JAKARTA - Money sent home by Filipinos working abroad reached $35.63 billion in 2025, the highest annual total on record, the Philippine central bank reported on February 15. The figure was 3.3 percent above the $34.49 billion recorded in 2024.

December was the biggest single month on record, at $3.52 billion, up 4.2 percent from $3.38 billion in December 2024, driven by year-end bonuses and holiday transfers. Land-based workers accounted for $2.83 billion of the December total, sea-based workers for $691 million. 

Including money sent through informal channels and goods shipped home, total personal remittances for the full year reached $39.62 billion, also a record, up 3.3 percent from $38.34 billion in 2024.

The United States was the largest single source of cash remittances, accounting for roughly 40 percent of inflows through the first half of the year, followed by Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the UAE. 

The central bank said that the US figure is partly a function of how transfers are recorded as many operators route funds through US correspondent banks regardless of where the sender is actually based. That means, banks attribute the origin to the most immediate source rather than the sender's country of residence.

Cash remittances were equal to 7.3 percent of GDP and 6.4 percent of gross national income. 

This came against a backdrop of a Philippine economy that grew just 4.4 percent in 2025, its slowest pace since 2011 and well below the government’s target of 5.5 to 6.5 percent, driven largely by a flood control corruption scandal that caused public infrastructure spending to collapse by as much as 42 percent in the fourth quarter. It marked the third consecutive year the Marcos administration missed its growth target.

The peso weakened past 59 per dollar in December, its softest point of the year, which increased the peso value of every dollar transferred home.

Michael Ricafort, chief economist at Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation, said the newly enacted US law imposing a 1 percent excise tax on cash-funded outbound transfers, effective January 1, could cost the Philippines around Php 8 to 9 billion in annual remittance flows. 

He nonetheless said 3 percent growth in remittances remains achievable for 2026, given that the tax applies only to cash-based transfers and many overseas Filipino workers remit through bank accounts or digital channels, which are exempt.