903 still identifies PHP 30 loose documentary stamp tax for the Certificate of Registration. Invoice production, books and assistance can involve separate costs; obtain the applicable requirements and supplier quote instead of restoring the discontinued fee.

Once these lines are separated, the remaining question is whether existing company funds can cover setup spending and the cash reserve needed before revenue arrives.

Price local approvals and document work from actual facts

Local permit spending cannot be priced nationally from the company name. Ask the chosen city or municipality for the assessment tied to the business activity and premises, then identify which barangay, fire, sanitary or other applicable charges are included and which are collected separately. A blank local-cost field means the budget is incomplete, not that local approval is free.

The Quezon City new-business requirements illustrate why the address matters: applicants provide registration evidence and property or lease documents, and the application undergoes zoning and other relevant departmental evaluations. Those are Quezon City requirements, not a national fee quotation. Check permitted use before paying a non-refundable address or lease charge.

For document work, obtain a list of actual instruments, origin countries and required certification steps. Quote notarization, apostille or other authentication, translation and courier by document or shipment. The SEC ZERO route removes physical signing and notarization for its covered system-generated registration documents; it does not establish that every foreign supporting document, lease or bank requirement is cost-free.

Mark each disbursement as an estimate, a capped allowance or a reimbursable actual. The global checks for licence charges and refund exposure help distinguish an authority charge from preparation work and clarify what happens if an application is withdrawn. They provide a quote-review method, not Philippine fee rates or refund law. Retain the issuing authority’s terms for the particular payment.

Read the professional fee against its deliverables

HSJGlobal’s Philippines company registration services lists Incorporation Support from SGD 1,880 for a straightforward OPC or domestic corporation once activity, ownership and capital have been confirmed. The approved basis is one-off professional work: a registration data and structure checklist, document coordination, SEC filing-workflow support and a post-registration action plan.

The October 28, 2026 live price and core scope match the approved baseline. Government fees, taxes, notarization or apostille, courier, registered address, BIR/LGU registration, sector licenses, banking and ongoing compliance are excluded unless the written quote expressly includes them. This is a starting price, not an all-inclusive launch cost.

Keep SGD 1,880 and PHP assessments separate until the quotation states any PHP billing basis. Confirm invoicing tax treatment, additional work, payment stages and quote validity; neither a fixed VAT rate nor a foreign-exchange conversion is assumed here. No automatic renewal is publicly stated, and external approvals are not guaranteed. Changed ownership, foreign-parent documentation or a different entity route can require a revised scope.

Use a worksheet that reconciles spending and funding

Use the following arithmetic as a transparent illustration, not a minimum-capital recommendation or a finished quote. Both cases assume PHP 250,000 subscription price and PHP 250,000 originally issued par value. Only authorized capital changes. The known subtotal combines the principal SEC filing component, its calculator-based research fee and original-share DST; it excludes all remaining PAF items and every other setup cost.

Build your own worksheet with G = the complete SEC PAF, D = applicable BIR stamp duties, L = other government assessments, and T = third-party invoices or supported estimates. Government and third-party spending in PHP is G + D + L + T. Replace the partial SEC calculation with G; do not add both. Include a professional fee in that PHP subtotal only when a written PHP invoice or billing basis exists. Otherwise retain the SGD service line alongside it.

For a cash forecast, select a cutoff date and add outstanding setup payments to a forward operating reserve for rent, payroll, accounting and other forecast outflows. Subtract company cash actually usable at that date. Additional funding needed = max(0, outstanding PHP payments + PHP reserve − usable PHP company cash). Maintain a separate equivalent ledger for SGD obligations until settlement terms are agreed. Match the reserve to the expected first receipts and extend it when approval or customer payment is delayed.

Do not add the same paid-in capital twice. If contributed funds already sit in the usable-cash figure, they already finance the forecast. Record approved founder reimbursements as outstanding obligations, and remove company-paid costs from future payments. A refundable deposit is a cash requirement with possible recovery, not automatically a permanent expense.

Capital eligibility must be confirmed before relying on either illustration. The amended Foreign Investments Act reserves certain micro and small domestic-market enterprises below US$200,000 paid-in equity to Philippine nationals, subject to conditional exceptions. Check the proposed activity and ownership against the applicable rules before deciding the funding amount. A statutory paid-in equity requirement is not a fee payable to a registration provider.

Approve a registration budget with evidence for every line

Approve the budget when each material line has an amount or calculation, currency, payee, payment trigger, scope and supporting document. Assign an owner to unresolved city, premises or foreign-document costs and keep an explicit allowance with its assumptions. Do not present an allowance as an assessed government charge.

If the entity or capital structure is unsettled, resolve that before buying filing work. If the entity is fixed but the premises are not, keep local approval and address spending conditional. If the quote is complete but available cash is short, reconcile the funding gap before a non-refundable payment. This preserves a useful decision even when the final city bill has not yet been issued.

Retain assessments, receipts, service invoices and a dated cash forecast in the handover file. Incorporation spending is complete when those charges have been reconciled; operating readiness still requires the applicable tax, local and sector permissions. Keep recurring compliance and renewal payments in the next-period forecast so an initial registration fee does not become the entire first-year plan.

The related reading below covers transferable application, permission-mapping and provider-scope methods. It does not establish Philippine legal requirements, prices or approval outcomes.