Visitors usually arrive with a single number for what the Philippines costs, and then find that number works for some purchases and fails badly for others. The split is not random.
How fast are prices moving right now?
Faster than most of the region. Headline inflation was 6.1 per cent year on year in August 2026, down marginally from 6.2 per cent in July, with a year-to-date average of 5.2 per cent.
| Measure, August 2026 | Rate |
|---|---|
| Headline inflation | 6.1% |
| Core inflation | 4.1% |
| Food inflation | 4.6% |
| Metro Manila | 4.1% |
| Areas outside Metro Manila | 6.6% |
The contributors are worth noting because they map onto a visitor's own spending. Food and non-alcoholic beverages contributed 1.8 percentage points, housing and utilities 1.6, and transport 1.2.
What sets the floor under service prices?
The regional minimum wage, and the regional part is the whole point — the Philippines has no single national rate.
| Region and sector | Daily minimum |
|---|---|
| Metro Manila, non-agriculture | PHP 755 |
| Metro Manila, agriculture and small retail or manufacturing | PHP 718 |
| Metro Manila, domestic workers | PHP 7,800 per month |
| Expanded Metro Cebu (Class A) | PHP 540 |
| Central Visayas, other cities and municipalities (Class B) | PHP 500 |
| Davao Region, from 1 September 2026 | PHP 525 to 540 |
Metro Manila's rate rose PHP 60 under Wage Order No. NCR-28 — a document with an unusual history, since the preceding order was approved in June 2026 but never took effect after a status quo ante order, a restraining order and an injunction.
Central Visayas puts the arithmetic starkly. Its own wage order records that the 2023 poverty threshold for a family of five in the region was PHP 473, and that two of the three then-prevailing minimum wage rates were below it.
Where does the state add the most?
Alcohol and tobacco, by a wide margin, and the rates climb every year without new legislation.
| Product | 2026 excise rate |
|---|---|
| Distilled spirits | PHP 74.16 per proof litre, plus 22% ad valorem |
| Still and sparkling wine | PHP 70.92 per litre |
| Fermented liquor (beer) | PHP 48.31 per litre |
| Cigarettes | PHP 69.46 per pack of 20 |
| Cigars | PHP 8.55 each, plus 20% ad valorem |
| Heated tobacco | PHP 37.63 per pack of 20 |
Those rates took effect in the customs system on 15 January 2026. The escalator is written into Republic Act No. 11467: distilled spirits, wines and fermented liquors rise 6 per cent every year from 1 January 2025, and heated tobacco and vapor products 5 per cent every year from 1 January 2024.
VAT sits on top at 12 per cent, and its statutory scope is broad — hotels, inns and resorts; restaurants, refreshment parlors, cafes and other eating places; electricity generation, transmission and distribution; telecommunications and broadcasting; and domestic air and sea carriers for passengers within the Philippines.
What can you actually bring in?
Less than most travellers assume, and the value cap catches people more often than the quantity cap.
| Allowance on arrival | Limit |
|---|---|
| De minimis value, exempt from duties and taxes | PHP 10,000 |
| Alcohol | 2 bottles, combined value under PHP 10,000 |
| Tobacco | 2 reams of cigarettes, or 50 cigars, or 250g pipe tobacco, under PHP 10,000 |
Is there a tourist VAT refund?
There is a law, and as of this writing there was no confirmed way to use it. Republic Act No. 12079 was approved on 6 December 2024, adding a refund mechanism for non-resident tourists, with implementing rules signed on 24 March 2025 by the finance secretary, the customs commissioner and a bureau of internal revenue deputy commissioner.
The statutory conditions are clear: goods purchased in person at duly accredited stores, taken out of the Philippines within 60 days, at least PHP 3,000 per transaction — a threshold reviewable every three years against the consumer price index. Refunds may be electronic or in cash, and the finance department is to engage globally recognised refund operators.
What is missing is the operator. The department's invitation for accreditation pre-qualification set a submission deadline of 21 November 2025 and gave no launch date, and no official source confirms that an operator has been accredited or that accredited stores exist.
What about fuel and electricity?
Fuel is expensive and well documented; electricity is expensive and badly documented. Pump prices in Metro Manila for the week of 8 to 14 September 2026 ran PHP 85.60 to 96.40 a litre for RON 95 gasoline, PHP 82.50 to 92.00 for RON 91, and PHP 89.50 to 99.40 for diesel.
The energy department publishes its own estimated breakdown of where that money goes.
| Component | Gasoline | Diesel |
|---|---|---|
| Import cost | 56% | 71% |
| Taxes | 24% — PHP 18.00 | 18% — PHP 15.17 |
| Ethanol or CME blend | 8% | 4% |
| Industry take | 12% | 7% |
One live policy worth knowing: Republic Act No. 12316 of 25 March 2026 lets the President suspend or reduce fuel excise when the one-month Dubai crude average reaches USD 80 a barrel, for up to three months at a time and one year in aggregate, with the power expiring on 31 December 2028. Executive Order No. 114 of 16 April 2026 used it — but only for LPG and kerosene, not gasoline or diesel.
So what should you budget?
Split the budget by input rather than by category. Anything whose main cost is a person's time is inexpensive; anything taxed, imported or electrified is not.
For scale, the statistics authority's 2025 preliminary survey puts average annual family income at PHP 411,350 and average annual family expenditure at PHP 321,850.
What this guide does not cover
No electricity rate appears here. The energy regulator's site returns errors, the energy department's rate pages render only in a browser, and the department's legacy site no longer resolves — so the widely repeated claim that Philippine power rates are the highest in Southeast Asia is deliberately omitted, since no official document carrying it could be found.
The excise-only rate per litre of gasoline and diesel is also absent. The figures above are the energy department's total tax line, combining excise and VAT, and the statutory schedule could not be read from primary text.
Two cautions on what is published. The customs memo's vapor product rows appear to invert the statute's structure — assigning the per-millilitre rate and the per-ten-millilitre rate to the opposite products — which is a discrepancy in the source document, so check with the revenue bureau before relying on it. And the full VAT exemption list, including the registration threshold and senior citizen provisions, could not be retrieved, so nothing is claimed about those.
No currency declaration threshold is stated, because the customs arriving-travellers page does not give one. And whether the LPG and kerosene excise suspension is still in force is unknown: its three-month term would have expired around mid-July 2026 absent an extension that could not be confirmed.