Moving to the Philippines from Canada
Canadian passport holders can visit the Philippines visa-free for up to 30 days, but living there takes a residence permit. The self-funded residency routes we track start at an income of about $800 a month or an investment of about $30k, and our residency index rates the Philippines 80/100 for Canadian citizens (comparatively open). We estimate €2,270 a month for a couple living centrally in Cebu City and €2,438 in Manila. The Philippines is in our low to medium tax tier. Check the official requirements before you apply.
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- Short stays
- Visa-free 30 days
- Canadian passport
- Residency
- 80/100
- Comparatively open, our index
- Tax tier
- Low to medium
- Moderate personal income tax
- Est. cost for two
- From €2,270/mo
- Cebu City, our estimate
Living there long term
Our residency index: 80/100, comparatively open. It is our own rating of how realistic long-term residency in the Philippines is for Canadian citizens, based on the routes the Philippines publishes. Long-term residency is realistic chiefly via the SRRV retiree visa (open from age 40 through either a refundable bank deposit or a modest lifetime pension) or the SIRV investor visa, with employer-sponsored work visas as the main non-capital alternative.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track:
- Income: about $800 a month (Philippines SRRV Classic pensioner route, USD 800/mo lifetime pension for a single applicant plus a USD 15,000 PRA bank deposit; as of June 2026)
- Investment: about $30k (Philippines SRRV Classic non-pensioner deposit (age 50+), USD 30,000 refundable PRA bank deposit with no income test; the SIRV investor visa alternative requires USD 75,000; as of June 2026)
Check the official requirements before you apply: amounts, conditions and exchange rates change, and what a couple needs can differ from a single applicant's threshold.
For short visits, Canadian passport holders can visit visa-free for up to 30 days, according to the passport-index dataset. Short-stay entry covers visits; living there takes a residence permit.
Source: OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed approximations researched against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. Not legal advice: check the official source before you apply. Short-stay entry from the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT).
Where in the Philippines to start
Ranked by our match model for a typical couple who both hold Canadian passports, using the preset answers of our best places to live list. Your own answers would change the order. We pick the cities, up to five, by how often English Wikipedia readers looked them up over the past year.
Cost of living for two
Our estimate for a couple living centrally runs from €2,270 a month in Cebu City to €2,438 in Manila. For comparison, we estimate €3,991 a month in Toronto. Use these figures to compare places rather than to set a budget.
Source: our cost model: a country-level cost-of-living index scaled for city size, from our city dataset (last rebuilt June 2026). An estimate, not a survey of current prices.
Taxes
The Philippines is in our low to medium tax tier (moderate personal income tax); Canada is in our high tax tier (high personal income tax). Tiers describe each country's own income tax. They do not cover tax you may still owe in Canada after you leave, or the treaty between the two countries, so check both with a tax adviser before you move.
Source: OurNextCity tax tiers, assigned by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation, with no fixed rate cut-offs. Coarse by design; not tax advice.
Lists with cities in the Philippines
Moving to the Philippines from elsewhere
How we built this page
Every figure here comes from the datasets behind our city and country pages:
- Short-stay entry: the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT license), which records the entry rule for short visits on each passport.
- Residency index, routes and thresholds: the OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. It is a summary, not legal advice.
- City ranking: our match model, the one behind the quiz, run with a typical couple's preset answers and both partners holding Canadian passports. It ranks up to five of the country's best-known cities: of the cities in our quiz (100,000 people or more, capitals and a few towns movers seek out, such as Faro), the five most read about on English Wikipedia over the past year. It folds suburbs into their main city and leaves out countries with a residency index under 40 and areas under a US State Department Level 4 advisory, as our best-cities lists do.
- Costs: our cost model, a country-level cost-of-living index scaled for city size, from our city dataset (last rebuilt June 2026).
- Tax tiers: three coarse bands we assign by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation.