ACR I-Card, annual report and exit clearance in the Philippines: everything after the first visa
Most immigration work is not the first application; it is what follows it. A registration card to renew, replace or cancel, a report owed every year, a visa to downgrade when a job ends, a stamp to move into a new passport, a clearance before a flight. Asia Relocation Philippines files each one at the Bureau of Immigration and keeps the dates.
A visa is granted once. The obligations that come with it recur, and they are what most foreign residents in the Philippines get wrong, not because they are hard but because nobody told them the dates. The Bureau of Immigration publishes each transaction separately: the annual report, the card's renewal, re-issuance, waiver and cancellation, the downgrading of a visa, the transfer of an arrival stamp, the re-stamping of a visa, the clearance before departure.
Each has a date, and missing it costs more than filing it. A report filed after the window carries a fine that grows by the month; a card left expired stops the next application; a visa not downgraded when the job ended surfaces at the airport.
Asia Relocation Philippines has kept these dates for residents in Manila, Cebu and Clark since 2011. The consultant who filed your visa keeps the card's expiry, the passport's and the report window on one calendar, and files each transaction before it is due.
What the compliance file carries, and what belongs to a visa page
This page is the work after the grant; the grants are on the pages to the right.
Carried by the service
- The calendar: the report window, the card's expiry, the visa's, the passport's, read from your documents once and kept.
- The annual report: registered online, then completed at a participating office with the reference number, the card and the passport, inside the first sixty days of the year.
- The registration card: renewed on expiry, at a child's fourteenth birthday or on a change of status, re-issued when lost, damaged or amended, waived for an emergency departure, cancelled when the status ends.
- The visa and the passport: a visa downgraded to a visitor stay when the job ends, an arrival stamp transferred into a new passport, a visa re-stamped when the passport was lost.
- The departure: the emigration clearance certificate where your status and length of stay require it, before the flight is booked.
Each transaction is filed before its date, and the next date is written down when it is.
A different page
- Extending a tourist stay. The visitor's extension is its own transaction, done online: tourist visa extension in the Philippines.
- A new visa after the downgrade. A new employer means the labour department's Alien Employment Permit and a new employment file.
- Residents exempt from most of this. Retirees on the retirement visa and executives on the EO 226 visa are exempt by their own rules from the report, the card or the clearance.
- Becoming a citizen. A former Filipino who re-acquires citizenship cancels the card for good: dual citizenship.
One coordinator for the grant and for everything that follows it.
Six families of transaction, as the Bureau publishes them
Each has its own checklist, fee and counter; this is the map.
Annual report
Owed by every registered foreign national and card holder except tourists, within the first sixty days of the year: online registration, then the office with the reference, the card and the passport.
Registration card: renewal and re-issuance
Renewed on expiry, at fourteen, on a change of status or when the law requires a replacement; re-issued when lost, damaged, amended or rejected. Two filings, one card.
Registration card: waiver and cancellation
Waived for an emergency departure while the card is pending; cancelled when the status ends, by naturalisation, citizenship, or the end of the visa it went with.
Downgrading of visa
The reversion of an immigration visa to a temporary visitor stay so that you continue to stay legally: when a job ends, an employer changes, or a basis disappears.
New passport: transfer and re-stamping
The admission status in your latest arrival stamp transferred into the new passport; a visa re-stamped when it was not fully implemented or sat in a lost passport. Required before any filing that reads the passport.
Emigration clearance
The certificate the Bureau issues before departure where your status and length of stay require it. Settled before the flight is booked.
Dates read once, transactions filed before them, the calendar kept
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The status and the dates
Your visa, your card and your passport read together: what you owe, in what order, and by when.
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The transaction, by its checklist
Each transaction has its own checklist and counter. We assemble the right one, in Manila or at an authorised office, and lodge it.
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The annual report, every year
Registered online at the start of the window, completed at a participating office with the card and the passport, receipt kept. Never after the window.
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The changes: passport, status, departure
A new passport, a job that ends, a trip abroad: each triggers a transaction, filed the day the change is known rather than the day it bites.
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The calendar, kept
The next date written down when the current one is filed, for as long as you are on our books.
The residents who owe the Bureau something every year
Employees on a work visa
The card, the report, the downgrade when the job ends. HR teams in Manila and Cebu put the whole roster on one calendar.
Spouses and families on residence visas
A card per person, a report per person, and a child's re-registration at fourteen that nobody remembers.
Residents with a new passport or a lost card
The transfer of the arrival stamp, the re-stamping of the visa, the re-issuance of the card: the transactions that block every other filing.
Anyone leaving the Philippines after a long stay
The exit clearance, the card waiver if the card is pending, the downgrade if the status has ended.
Filed in Manila or at an authorised office, for residents anywhere in the country
Transactions at the Bureau of Immigration's main office in Manila and, where the Bureau allows it, at other offices; residents we serve in Metro Manila, Cebu and Clark.
Several of these transactions, the annual report and the card's renewal among them, can be done at immigration offices outside the capital, which matters for a resident in Cebu or Clark. Others, the downgrading and the passport transfer, go through the main office. We tell you whether a trip to Manila is needed.
The clearance before departure is among the transactions the Bureau accepts at its airport counter; not where we would have you discover you need one.
What residents ask about the Bureau's recurring transactions
Who has to file the annual report?
When does the ACR I-Card have to be renewed?
What if the card is lost, damaged or wrong?
I have to leave before my card is released. Is that possible?
My job has ended. What happens to my visa?
I have a new passport. What has to be done?
Do I need an exit clearance to leave the Philippines?
Can Asia Relocation Philippines keep all these dates for us?
The tourist's transaction next door, and the silo above
You are on a tourist stay and it is running out
The visitor's extension, done online, for a stay that is not yet residence.
Tourist visa extension →Every route into the Philippines, on one page
Employment, marriage, retirement, investment, citizenship: the first visa this page comes after.
Visa and immigration services in the Philippines →Send us your card, your visa and your passport dates, and we tell you what you owe and when
One coordinator, one calendar.
Send me the transaction →