How to Apply for Dual Citizenship in the Philippines

If you were born a Filipino citizen and later naturalized in another country, you can apply for dual citizenship in the Philippines by filing a petition under Republic Act No. 9225 and taking an oath of allegiance before a Philippine consular officer. You do not have to give up your foreign citizenship, and at many posts the entire process finishes in a single appointment.

Who Qualifies Under RA 9225

RA 9225 is written for natural-born Filipinos who lost Philippine citizenship by naturalizing abroad. Natural-born means you were a citizen from birth without any act on your part to acquire or perfect that status, which in practice means your father or mother was a Filipino when you were born. One exception applies to older applicants: if you were born before January 17, 1973, to a Filipino mother and a non-Filipino father, you qualify only if you elected Philippine citizenship upon reaching the age of majority.¹

Unmarried children under eighteen, whether legitimate, illegitimate, or adopted, can be included in a qualifying parent’s petition as derivative citizens.² Children who are already eighteen or older must file their own separate petition as adults.³

Documents You Need Before the Appointment

Requirements are largely consistent across Philippine foreign service posts, with minor local variations. Have everything ready before you book:

Original PSA birth certificate on security paper. Copies issued by local civil registries are not accepted. You can order one through psahelpline.ph or psaserbilis.com.ph.⁴
Your foreign naturalization certificate.
Original and one photocopy of the data pages of your Philippine passport (valid or expired) and your foreign passport.
Two recent 2×2 inch color photos with a white background, taken within the last six months.
The application form from the website of the embassy or consulate you plan to use, completed in capital letters.

If Your Name Isn’t the Same Across Documents

Name mismatches are one of the more common reasons people get sent home to gather more paperwork. A PSA marriage certificate covers a name change from marriage; a court divorce decree covers a name change from divorce. For anything else, most consulates require a notarized Affidavit of One and the Same Person listing every version of your name and declaring they refer to a single individual, with your birth details, parents’ names, and the specific documents on which each spelling appears.⁵ Have it notarized before you arrive.

Documents for Children Included in Your Petition

For each unmarried child under eighteen you want included, submit two 2×2 photos, an original birth certificate with one photocopy, and a copy of any Philippine or foreign passport the child holds. The fee is $25 per child, and the children themselves do not need to attend.⁴ If you already completed your own petition and forgot a child, you can file a separate petition for inclusion afterward, provided the child is still under eighteen and unmarried.³

Where and How to File

You can file at any Philippine Embassy or Consulate abroad, or at the Bureau of Immigration if you are already in the Philippines. Most posts require an in-person appointment scheduled through their website. Some consulates run periodic outreach missions in cities without a permanent office; for those, you typically mail your documents in advance and appear in person on the scheduled date.⁴

The processing fee is $50 for each adult applicant and $25 for each minor child included as a derivative. Accepted payment methods vary by post but commonly include cash, money orders, and credit or debit cards, sometimes with a card convenience fee.⁶ Fees are non-refundable.

Taking the Oath of Allegiance

The oath is the legal act that restores your Philippine citizenship. Under RA 9225, you are “deemed to have re-acquired Philippine citizenship upon taking the oath of allegiance to the Republic.”⁷ A consular officer administers it, usually alongside other applicants on the same day. The oath pledges support for the Philippine Constitution and its laws and does not require you to renounce allegiance to any other country.⁸ Bring your original supporting documents to the oath-taking so the officer can verify them.

How Long It Takes and What You Walk Away With

Many posts complete the process in a single appointment. The Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C., for example, finishes applications the same day.⁴ Mail-in applications and outreach missions take longer because the oath must be scheduled separately.

Once approved, you receive three documents:

The Order of Approval, which is the consulate’s formal grant of reacquisition.
Your signed and witnessed Oath of Allegiance.
An Identification Certificate (IC), which is your primary proof of reacquired Philippine citizenship.

Keep all three safe and make copies. The IC is the document you will rely on most: for a Philippine passport application, at Philippine immigration, and any time you need to prove your citizenship going forward.

Applying for a Philippine Passport

A Philippine passport is not legally required after reacquisition, but the Commission on Filipinos Overseas recommends getting one because it is easier to carry than an Identification Certificate and simplifies travel in and out of the country.⁹ Presenting a Philippine passport alongside your foreign passport at Philippine immigration can also exempt you from certain fees.

To apply, you will need your IC, Oath of Allegiance, Order of Approval, your PSA birth certificate, and your most recent Philippine passport if you ever had one. Book a separate passport appointment through the consulate.¹⁰

Traveling to the Philippines After Reacquisition

You do not need a Philippine passport to enter the country. You can travel on your foreign passport and present your IC, Oath, and Order of Approval at Philippine immigration.¹¹ With those documents you can stay in the Philippines indefinitely without a visa. A Philippine passport still makes things smoother at the counter because immigration officers see them far more often than Identification Certificates.

Rights and Conditions Once You Reacquire

Reacquisition restores your full civil rights as a Filipino, but several of them come with conditions.

Land and Business

Once your citizenship is reacquired, you are treated as a Filipino citizen under the 1987 Constitution for property purposes, with no limit on the area or size of land you can own in the Philippines.¹² That contrasts with former natural-born Filipinos who never reacquire, who remain capped at 1,000 square meters of urban residential land or one hectare of rural residential land. You can also invest and do business without the foreign-ownership restrictions that apply to non-citizens.

Voting

Dual citizens may vote in Philippine elections, but not automatically. RA 9225 excludes those who hold office in a foreign country and those who do not meet residency requirements.⁷ If you live abroad, overseas absentee voting has its own registration process.

Running for or Holding Public Office

The law draws a hard line here. To run for elective office in the Philippines, you must make a personal and sworn renunciation of all foreign citizenship at the time you file your certificate of candidacy.⁷ Appointees to public office must take an oath of allegiance and renounce their foreign citizenship before assuming the position. The dual citizenship that RA 9225 grants must, in effect, become single citizenship before you can serve in government.

Practicing a Regulated Profession

To practice medicine, engineering, accounting, or another regulated profession in the Philippines, you must obtain a license or permit from the Professional Regulation Commission. For lawyers, the licensing body is the Supreme Court of the Philippines.⁹ Reacquisition on its own does not reinstate a lapsed professional license.

Taxes

The Philippines generally taxes residents on worldwide income and non-residents only on Philippine-source income. If you reacquire citizenship but continue to live abroad, income earned in your country of residence is typically not subject to Philippine income tax, especially where a tax treaty exists. Rental income and capital gains from Philippine real property remain taxable regardless of where you live, and Philippine estates are subject to a flat 6 percent estate tax on the net value of the estate whether the owner was a resident or not. Before acquiring significant assets in the Philippines, consulting a Philippine tax professional is worth the cost.

1
Supreme Court E-Library. Article IV – Citizenship
2
Lawphil Project – Arellano Law Foundation. Republic Act No. 9225
3
Philippine Consulate General New York, USA. Dual Citizenship (RA 9225)
4
Embassy of the Republic of the Philippines. Dual Citizenship
5
Philippine Consulate: Hong Kong. Affidavit of One and the Same Person
6
Philippine Consulate General Los Angeles California. Dual Citizenship (RA 9225)
7
Senate of the Philippines. Republic Act No. 9225
8
Philippine Embassy in Abuja. Reacquisition of Citizenship (RA 9225)
9
Commission on Filipinos Overseas. Primer on Philippine Dual Citizenship Act
10
Philippine Consulate General Los Angeles California. Passport Applicants who are Dual Citizens under RA 9225
11
Philippine Embassy in Budapest. Dual Citizenship
12
Philippine Embassy in Brussels. FAQs on Dual Citizenship