You want to travel abroad and experience life in the other country, but the problem is you don't have passport? GET IN will serve you very helpful tips to get Philippine passport and for your application. Just read carefully and follow every steps to have your new passport or renewing passport.
Secure all the required documents
Here’s a short list of requirements that you will need for your Philippine passport application.
Important documents for new applicants
- Original IDs – Original school ID (for students), Voter’s ID, Senior Citizen’s ID and other government issued IDs, such as Driver’s License, BIR, PRC and SSS. Additionally, you may include original supporting documents that verify your citizenship, place and date of birth as well as full name.
- Birth Certificate – Must be in SECPA (Security Paper) issued by the NSO (National Statistics Office) or CTC (Certified True Copy) of your Birth Certificate issued the Local Civil Registrar and duly authenticated by NSO.
Supporting documents for your Philippine passport application
While not necessarily important, you might want to secure the following documents for your application:
- Certificate of Tribal Affiliation from NCMF (National Commission of Muslim Filipinos), for Muslim applicants
- Marriage certificate, if applicable
- Land title
- Income Tax Return (old copy)
- Baptismal Certificate with dry seal
- Transcript of Records with dry seal
- Government Service Record
Important notes:
- Don’t forget to make at least 2 photocopies of every document. The DFA won’t proceed with your scheduled appointment, if you fail to bring your photocopied and original documents. While there are usually photocopying services near the DFA offices, their rates may be a bit higher than usual.
- For passport renewals, you just need your old passport.
Schedule a DFA appointment
After securing all your documents, the next thing you have to do is to schedule an appointment with the DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs). To schedule a DFA appointment, you can either call its customer service hotline or use their online application feature.
Via phone
- Contact the customer service hotline of DFA at (02) 737 1000.
- Follow every instruction stated by the customer care representative.
- Provide all the information asked. The customer care representative will inform you if you need to submit any additional document.
- Pick the nearest DFA site where you will make a personal appearance.
- A reference number will be given to you as well as the link to your application form, after scheduling your appointment.
DFA online application
- Open www.passport.gov.ph and select “Schedule an Appointment” from the top menu.
- Choose “Start Group Appointment” if you’re applying in behalf of your family. Pick “Start Individual Appointment”, if you’re making an appointment for yourself.
- Fill in the required information, and double check before proceeding to the next steps.
- Choose your appointment time, date and place (DFA office).
- A reference number will be, then, sent to your email, along with a link to print your Philippine passport application form.
No DFA appointment is needed for these types of Filipino citizens:
- Minors (7 years old and below)
- Pregnant women with valid medicate certificate
- Solo parents with a valid solo parent ID
- Person with disability with visible disability or PWD ID
- Senior Citizens with Senior Citizen ID
Other important notes:
- Philippine passport appointments are free of charge. The DFA discourages from getting appointment through fixers. Dealing with a fixer is at your own expense and risk.
- The appointment system works on a traditional first come, first served basis.
- Use either a Yahoo or Gmail email address for updates as well as to get the booking conformation. Email accounts from Live, Outlook, Hotmail and MSM aren’t deemed as valid by the DFA because of technical incompatibilities with their system.
- Look for other DFA offices that are near your area. With the immense volume of PH passport applications nowadays, you might be given a schedule that’s too far and late, if you pick busy DFA offices like the ones in Cebu and Pasay.
Go to your scheduled appointment
Before you make your way to the DFA office, make sure to heed these important reminders:
Things to take note:
- Bring original copies and photocopies of your IDs and documents.
- Wear something formal. Applicants wearing sandals, tube, slippers, shorts, spaghetti straps and sandos will not be allowed to set foot inside the office.
- Don’t forget to bring the printed passport application form.
- For minors, you and your guardian or parent must be present at the DFA appointment.
- Arrive at least 30 minutes at the DFA office since later arrivals won’t be entertained.
- Bring cash for the Philippine passport processing fee. Rate for regular processing (15 days) is PHP 950, while express processing (7 days) will cost you PHP 1,200.
- Bring extra money, in case there are additional fees.
DFA appointment and application process
- Make your way to the Application Counter, and show your printed application.
- Get a priority number, and fall in line at the office’s Information Counter.
- Present your documents for verification at the Information Counter.
- At the Passport Enrollment Section, pay the processing fee.
- You don’t have to worry about getting lost, as there are signs pointing where to go, following every section.
- Head to the Encoding Section, for biometric information and passport photo.
- You can choose whether you want your Philippine passport to be picked up at the DFA office or be delivered at home. Inside the premises, there’s a Delivery Counter, in which you may specify this.