A quoted salary is only part of what hiring someone in the Philippines actually costs. At ₱720,000 base, the true annual cost runs to roughly 1.17× base salary once SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG, EC, and 13th month pay are added. Run your own numbers below.
SSS (employer)
10%
capped at ₱35,000/mo
PhilHealth (employer)
2.5%
matches employee 1:1
Pag-IBIG (employer)
₱200/mo
effectively fixed at this cap
13th month pay
1 month
mandatory, all rank-and-file
Total annual cost of employment
₱842,760
Load on top of salary
1.17× base
Base salary
₱720,000
SSS, employer share (10%)
Capped: MSC ceiling is ₱35,000/mo
₱42,000
PhilHealth, employer share (2.5%)
Matches the employee rate 1:1
₱18,000
Pag-IBIG, employer share (2%)
Capped at ₱200/mo
₱2,400
Employees' Compensation (EC)
100% employer-funded, no employee contribution
₱360
13th month pay
Mandatory, one month's basic salary
₱60,000
Three of the Philippines' employer contributions look similar on the surface, all percentage-based, all with employee-side equivalents, but they behave quite differently in practice. SSS is deliberately unequal, the employer pays double the employee's rate. PhilHealth is a genuine 1:1 match. Pag-IBIG is also rate-matched, but its ceiling is so low relative to typical tech salaries that it effectively becomes a flat ₱200/month for almost everyone, a cap that dominates the calculation far more than the 2% rate itself.
EC is the one line with zero employee involvement at all, small in absolute terms, but structurally different from the other three, a genuine employer-only cost like AU's workers' comp or Japan's rousai hoken, just far cheaper.
13th month pay is the biggest single line item after the statutory contributions, a full extra month's basic salary, mandatory for every rank-and-file employee under Philippine law, not something an employer can opt out of the way a discretionary bonus can be skipped.
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Beyond the gross salary, Philippine employers pay their share of SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG, plus the employer-only EC contribution and the mandatory 13th month pay. For a ₱720,000 hire, that's a total load of roughly 1.17× base salary, about ₱122,760 above the quoted salary, before any recruitment fee or equipment budget.
No, and this is the detail most first-time employers miss. SSS totals 15% of Monthly Salary Credit, but it's split unevenly, the employer pays 10%, double the employee's 5%. Both are calculated against the same ₱35,000/month MSC ceiling, so for any salary above that, the SSS contribution stops growing entirely.
PhilHealth is a clean 1:1 match, 2.5% employer and 2.5% employee, for a combined 5%, on a monthly floor and ceiling of ₱10,000-₱100,000. Pag-IBIG is also a 1:1 rate match (2% each), but the compensation ceiling used to calculate it is far lower, just ₱10,000/month, so the employer's Pag-IBIG contribution caps out at ₱200/month for virtually every salary this site covers, a tiny, effectively fixed amount regardless of how high the salary goes.
EC funds benefits for work-related injury, illness, disability, or death, and unlike every other line item here, the employee contributes nothing toward it at all, it's entirely employer-funded. The amount is small, ₱10/month if the Monthly Salary Credit is below ₱15,000, ₱30/month if it's ₱15,000 or above, which covers virtually every tech salary this calculator targets. Small in dollar terms, but a genuinely distinct employer-only cost.
Yes, 13th month pay is legally mandatory for all rank-and-file employees under Presidential Decree No. 851, one month's basic salary, typically paid by December 24. It's a genuinely separate legal requirement from any discretionary Christmas bonus an employer might also choose to pay on top. This calculator reuses the same engine as the dedicated 13th Month Pay Calculator so the figures can never drift apart.
The Philippines' statutory employer load, roughly 17-20% once SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG, EC, and 13th month pay are combined, sits meaningfully below Mexico's multi-branch IMSS burden or Brazil's INSS Patronal plus FGTS stack. The structural similarity across all three markets is the mandatory year-end bonus, aguinaldo in Mexico, décimo terceiro in Brazil, 13th month pay in the Philippines, each a genuine recurring cash cost on top of the statutory contribution lines.
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