SRRV Smile Is Gone. Here's What Replaced It.

If you're researching the SRRV Smile, you're working from outdated information, and you're far from alone: half the internet still lists it. In September 2025 the Philippine Retirement Authority restructured the entire SRRV programme: the Smile and Human Touch categories were abolished for new applicants, the minimum age was set at 40 for everyone, and the programme was consolidated into two tracks: Classic and Courtesy. Here's what that means depending on who you are.

If you already hold an SRRV Smile

You keep it. The restructure applies to new applications only: existing holders of Smile and Human Touch visas remain valid under their original terms; you pay your annual PRA fee as before and nothing changes. Don't let anyone talk you into "converting"; there is nothing to convert.

If you were planning to apply for the Smile

The Smile's appeal was the low deposit (USD 10,000–20,000) parked in a bank with no investment conversion. That door is closed. What new applicants choose from now:

• •SRRV Classic, the standard track, with the deposit set by age and pension status: USD 15,000 to 50,000. Full tiers on the cost page. Unlike the old Smile, Classic deposits can under PRA rules be converted into qualifying investments such as a condominium.
• •SRRV Courtesy, for former Filipino citizens and certain officials, at a nominal USD 1,500 deposit.

The practical translation for the profiles who used to pick the Smile: a 50+ pensioner now parks USD 15,000 on Classic, which is Smile-adjacent money with more flexibility. A 40–49 applicant without a pension now needs USD 50,000, a real step up. And under-40 applicants have no SRRV at all anymore; for them the serious alternative is the Quota Visa: permanent immigrant status, USD 100,000 capacity, 50 slots per nationality per year.

What else the restructure changed

• •Minimum age 40 across the board (previously the programme reached lower).
• •Mandatory Bureau of Immigration clearance for every new applicant.
• •PRA ID renewals on a two-year cycle instead of annual.
• •Deposit tiers rebuilt, with the 40–49 bracket priced above the 50+ bracket throughout.

Everything else that made the SRRV attractive survives: lifetime multiple-entry residence, no BI Annual Report, the refundable deposit, and dependents on the principal's application. The requirements checklist has the full current picture.