Not everyone who wants permanent residency in the Philippines wants to qualify as a retiree, and not everyone is over 40. For investors, there is a separate door: the Special Investor's Resident Visa (SIRV), which grants indefinite residency in exchange for a qualifying investment of USD 75,000.
It is a narrower instrument than the SRRV, and it suits a specific kind of person. Here is how it actually works.
What the SIRV is
The SIRV is administered by the Board of Investments (BOI), not the Philippine Retirement Authority. It grants indefinite residency to a foreign national who places and maintains a qualifying investment in the Philippines. Like the SRRV, it confers Resident Alien tax status, which means you are taxed only on Philippine-sourced income while your foreign income stays outside the Philippine net.
There is no age requirement. That is the SIRV's defining advantage over the SRRV for younger applicants. If you are 32 and want permanent residency now rather than waiting until 40, the SIRV is the route that exists for you.
What counts as a qualifying investment
This is where precision matters. The qualifying USD 75,000 must go into publicly listed Philippine companies or Philippine government bonds. These are liquid, transparent, regulated instruments.
What does not qualify, for our purposes, is property. The SIRV technically contemplates certain investment routes, but property acquisition by foreigners is hemmed in by legal restrictions, and we do not arrange SIRVs on that basis. We support SIRV applications built on listed equities and government bonds only. It is the clean, defensible version of the visa.
The investment is not a fee. It is your capital, deployed in your name. But it is conditional: the investment must be maintained for the visa to remain valid. Withdraw it and you undermine the basis of your residency.
SIRV versus SRRV
The two visas are easy to confuse and serve different people.
- •Age: the SRRV starts at 40. The SIRV has no age floor.
- •Capital: the SRRV deposit is a bank time deposit, refundable and convertible to a condo. The SIRV requires USD 75,000 deployed into listed shares or bonds, held for as long as you want the visa.
- •Character: the SRRV is a residency that happens to hold your money safely. The SIRV is an investment that happens to grant you residency.
If you are over 40 and want the simplest permanent base, the SRRV is usually the better fit. If you are under 40, or you specifically want your qualifying capital working in the markets rather than sitting in a time deposit, the SIRV is the answer.
Who the SIRV suits
- •Younger entrepreneurs and investors who want permanent Philippine residency before 40
- •People comfortable holding a long-term position in Philippine listed equities or government bonds
- •Anyone who wants Resident Alien status decoupled from a day count, like the SRRV, but without waiting for the age threshold
The process and our position
A SIRV application runs through the Board of Investments and the Bureau of Immigration. It involves structuring and documenting the qualifying investment, demonstrating the source of funds, and managing the BOI and immigration steps in sequence.
We coordinate the full process: the investment structure and documentation, the BOI filing, and the immigration liaison, alongside the lease, tax registration, and banking that make up a genuine base. We arrange SIRVs on listed equities and government bonds only, because that is the version that holds up cleanly under scrutiny.
If you want permanent Philippine residency, you are under 40, and you are comfortable putting USD 75,000 to work in the market to get it, the SIRV is built for you.
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