Do Children Pay the Philippines Travel Tax? A Parent's Guide

First, the good news: most visiting families pay nothing

If you're an Australian, British, American or any other foreign-passport family flying home after a normal holiday in the Philippines, your children almost certainly owe no travel tax at all. Neither do you. This is the single most common point of confusion I get from parents, so let me say it plainly before we get into the fine print: the Philippine travel tax is aimed at Filipino citizens and long-stay residents, not at tourists passing through.

The rule is about how long you've been in the country. Non-immigrant foreign passport holders who have stayed in the Philippines for less than one year are exempt from the travel tax. That exemption covers adults, children and infants equally. So a family of five on a three-week island-hopping trip through Palawan and Cebu walks out owing zero pesos in travel tax for any of the kids.

The catch is that the exemption isn't always applied automatically, and that's where families get caught out. You claim it by showing the identification pages of each person's passport plus the stamp from your most recent arrival in the Philippines. Keep the kids' passports accessible at departure, not buried at the bottom of the carry-on with the spare nappies. That arrival stamp is the proof that your stay was under a year.

When your child actually does owe the tax

There are three family situations where a child genuinely owes the Philippine travel tax, and it's worth knowing which one you're in before you get to the airport.

The first is a Filipino-citizen child travelling on a Philippine passport. The second is a dual-citizen child departing on their Philippine passport rather than their foreign one. The third is a foreign-passport child whose family has actually resided in the Philippines for more than a year, which catches a lot of expat families on long postings who assume the tourist exemption still applies to them. It doesn't once you cross the one-year mark.

If your child falls into one of those categories, the amount they pay then depends entirely on their age on the date of travel. The Philippines uses clean age bands, and they're genuinely simple once you see them laid out, so that's the next thing to sort.

The numbers, by age

For a liable traveller, the full travel tax is PHP 1,620 for economy class and PHP 2,700 for first class. Those are the headline adult figures you'll see quoted everywhere, and they're current as of mid-2026.

Infants aged two years or younger on the date of departure are completely exempt. This comes from Presidential Decree 1183 and it's absolute: no form, no certificate, no payment, nothing to apply for. Your one-year-old simply doesn't owe it, even on a Philippine passport. The only thing that matters is age on the departure date, so a child who turns three the day before you fly has aged out of the exemption.

Children from two years up to below twelve pay the standard reduced rate, which is exactly half the full tax: PHP 810 in economy and PHP 1,350 in first class. From their twelfth birthday onward, a liable child pays the full adult rate of PHP 1,620 economy. So for a Filipino or long-stay-resident family with, say, a 1-year-old, an 8-year-old and a 13-year-old all flying economy, the maths is PHP 0 plus PHP 810 plus PHP 1,620, for a household travel-tax bill of PHP 2,430.

A quick word on the under-two rule, because it trips people up with babies. The exemption is read strictly off the departure date stamped on the ticket, not the date you booked or the date you arrived. If your baby's second birthday lands in the middle of a long trip, check which side of it your outbound international flight sits on.

The OFW family rate: even cheaper for some

There's a separate and much lower rate that I want to flag for Filipino families abroad, because the savings are significant and a lot of eligible parents don't claim it. Overseas Filipino Workers are themselves exempt from the travel tax entirely. Their dependents get what's called the privileged reduced rate.

That privileged rate is PHP 300 for economy and PHP 400 for first class. It applies to the legitimate spouse of an OFW and to unmarried children below 21 years of age. It also extends to OFW children with disabilities even when they're over 21. So an OFW parent bringing two teenagers home for the holidays pays PHP 300 each for them rather than the PHP 1,620 standard adult rate, which is a difference of more than PHP 2,600 across the two kids.

To get it you need to prove the connection: the OFW parent's documentation, such as a valid Overseas Employment Certificate or employment contract, plus proof of the relationship like a birth certificate or marriage certificate. It's not automatic, but for a family that qualifies it's well worth the paperwork.

Is it already baked into your airfare?

Here's the part that genuinely confuses parents, including me the first time. On many tickets issued in the Philippines, the travel tax is already collected inside the fare. On tickets bought overseas it usually isn't, and you'd settle it at the airport instead. So whether you'll be paying anything on the day depends partly on where and how the ticket was issued.

This matters most for exempt and reduced-rate families, because the tax can be collected from you even when you didn't actually owe it. If your child was charged the full travel tax inside an airfare but qualifies for exemption or a reduced rate, you can claim a refund from TIEZA, the authority that administers the tax. Refund claims are generally accepted for up to two years, so an exempt tourist family who got charged in error isn't out of pocket permanently.

Before you fly, find the tax breakdown on your e-ticket or ask the airline whether Philippine travel tax is included. If it is and your kids are exempt as short-stay foreign visitors, hold onto the ticket and boarding documentation so you can lodge the refund afterwards.

How to pay it or claim the reduced rate

If your family genuinely owes the tax or qualifies for a reduced child rate, you have a few ways to handle it, and doing it before you reach the airport is the calm option with kids in tow.

You can pay or apply online through TIEZA's official travel tax system, and there's also the MYEG platform that's geared toward exactly this, including the reduced child rate, so you skip the airport queue. Online applications generally need to be lodged at least three working days before departure, so this is a do-it-the-week-before job, not a morning-of one. You can also pay in person at Bayad Center branches around the country or at the TIEZA counters inside the airport before you check in.

For a child's standard reduced rate you'll need the child's passport and your plane ticket showing the travel date that confirms the age band. For the OFW privileged rate you'll need the parent's overseas-employment documents plus proof of relationship. Whichever route you take, get a printed or digital receipt and keep it with the passports, because check-in or immigration may ask to see it.

My honest advice with younger kids: sort whatever you owe online a few days out. The airport counter works, but the last thing you want while managing a tired four-year-old and a departures hall is to be hunting for a payment window and a working card terminal.

Don't confuse it with the terminal fee

The travel tax is not the only departure charge, and the two get muddled constantly. There's a separate airport terminal fee, also called the passenger service charge, of PHP 750 on international departures. Unlike the travel tax, nobody is exempt from the terminal fee. Your exempt toddler still counts toward it.

The saving grace is that at the major international gateways, including Manila's Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Cebu and Clark, the terminal fee is now integrated into the airline ticket for international flights, so most families never pay it separately at a counter. Still, budget for it per person so it doesn't surprise you, and check your fare breakdown the same way you checked for the travel tax.

Put simply: travel tax is the one with the exemptions and the age bands, terminal fee is the flat PHP 750 everyone pays. Keep them mentally separate and the airport stops being confusing.

The bottom line for families

For the overwhelming majority of visiting families reading this, the answer to do children pay the Philippines travel tax is simply no. If you're a foreign-passport household on a holiday shorter than a year, your kids are exempt, you are exempt, and your job is just to carry the passports with the arrival stamp and check the tax wasn't collected inside your fare. If it was, claim it back.

The families who do pay are Filipino-citizen kids, dual citizens flying out on a Philippine passport, and foreign-passport children resident for more than a year. For them the rule is clean: under two is free, two to under twelve is PHP 810 in economy, twelve and over is the full PHP 1,620, and OFW dependents get the much lower PHP 300. Infants are never charged.

It's a small piece of admin in the scheme of a Philippines trip, and the Philippines is one of the warmest places in the region to travel with children. Sort the travel tax the week before you fly, keep the receipts and passports together, and it never becomes the thing that stands between your family and the departure gate. Figures here are current as of June 2026, but rates and rules can change, so confirm with TIEZA or your airline close to your travel date.