Buying guide

How to buy land in the Philippines as a foreigner, and as a Filipino

Written for foreign buyers first. If you are Filipino, the short section near the end is for you. Every deal is different, so treat this as a map, not as advice.

Foreigners cannot own land. Here is what works.

The Philippine Constitution reserves land ownership to Filipino citizens and to corporations that are at least 60 percent Filipino-owned. A foreigner cannot hold a land title in their own name. There are five routes buyers actually use.

1. Long-term lease. You lease the land from the Filipino owner and you own what you build on it. Private leases to foreigners run up to 25 years, renewable for another 25. Under the Investors' Lease Act, a registered foreign investor can lease up to 50 years, renewable once for 25, for a real project such as a resort. The lease is registered on the title, so it survives a sale of the land.
2. Philippine corporation. A corporation that is at least 60 percent Filipino-owned can own land. You can hold up to 40 percent of the shares. The Filipino shareholders must be real partners with real money and real control. Arrangements that make them nominees for you break the Anti-Dummy Law, and both sides can be prosecuted. Done properly, this is the usual route for resorts.
3. Condominium. Foreigners can own condominium units outright, as long as foreigners hold no more than 40 percent of the units in that project. This does not apply to land or islands. We mention it because it is the one thing a foreigner can own in their own name.
4. Filipino spouse. If your spouse is a Filipino citizen, the land can be titled in their name. The foreign spouse has no ownership claim on the land itself, so this is a decision about trust and estate planning as much as about property.
5. Former Filipino citizens. If you were born a Filipino citizen and lost that citizenship, you can still own limited land: up to 1,000 square metres in town or one hectare of rural land for a residence, and up to 5,000 square metres in town or three hectares of rural land for business. If you reacquire Filipino citizenship under the dual citizenship law, you have full rights.

A foreigner can also acquire land by inheritance when there is no will. That is not a buying route, but it matters for how you structure a purchase with family in mind.

What a clean title means

Land in the Philippines is registered under the Torrens system. The first registration produces an Original Certificate of Title (OCT). Each transfer after that produces a Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT). The original is kept at the Registry of Deeds; the owner keeps a duplicate.

A clean title is one where the Registry copy matches the owner's copy, the registered owner is the person selling, and the back page carries no annotations that block a sale. Here is how we check it, on every property, before we list it.

• Certified true copy of the title from the Registry of Deeds, less than a month old, compared line by line with the seller's duplicate.
• Annotations on the back page: mortgages, liens, adverse claims, pending court cases (lis pendens), inheritance notes. Any of these needs to be settled or cancelled before transfer.
• Tax declaration and real property tax clearance from the municipal assessor and treasurer, in the same name as the title.
• Land classification from the DENR. Only land classified as alienable and disposable can be privately owned. Forest land and foreshore cannot be titled, whatever a seller says.
• Relocation survey by a licensed geodetic engineer, so that the land you walk on is the land on the title. Boundaries move in people's memories; the survey does not.
• For islands and beach lots: the strip along the shore (3 metres in town, 20 metres in agricultural areas, 40 metres in forest areas) is public and stays public. Many small islands are untitled public land. They can sometimes be leased from the government but they cannot be sold.

Some land in Palawan is held under a tax declaration only, with no Torrens title. A tax declaration proves that someone pays tax on the land. It does not prove ownership. Such land can often be titled if it is alienable and disposable, but the process takes one to two years and is never guaranteed. We say so on the listing when that is the case, and we price it accordingly.

The steps of a purchase

1. Reservation. You sign an offer or reservation agreement and pay a deposit, often called earnest money. The agreement says whether the deposit is refundable if due diligence fails. Ours are.
2. Due diligence. Our lawyer in Puerto Princesa runs the checks listed above. Two to six weeks, depending on how far the Registry and the DENR office are from the land.
3. Structure. We agree with you how you will hold the property: lease, corporation, or title in a Filipino name. For a corporation, registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission comes first.
4. Deed of sale. A Deed of Absolute Sale is signed before a notary. If you pay in instalments, a Contract to Sell comes first and the deed follows the final payment.
5. Taxes. Capital gains tax and documentary stamp tax are paid at the Bureau of Internal Revenue, which then issues the Certificate Authorizing Registration (eCAR). This is the slowest step.
6. Transfer tax. Paid at the provincial or city treasurer.
7. Registration. The Registry of Deeds cancels the old title and issues a new TCT in the buyer's name, or annotates the lease. A new tax declaration is then issued by the assessor.

Typical costs

These are the rules and the usual ranges. Exact figures depend on the price, the zonal value set by the tax office, and what you negotiate. Who pays which cost is custom, not law, and can be negotiated.

As a rule of thumb, a buyer should budget 2 to 4 percent of the price on top of the price for taxes and registration, plus professional fees. Leases and corporate structures have their own costs, which we quote per deal.

Typical timeline

• Reservation to end of due diligence: 2 to 6 weeks.
• Signing to new title in your name: usually 2 to 6 months, most of it waiting for the tax office.
• Tax-declared land that still needs titling: add 1 to 2 years. We tell you this before you reserve, not after.

If you are a Filipino buyer

You can own land outright, including islands, and the checks above apply to you just the same. If you live abroad, you can buy through a Special Power of Attorney signed at a Philippine consulate or apostilled where you live. Dual citizens have full ownership rights. If you buy in instalments, we register the Contract to Sell on the title so that the land cannot be sold to someone else while you pay.

This page is general information based on Philippine law as we understand it at the time of writing. It is not legal advice. Laws, tax rates and local rules change, and your situation may differ. Before you commit money, have a Philippine lawyer check the structure, the title and the costs for the specific property.