Industry · Payment Processing
A Philippine business taking digital payments in 2026 is choosing between three very different prices. A QR Ph payment, where the customer scans a printed or on-screen code with GCash, Maya or a banking app, costs the merchant 1% at GCash or Maya and about 1.5% at PayMongo. An e-wallet payment taken online through a gateway costs about 2% to 3.4% with VAT, before any fixed fee. A domestic card costs 3.2% to 3.5% before fixed fees and VAT, and more if the card is foreign. Rules the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the Department of Trade and Industry have issued decide who may pass those costs on, and how.
This guide sets out what the providers that publish a price charge as of 12 October 2026, what the BSP's June 2026 merchant-fee rule does and does not say, why you cannot add a card surcharge, and the withholding tax your provider may deduct from your payouts. All amounts are in Philippine pesos.
Watch the tax line. Some providers quote rates before 12% VAT and some include it, which makes the same-looking number up to 12% more expensive.
Stripe does not accept Philippine businesses; the Philippines is not on its list of supported countries.
On a ₱1,000 purchase paid by QR Ph, the merchant pays ₱10 at GCash for Business, ₱10 at Maya's starting rate before any VAT, about ₱15 at PayMongo once VAT is added, and about ₱29 at Xendit, where the 1.5% fee and the ₱11 processing fee come to ₱26 before VAT. Paid by domestic card, the same sale costs ₱32 at GCash, ₱35 at Maya's terminal rate before any VAT, about ₱50 at PayMongo and about ₱52 at Xendit, VAT included.
The fixed fees matter more as the ticket shrinks. On a ₱100 QR Ph payment, GCash's 1.0% is ₱1 and PayMongo's is about ₱1.50, but Xendit's ₱15 minimum and ₱11 processing fee add up to about ₱29 with VAT, which is more than a quarter of the sale. Xendit's pricing suits larger online orders; for a counter selling coffee or snacks, a percentage-only QR rate is far cheaper.
The gap between QR Ph and cards is the main lever a small merchant has. A customer who would pay by card can usually pay by QR from the same banking app, at roughly a third of the cost to you. You may encourage that, for example by displaying the QR code prominently, but as the next section explains, you may not charge the card payer more.
The Department of Trade and Industry's Department Administrative Order 21-03, which took effect on 23 April 2021, sets the rules on payment options for consumer products and services. It says there should be no additional charge on the selling price when the customer pays by debit, credit or prepaid card, QR code, electronic fund transfer or other digital means, so the price must be the same whichever of them the customer chooses. It applies to all persons and companies selling consumer products and services, whether registered or unregistered.
That puts the Philippines in the same camp as Australia, which banned surcharges from 1 October 2026, and unlike New Zealand, where surcharging remains legal. Your fee is a cost of doing business, recovered in your prices rather than at the till.
On 17 June 2026 the BSP issued Circular 1238, which amended its rules for retail payments and for the companies that sign up merchants, and took effect on 4 July 2026. On merchant fees it is permissive, not prescriptive. It says acquirers may charge merchant fees, and that the pricing must be reasonable, transparent, market-based and proportionate to the cost of the service, backed by a cost analysis the BSP can inspect. It sets no cap. The BSP's earlier QR Ph rules already put the cost on the merchant side: a customer paying by QR Ph pays nothing, while banks and e-money issuers may charge the merchant a reasonable fee.
Whether small merchants now pay nothing is genuinely unclear. The circular's text contains no fee waiver and no threshold. Yet BSP Memorandum M-2026-025, issued the same month to lift a moratorium on InstaPay and PESONet fee increases, describes the circular as implementing zero fees for small merchant payments, and news coverage reported that small merchants should not be charged for receiving digital payments. PayMongo's own explainer says the zero-fee treatment uses the micro-enterprise definition, monthly aggregate gross receipts of up to ₱250,000, the same threshold as the BSP's 2024 draft of the rule, and calls it a condition that was already in place rather than a new obligation. At the end of July, after meeting Monetary Board members, the FinTech Alliance PH industry group said the circular is a cost-based fair-pricing guideline, not a zero-fee mandate. As of 12 October 2026 none of the rate cards above shows a small-merchant exemption. If your monthly sales are under ₱250,000, ask your provider in writing whether it waives your fees, and on which payment methods. Indonesia took a clearer route and fixed a 0% QRIS rate by rule for sales up to Rp100,000; our guide to Indonesia's QRIS fees covers how that works.
A separate BSP memorandum of 8 May 2026 tells banks and payment providers to keep a clear differentiation between merchant accounts and personal accounts, and to route merchant payments into merchant accounts. If you have been collecting sales into a personal GCash or Maya account, expect your provider to ask you to move them to a merchant account.
Under Revenue Regulations 16-2023, e-marketplaces and digital financial services providers withhold 1% on one-half of the gross amounts they remit to sellers, which works out to 0.5% of gross sales. It covers card and e-wallet payments, in store as well as online, and where the customer's e-wallet and the merchant's acquirer are different companies, the acquirer withholds. It does not apply while your total remittances for the year stay at or below ₱500,000, or if you are exempt and can prove it. The amount withheld is a creditable tax, so you claim it against your income tax rather than losing it, but it does reduce what lands in your account.
Freelancers and exporters paid by foreign clients face a different cost: currency conversion, which can outweigh the transaction fee. Wise Business charges a one-time ₱1,400 to open account details abroad, receives non-Swift transfers in US dollars, euros, pounds and several other currencies for free, and charges US$6.11 for each incoming US-dollar wire or Swift payment. Airwallex onboards Philippine-registered businesses through its Singapore company. Payoneer's own guide for Filipino users, dated 31 August 2026, says withdrawing to a Philippine bank in pesos typically costs up to 2% above the mid-market exchange rate. PayPal's ₱15 fixed fee and 4.40% cross-border rate apply on top of its currency conversion. Our guide to receiving payments from international clients compares these routes in more detail.
