To fill out BIR Form 2307, the withholding agent enters the payee’s and payor’s registered names, addresses, and Taxpayer Identification Numbers; selects the Alphanumeric Tax Code that matches the type of income payment; lists the income paid and tax withheld for each of the three months in the quarter; and signs and issues the certificate to the payee. The form is the Certificate of Creditable Tax Withheld at Source, and it lets the payee credit the withheld amount against their income tax due.1Bureau of Internal Revenue. BIR Forms – Certificates
Who Prepares the Form and Where to Get It
The withholding agent — the business or person making the payment — is responsible for completing and issuing Form 2307. The payee never fills it out; they receive it.
The BIR posts the current form (January 2018 version) in PDF and Excel on its Certificates page.1Bureau of Internal Revenue. BIR Forms – Certificates Physical copies are available at Revenue District Offices and authorized agent banks, and most accounting and enterprise software packages generate the form directly from payment records.
Payee and Payor Identification
Both the payee and payor sections take the registered name, registered address, and TIN of each party. A Philippine TIN is nine digits (the ninth is a check digit) followed by a three-digit branch code, formatted as 000-123-456-001.2SERP-P. Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) – Its Development and Importance in Tax Administration Use the registered branch code, not the head office code, when the transaction runs through a branch.
Getting the TIN wrong is one of the most common errors on this form. The Court of Tax Appeals has denied creditable withholding tax refunds specifically because Form 2307 certificates did not show the payee’s TIN, so the field is worth double-checking before the certificate leaves your office.
Income Payment and Tax Withheld
The middle section is where the numbers go. You enter the Alphanumeric Tax Code that matches the type of income payment, then the income paid and tax withheld for each of the three months in the quarter, and the form totals those figures at the bottom.3Bureau of Internal Revenue. BIR Form 2307 – Certificate of Creditable Tax Withheld at Source Use one row per ATC. If a single payee received two different types of payments during the quarter (say, rent and professional fees), each type gets its own line with its own ATC and rate.
Fill in the “period of return” — the start and end dates of the quarter the certificate covers. The payee will use this to match the certificate to the correct quarterly return; a wrong period means their claimed credits will not line up with the BIR’s records.
Choosing the Right ATC and Rate
The ATC dictates the withholding rate, and the correct code depends on the type of payment, whether the payee is an individual or a corporation, and in some cases the payee’s gross income or VAT status. Frequently used codes include:
- Professional fees paid to an individual with gross income up to ₱3M — WI010, 5%
- Professional fees paid to an individual with gross income over ₱3M or who is VAT-registered — WI011, 10%
- Professional fees paid to a corporation with gross income up to ₱720,000 — WC010, 10%
- Professional fees paid to a corporation with gross income over ₱720,000 — WC011, 15%
- Rentals on real or personal property over ₱10,000 annually — WI100 or WC100, 5%
- Contractor payments — WI120 or WC120, 2%
The full ATC table is published in the BIR’s regulations and updated periodically. The distinction that trips people up most often is between professional fees and contractor payments. The rate difference is significant, and using the wrong code means the wrong amount of tax is withheld, which then flows through to the certificate, the payee’s return, and your own alphalist.
The rate you apply to the payment produces the tax-withheld figure that goes on the form. Cross-check the arithmetic before you sign: rate times gross payment, per month, equals what appears in the tax-withheld columns.
Signing and Issuing the Certificate
The form is signed by the authorized representative of the withholding agent. Under Revenue Regulations No. 2-98, the withholding agent must issue Form 2307 to the payee on or before the 20th day of the month following the close of the taxable quarter, giving you roughly three weeks after quarter-end. If the payee asks for the certificate at the time of payment, you must hand it over immediately; waiting until the quarterly deadline is not an option once the payee makes a demand.
Many businesses issue the certificate together with payment as a standard part of their accounts payable process, treating it like an official receipt. That habit avoids the administrative work of tracking down certificates weeks later, and it removes any argument about whether a demand was made.
Fixing Errors After Issuance
Because the withholding agent controls the payment records and the filed returns, the withholding agent is the one who fixes a defective Form 2307. What that fix looks like depends on the error.
Simple clerical mistakes — a misspelled name, a wrong address, a transposed digit in a date — are resolved by issuing a replacement certificate with the correct information and keeping a record of what changed. More substantive errors, such as an incorrect TIN, wrong ATC code, or a miscalculated withholding amount, may require the payor to amend the quarterly withholding tax return (Form 1601-EQ) and the corresponding alphalist. If the error resulted in under-withholding, the payor must remit the deficiency to avoid penalties.
Discrepancies between Form 2307 and the payor’s filed returns, alphalists, or the payee’s invoices are exactly what BIR examiners look for during audits, and they can lead to disallowed credits or additional assessments against either party. Catching an error before the certificate leaves your desk is far cheaper than resolving it during an examination.
Keeping the Completed Form
Filling out the form is not the end of the obligation. Both payors and payees must keep Form 2307 certificates as part of their permanent accounting records for ten years. The requirement comes from Section 235 of the Tax Code as implemented by BIR Revenue Regulations No. 17-2013, which mandates a ten-year preservation period for all books of accounts and accounting records, counted from the day following the return filing deadline for the taxable year of the last entry.4Supreme Court of the Philippines. BIR Revenue Regulations No. 17-2013 – Preservation of Books of Accounts and Other Accounting Records Revenue Memorandum Order No. 17-2023 specifically names Form 2307 as a document subject to this requirement.5Bureau of Internal Revenue. Revenue Memorandum Order No. 17-2023
Keep physical and digital copies. A missing certificate years later can cost the payee the credit they claimed based on it, and by then the withholding agent may no longer be reachable.