Moving to Davao with a Family: Dependents, the 13(a), and Schools

Most guidance on international relocation quietly assumes a single person with a laptop. Real life is more complicated. Many of the people we help are moving with a spouse and children, and that changes the questions: how are dependents covered, what about a Filipino spouse, and where do the children go to school? Here is how family relocation to Davao actually works.

Dependents on residency visas

The main long-stay visas are built to include family. The SRRV allows a principal applicant to include a spouse and dependent children, with an additional deposit increment per dependent beyond the first. The SIRV similarly extends to dependents. In practice this means a family establishes one principal residency and brings the rest of the household under it, rather than each person needing a separate standalone route.

Whichever visa anchors the family, the underlying tax position is the same: as Resident Aliens, foreign income stays outside the Philippine net.

The 13(a) route for a Filipino spouse

If you are married to a Philippine citizen, the 13(a) spousal visa is its own pathway to residency, granted on the basis of the marriage. It is a recognised long-stay visa that confers Resident Alien status, and for a mixed-nationality couple it is often the most natural anchor for the whole family's setup. You can see how it sits alongside the other routes on our visa options page.

Schools

Davao has a range of private and international schools that follow recognised curricula, which is one of the reasons the city works for families rather than only for solo nomads. Options span religious, private, and internationally oriented schools, and the right fit depends on your children's ages, your preferred curriculum, and where you choose to live. Families often settle in the greener, lower-density areas such as Lanang and Maa for this reason, which we cover in the Davao neighbourhood guide.

The practical economics

A family lives well in Davao for a fraction of the Western equivalent. School fees, a larger home, domestic help, and healthcare for several people still land far below the cost of the same standard in London, Dublin, Sydney, or Zurich. The household budget detail is in our cost of living guide, and the healthcare picture for children and parents alike is in our guide to healthcare in Davao.

Doing it properly

A family move has more moving parts than a solo one: more visas, more documents, school enrolment, a larger home. It rewards sequencing and local help even more than a single relocation does. We build the whole picture, the principal visa, the dependents, the lease, the tax registration, and the introductions to schools and healthcare, so the family arrives to a base that is already working rather than to a list of problems to solve.