Documentary stamp tax on a property sale, loan, or share transaction.
Documentary stamp tax
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Basis
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Effective rate
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What DST is, and why it appears at signing
Documentary stamp tax is a charge on the paper, not on the income. The Bureau of Internal Revenue collects it whenever you execute certain documents: a deed selling land, a contract creating a loan, a certificate issuing or moving shares. The tax is small as a percentage, but it is mandatory, and a document that should have been stamped but was not can be treated as invalid for some purposes and can cost penalties later. That is why DST tends to surface at the closing table, when the deed or the loan paper is signed and someone has to fund the stamp before it can be registered.
This calculator covers the four most common transactions in one place: a real property sale, a loan agreement, the original issue of shares, and the transfer of existing shares. Pick the transaction type, enter the consideration or the par value, and it returns the DST and the effective rate. It is built for buyers, sellers, founders, and small finance teams who want a quick figure before they talk to a lawyer or a broker, not as a substitute for the official computation on the actual instrument.
Matching the document to the correct rate
The rate depends entirely on what kind of paper you are stamping, and the four paths in this tool work very differently. A deed of sale of real property is charged on a percentage basis: the rate this calculator applies is 1.5 percent of the consideration or the fair market value, whichever is higher, so a higher zonal value can raise the tax even when the agreed price is lower. A loan agreement is charged at 0.75 percent of the principal, expressed in the law as PHP 1.50 for every PHP 200. Shares are charged on par value, not market value, at a fixed peso amount per PHP 200: as modelled here, PHP 2 per PHP 200 on an original issue and PHP 1.50 per PHP 200 on a transfer of existing shares.
Those figures are the structure you can rely on, but the precise rate on any given document can change with later revenue regulations, so treat the numbers above as the calculator's assumption and confirm the current rate with the BIR before you remit. The share paths also round differently from the percentage paths, which is the detail people miss.
Stamping a share issue of PHP 1,000,000 par value
Suppose a startup incorporates and issues shares with a total par value of PHP 1,000,000. The share DST is not a flat percentage. It counts how many full or partial PHP 200 units the par value contains, then charges PHP 2 per unit on an original issue. PHP 1,000,000 divided by 200 is 5,000 units exactly, and 5,000 times PHP 2 is PHP 10,000. Here is the calculation this tool runs, using the rates it applies:
| Step | Amount |
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The chart below shows how the same PHP 1,000,000 base produces very different DST depending on which path applies. The percentage paths dwarf the share paths, which is exactly why naming the document type correctly matters.
A common mistake: leaving DST out of the budget
Two errors show up again and again. The first is treating the agreed price as the DST base on a property sale when the fair market or zonal value is higher. The BIR charges the higher of the two, so a deed priced below the zonal value still gets stamped on the zonal figure. The second is forgetting DST entirely until registration, then discovering the Registry of Deeds will not record the transfer until the stamp is paid, often with a deadline of a few days after the document is signed. Build the stamp into the closing budget from the start, and remember the parties can agree who pays, but the BIR can pursue either side if it goes unpaid.
Is DST the only tax on a property sale?
No. A typical sale of real property also triggers capital gains tax, usually 6 percent of the gross selling price or fair market value for a capital asset, plus local transfer tax and registration fees. DST at 1.5 percent is one line in that stack. The seller commonly shoulders the capital gains tax and the buyer the DST, but this is negotiable and should be spelled out in the deed.
Why does a share transfer cost less DST than an original issue?
The rate this calculator applies is PHP 1.50 per PHP 200 of par value on a transfer, against PHP 2 per PHP 200 on an original issue. So moving existing shares is stamped at three quarters of the issue rate on the same par value. A listed-share sale on the exchange is different again: it is generally covered by the stock transaction tax rather than this DST. Confirm the rate that fits your exact transaction with the BIR.