Philippines / Visas and immigration / 9A temporary visitor visa

9A temporary visitor visa

The 9A is the entry visa for business, pleasure or health. It is also the status most foreigners are on when they start asking about registering a company, which is a sequencing problem rather than a fee problem.

There is no single 9A fee. The Bureau prices it by nationality and by the length of stay requested, so any website publishing one flat 9A price is publishing a number that will not match your receipt. A visa-free national arriving under Executive Order 408 gets an initial stay without a visa fee; a visa-required national pays at the embassy before travel.

What the government charges

Item	Amount
Visa-free entry, most nationals under EO 408 Initial stay granted on arrival	no visa fee
9A issued abroad Paid at the Philippine embassy or consulate	varies by nationality
Extension of stay Paid at the Bureau in the Philippines	varies by nationality and period

We do not publish a figure we cannot tie to the schedule that applies to your passport. Send the nationality and the intended length and you get the exact assessment in writing.

Who needs this

Foreigners entering for business meetings, tourism or medical treatment.
Anyone who will later convert to a work, spouse or retirement status from inside the country.

Who does not

Anyone intending to work from day one, who needs the employment route before arrival.

How it is done

Check the nationality ruleVisa-free entry, visa on arrival and visa required are three different regimes with three different costs.
Land with enough runwayA 9G conversion requires at least 30 days of authorised stay at the time fees are assessed. Arriving with two weeks left means an extension first.
Extend before expiry, not afterOverstaying is fined by the month and shows up on every later application.
Convert from insideThe conversion to 9G or 13A happens in the country. The tourist status is the runway, not the destination.

Deadline and what happens if you miss it

The initial stay is fixed on arrival, and the extension has to be filed before it lapses. A lapsed stay creates an overstay record that is read by the officer assessing the next visa.

Why files get refused at the counter

Booking travel out and back to reset the clock, which the Bureau now reads as an extension attempt.
Starting a 9G file with less than 30 days of stay left.

Who does what

You

Tell us the nationality, the arrival date and the intended date of the real filing.

LPP

Map the runway: how many days you have, what has to happen inside it, and the order of the DOLE and BI steps.

Accredited partner

Files the extension or conversion at the Bureau.

Have this filed without the guesswork

Send the file to us. We confirm the current fee with the agency, prepare the documents, and tell you in writing what is missing before anything is submitted.

Start this case See our fees

Sources

Bureau of Immigration, visas: https://immigration.gov.ph/visas/
Republic Act No. 7042, definition of doing business: https://lawphil.net/statutes/repacts/ra1991/ra_7042_1991.html

Last verified against the issuing agency on 2026-10-24. If an agency changes a fee or a deadline after that date, this page is out of date and we correct it before quoting.