The BI Wants a Higher Annual Report Fee: What ₱500 and an Express Lane Mean for Foreign Residents

Every January, foreign residents of the Philippines queue, log in or send someone to tell the Bureau of Immigration that they are still here. The fee for that has been small enough to ignore: ₱300 plus a ₱10 legal research fee.

That may be about to change. On 9 October the Bureau published a proposed new schedule of fees for the Annual Report, addressed in bold to "all registered foreign nationals in the Philippines". The base fee rises to ₱500, and two express lane fees appear, one for reporting in person and one for the virtual route.

None of this is in force yet. It is a proposal with a public comment period. But it touches every holder of an ACR I-Card, and the window to comment is open now.

What the Bureau published

The advisory on the Bureau's website carries a one-page Notice to the Public dated 9 October 2026. It sets out two transaction types.

In-person Annual Report (BI Main Office, the international ports of entry and exit, and other BI offices):

• •Annual Report fee: ₱500
• •Legal Research Fee: ₱10
• •Express Lane Fee: ₱1,000

Virtual Annual Report:

• •Annual Report fee: ₱500
• •Legal Research Fee: ₱10
• •Express Lane Fee: ₱1,500

The notice invites comments and feedback within thirty days from the date of posting, by email to the Alien Registration Division at ard.fingerprint@immigration.gov.ph and to rholyn.uy@immigration.gov.ph. Counted from 9 October, that runs to around 8 November 2026.

What you pay today

The current rules are in the Bureau's 2026 Annual Report Guidelines, an operations order signed on 20 November 2025. Section 5 sets the schedule:

• •an Annual Report fee of ₱300,
• •a Legal Research Fee of ₱10,
• •and an Express Lane Fee of ₱1,000, collected only from reportees who use the virtual Annual Report.

So today the in-person report costs ₱310, and the virtual report costs ₱1,310.

Set against the proposal, the arithmetic looks like this:

• •In person, base fees only: ₱310 today, ₱510 proposed. That is ₱200 more, an increase of about 65 percent.
• •In person, with the new express lane: ₱1,510 proposed. There is no in-person express lane fee in the 2026 guidelines.
• •Virtual: ₱1,310 today, ₱2,010 proposed. That is ₱700 more, about 53 percent.

The notice lists the express lane fee in both rows without saying whether it is optional for in-person reporting. An express lane is normally something you choose. Until the final schedule is published, the cautious way to budget is to assume the in-person base becomes ₱510 and that skipping the queue costs ₱1,000 on top. For the virtual route, the 2026 guidelines already treat the express lane fee as part of the price, so expect it to stay that way at the higher rate.

In absolute terms, these are still small amounts. The money is not the story. The structure is. For the first time, the fee schedule puts a clear price on convenience, and the convenient route is the one that costs most.

Why the Bureau can propose this

The notice cites a 2013 joint circular of the Department of Finance, the Department of Budget and Management and the National Economic and Development Authority. That circular implements Administrative Order No. 31 of 2012, which directs national government agencies to rationalise their fees and charges and, where necessary, to increase existing rates and impose new ones. Section 2 of the order asks agencies to balance recovering the cost of their services against the socio-economic impact of the fees.

The duty to report itself is much older. It comes from Section 10 of the Alien Registration Act of 1950, Republic Act No. 562, which requires every registered alien to report in person to the Bureau within the first sixty days of every calendar year. The original 1950 text attached a fifty-centavo documentary stamp to that report. The amounts have moved a long way since then, and the 2026 guidelines quote the obligation from the act as amended.

What the proposal does not touch is the penalty side, because that is fixed by statute, not by the fee schedule.

What stays the same

Nothing in the 9 October notice changes the obligation or the consequences of missing it. Under the 2026 guidelines:

• •The reporting window runs from 1 January to 1 March. That is the sixty-day period in Section 10 of the act.
• •Late reporting costs a fine of ₱200 for every month of delay, capped at ₱2,000 per year, with a fraction of a month counted as a full month. On top comes a Motion for Reconsideration fee of ₱1,510.
• •Arrears first. The registration officer collects all unpaid Annual Report arrears before accepting the current year's report.
• •No report, no clean exit. Departing foreign nationals must have paid their Annual Report before an Emigration Clearance Certificate is issued. The guidelines also state that the international ports will offload registered foreign nationals who cannot show compliance, and that anyone with an unpaid report at the airport pays through the virtual Annual Report before clearance.
• •Who may send a representative. Personal appearance is required, except for those under 14, those aged 60 and above, persons with disability holding a PWD ID, and pregnant women or people with a medical condition who present a medical certificate. Representatives bring proof of the exemption and, if they are not family, a special power of attorney.

The penalty structure is why a small fee increase matters less than it looks. A missed report has always cost far more than the report. Our January piece on the BI Annual Report goes through why a gap in your reporting history causes trouble out of all proportion to the fine.

The virtual route, and why it now costs most

The virtual Annual Report is the option most affected, and it is worth understanding properly. The 2026 guidelines still refer to the 2025 Virtual Annual Report in one step, so the route has been running for at least two reporting years.

Under Sections 10 and 11 of the 2026 guidelines, the virtual report is open to registered foreign nationals who are physically in the Philippines during the reporting period and hold a valid visa, except those with a paper-based ACR. The guidelines list permanent residents, including the quota visa and the Section 13 categories, and non-immigrant visa holders such as Sections 9(d), 9(f) and 9(g), along with several special categories.

The procedure runs in five steps:

• •Step 1: Register on the Bureau's e-services portal.
• •Step 2: Book a date and time for an online interview.
• •Step 3: Attend the interview on Google Meet and show your valid passport and ACR I-Card to the registration officer.
• •Step 4: Receive an Order of Payment Slip by email, covering the fee plus any arrears and fines.
• •Step 5: Pay the same day through Maya, GCash, Visa or Mastercard, or Landbank. If you miss the day, you request a new slip through your account.

The guidelines say the virtual service operates around the clock, including weekends and holidays, during the reporting period, and that the Bureau's biometrics section continues to handle it afterwards.

For a resident of Davao, that convenience is real. The BI Davao District Office is the participating office for Region XI, and the guidelines name no other office in the region. Anyone living outside the city centre, or anyone who works on weekdays, gains a morning by reporting from home. The proposal prices that morning at ₱1,500 instead of ₱1,000.

Who is affected

The coverage section of the 2026 guidelines is short: all registered foreign nationals who hold an ACR I-Card or a paper-based ACR with a valid visa. In practice, that is most foreigners who live here on a residence visa.

• •Marriage visa holders. If you live here on the 13A, probationary or permanent, the Annual Report is yours every year.
• •Quota visa holders. The quota visa is permanent residency without a renewal cycle. The Annual Report is the one recurring duty that remains, so for quota residents the fee schedule is the main running cost of the status.
• •Work and treaty visa holders. 9(d) and 9(g) visa holders appear in the virtual list and pay the same fee.
• •Children. The guidelines exempt those under 14 from personal appearance, not from the report itself. Each registered family member is a separate reportee, so budget per person.

For a family of four on residence visas, the difference between ₱310 and ₱2,010 per person, if everyone reports virtually with the express lane, would be the difference between ₱1,240 and ₱8,040 a year. Still not ruinous. Worth knowing before January.

When the new fees would apply

The notice gives no effective date. It is a proposal, and the Bureau will finalise the schedule after the comment period. The guidelines for each reporting year are issued as a separate operations order, usually before the window opens: the 2026 order was signed on 20 November 2025.

So the honest status on 22 October is this. The proposed amounts are public. The current amounts are still ₱300 plus ₱10, and ₱1,000 for the virtual express lane. Whether the 2027 report, opening on 1 January, is charged at the old or the new rates will depend on what the Bureau adopts and when it publishes the 2027 guidelines.

What to do now

If you want to comment, do it before about 8 November. The notice names the two email addresses above. A short, factual message works best: who you are, which visa you hold, how you report, and what the change would mean for you. Residents aged 60 and above, families with several members, and people who rely on the virtual route because they live far from a BI office have the most concrete points to make.

Plan for January anyway. Nothing in the proposal moves the 1 January to 1 March window. Put the second week of January in your calendar now, as the January piece suggests, and keep last year's official receipt and your ACR I-Card ready.

Check your arrears. Because arrears are collected first, any missed year will be charged together with the current report. If you are not sure your history is clean, find out before the window opens, not at the counter or at the airport.

Keep the receipts. Whether you pay ₱310 or ₱2,010, the receipt is your proof of compliance at every later step, including your next departure.

The Annual Report is one item in a set of obligations that keep a residence valid year after year. That is the point of a real residency package: someone watches the calendar, the fees and the paper trail, so a small fee change never turns into a missed deadline. If you have only just arrived, our piece on your first 30 days in Davao explains where the ACR I-Card fits into the first weeks.

A small fee with a clear message

Read together, the two documents say something simple. The Bureau wants foreign residents to report, it has built a route that lets them do it from home, and it now proposes to charge more for both the basic report and the faster options.

For most residents, the right response is not alarm but attention. Comment if the change affects you, budget for the higher figures, and above all report on time. The fee may rise by a few hundred pesos. The cost of a missed year has not changed at all.