Why the Philippines Still Runs on Cash, and What to Carry

Visitors arrive expecting a QR-code country and find a peso-note country, then conclude the Philippines is behind. That reading gets the causation backwards.

How big is the remittance economy?

Large enough to shape the whole retail payment landscape. The central bank publishes both a narrow and a broad measure, and the difference matters.

The statistics authority counts the people behind those flows: 2.19 million overseas Filipino workers in 2024, up 1.5 per cent, sending or bringing home PHP 262.20 billion in total — PHP 214.31 billion sent as cash, PHP 40.56 billion carried home as cash, and PHP 7.33 billion in kind.

How many people are outside the banking system?

Fewer than a decade ago, but still a large minority. The central bank's 2021 Financial Inclusion Survey found account ownership at 56 per cent of adults, up from 29 per cent in 2019 — roughly 22 million adults gaining formal access in two years.

The other side of that figure is 44 per cent unbanked, about 34.3 million adults, down from 51.2 million in 2019.

What changed was not bank accounts. E-money accounts went from 8 per cent to 36 per cent over those two years while bank accounts moved only from 12 per cent to 23 per cent — so the leap into the formal system happened through phones, not branches.

Does the digital payment figure mean cards work everywhere?

No, and this is where visitors go wrong. The central bank measured digital payments at 57.4 per cent of retail transaction volume and 59.0 per cent of value in 2024, up from 1 per cent by volume in 2013 — a genuine transformation, and the country beat its 2024 target of 52 to 54 per cent under the national development plan.

But that figure counts economy-wide transaction volume, including payroll, government disbursements and business-to-business transfers. The same report publishes no merchant point-of-sale acceptance rate, no POS terminal count and no card statistics at all.

Can a visitor actually use an e-wallet?

Yes, through one specific product, and the requirements are unusually visitor-friendly. GCash operates a GTourist account, and its own help documentation is explicit about what it needs.

• A non-Philippine mobile number or SIM — a Philippine number is not required
• A valid Visa or Mastercard credit or debit card issued in your name, for the basic account
• A foreign passport, for full verification
• Residents of more than 150 listed countries are eligible
• The account is valid for 30 days and deactivates automatically afterwards
• You can create it before arriving, but it activates only once you are in the Philippines

Maya, the other major wallet, has a distinct "For Foreign Nationals" identification track that accepts a passport, and states no residency requirement. What it does not publish is whether a non-Philippine mobile number is accepted at signup, so treat Maya as unconfirmed for visitors.

Both are regulated by the central bank under their own statements — GCash operating as G-Xchange, Inc., Maya as Maya Philippines, Inc. and Maya Bank, Inc. The regulatory ceiling on an e-money instrument is PHP 100,000 of aggregate monthly load unless the central bank has approved a higher amount, and multiple instruments held by one person count toward the same limit.

How much cash, and in what denominations?

Enough for small transactions, and in small notes — with one rule that catches people out. The central bank sets a legal tender ceiling on coins.

The carve-out is worth quoting: the limit "does not preclude transactions above the stated coin limit so long as both parties have prior and mutual agreement." So a merchant may accept more, but is not obliged to.

What will ATMs cost you?

Whatever the machine's owner decides. The Philippines runs acquirer-based fee charging, described by the central bank as "a market-based pricing model that lets the ATM-owner set the fees for transactions," replacing an earlier fixed share it called unreasonable.

Cardholders keep free access to their own bank's machines; using another bank's machine incurs a variable charge displayed at the terminal. The central bank says expected rates are PHP 10 to 18 for a withdrawal and PHP 0 to 2.50 for a balance enquiry — presented as expectations, not a cap.

Two protections do apply. Fees must be posted in readable font in the ATM's on-screen messages, and any fee change requires at least 60 days' notice, with customers free to exit the contract without penalty within 30 days of that notice.

What this guide does not cover

Several figures are absent because the central bank's site blocked retrieval of specific documents. There is no 2025 full-year remittance total here, no current published remittance-to-GDP ratio for 2024 or 2025, and no digital-payment figure newer than 2024.

The authoritative list of circulating banknote denominations is also missing, including the polymer-versus-paper legal tender position — a real gap for a visitor, since it bears on which notes you will be handed and which remain acceptable. Check at a bank on arrival.

No POS terminal count, ATM count or card-acceptance rate appears here, because none is published in the sources reached. Nor is any merchant card-surcharging rule: the central bank's payment frameworks contain no prohibition on merchants adding a surcharge, so if you meet one, it is not against a published rule. And no Maya user figure or registration requirement for foreigners is stated, because the company's help pages could not be read.