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Philippines Monthly Withholding Tax Calculator

Estimate the BIR monthly withholding tax on compensation by annualizing salary net of mandatory contributions.

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Monthly withholding using the annualized-equivalent method.

Monthly withholding tax

Annualized tax

Net of tax/mo

Why your payslip tax is an estimate

The tax line on your monthly payslip is not your final tax. It is a withholding, an advance the Bureau of Internal Revenue collects through your employer so the government does not wait until year-end for its money. Your real liability is settled once a year when your full annual income is known. This calculator estimates that monthly withholding using the cleanest of the BIR-sanctioned approaches, the annualized-equivalent method, which works out your tax as if your current monthly pay ran for all twelve months and then divides by twelve.

The tool is for the salaried employee who wants to sanity-check the deduction on their payslip, and for anyone weighing a raise or a job offer who needs the monthly tax bite rather than just the annual figure. It asks for one number: your monthly taxable compensation.

What taxable compensation means here

This is the input people get wrong, so it is worth being precise. Taxable compensation is not your gross salary. It is your pay after your mandatory contributions to SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG have been taken out, because those contributions are deducted before tax is computed. So the figure you type here should already be net of those three. The calculator does not strip them out for you; it assumes you have. If you are starting from a gross salary, run it through a take-home pay tool first to find the taxable figure, then bring that number back here.

One more layer sits underneath. Your 13th-month pay and other benefits are tax-exempt up to PHP 90,000 a year under the rule the wider toolset reflects, so they do not belong in your monthly taxable compensation either unless they exceed that ceiling. The PHP 90,000 cap is a figure to confirm with the BIR, as it has been adjusted before.

The annualize-then-divide method

The mechanism is straightforward. The tool multiplies your monthly taxable pay by twelve, applies the graduated income tax table to that annual figure, then divides the resulting annual tax back into a monthly amount. The graduated table the calculator references exempts the first PHP 250,000 of annual taxable income, then taxes the excess in rising bands of 15, 20, 25, 30, and a top 35 percent. Those rates and the exempt threshold are the figures this tool applies, and the current schedule should be confirmed with the BIR before you rely on it.

A PHP 45,000 monthly salary, step by step

Take the default, PHP 45,000 of monthly taxable compensation. The steps below use the rates this calculator applies, and the headline figures match what the tool displays once rounded to whole pesos.

StepAmount

The chart shows the split between annual income tax and the net take-home pay, illustrating how the withholding is built up from the annualized taxable figure.

When the year-end true-up bites

Because withholding is only an estimate, your December pay often carries an adjustment. If your pay was steady and matched this annualized assumption all year, the true-up is small. But if you got a mid-year raise, a large bonus, or you changed jobs, the months were withheld at different annualized rates and the year-end reconciliation squares the difference. A common surprise is the new hire who joins late in the year: their early months may have been over-withheld, producing a refund, while someone whose pay jumped late may owe a top-up. The practical tip is to keep your own running total rather than trusting that each month is exactly right, since this method only lands on the correct annual tax if your pay never changes.

Why is no tax withheld on a low salary?

If your annualized taxable pay stays at or below PHP 250,000, the graduated table produces zero tax, so nothing is withheld. That is the exempt band doing its job. A monthly taxable figure of roughly PHP 20,833 annualizes to PHP 250,000, so pay around or below that line generally withholds nothing.

Does a bonus get withheld the same way?

Not cleanly. A one-off bonus is not part of your regular monthly pay, so spreading it across twelve months distorts the estimate. The portion of your 13th-month and benefits within the PHP 90,000 exemption is not taxed at all, and any excess is added to your taxable income and reconciled at year-end rather than smoothed evenly. Confirm the current exemption cap with the BIR.

Frequently asked questions

How is monthly withholding tax computed in the Philippines?
The cleanest method annualizes your monthly taxable compensation, applies the BIR graduated table, then divides by twelve. Taxable compensation is your pay after SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG. The first 250,000 pesos a year is exempt, so low earners withhold nothing.
What are the TRAIN Law income tax brackets for 2026?
Under the TRAIN Law the first 250,000 pesos of annual taxable income is exempt. Income from 250,001 to 400,000 pesos is taxed at 15 percent of the excess. From 400,001 to 800,000 pesos the rate is 20 percent of the excess plus a fixed amount. Higher bands follow at 25, 30, and a top rate of 35 percent for income above 8,000,000 pesos. Confirm the exact thresholds with the Bureau of Internal Revenue before relying on them.
Why does my withholding tax change when I get a raise?
Philippine income tax is graduated, so a higher salary pushes a larger slice of your annualized income into higher rate bands. Even a modest raise can move you across a band boundary, raising both the marginal rate on the new portion and the resulting monthly withholding. The annualized method means the full year's projected income is taxed at each session, so a mid-year raise retroactively reprices earlier months and can produce a noticeably larger deduction from the raise date onward.
Is the 13th month pay subject to withholding tax in the Philippines?
The 13th month pay and other qualifying benefits are exempt from income tax up to PHP 90,000 per year under the TRAIN Law. The portion within that ceiling is not added to taxable compensation for withholding purposes. Any amount above the PHP 90,000 limit is taxable and should be included in the income that drives your annualized withholding. Verify the current exemption cap with the BIR, as it has been adjusted in the past.

Related calculators

Sources

  1. BIR — Income Tax (TRAIN Law Rates), Bureau of Internal Revenue, Philippines
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