SSS contribution for OFWs: how much and how to pay from abroad

SSS coverage is compulsory for OFWs who are not over 60 (RA 11199 Sec. 9-B). If you work abroad on your own contract, you are a land-based OFW and you pay the whole contribution yourself: 15% of your monthly salary credit (MSC), from PHP 8,000 to PHP 35,000. That is PHP 1,200 to PHP 5,250 a month under SSS Circular 2024-010, which is still the schedule in force.

Land-based and sea-based

• Land-based OFWs are “considered in the same manner as self-employed persons” (Sec. 9-B(c)). You register, declare your earnings, choose your MSC and pay through a payment reference number (PRN).
• Sea-based OFWs are covered through the manning agency, which RA 11199 treats as the employer (Sec. 9-B(b)). SSS’s OFW page says “SSS contributions of sea-based OFWs are remitted by their employers (i.e., Manning Agencies)”, under the employed members’ schedule.

If you work in the UAE, our guide to paying SSS and saving from the UAE covers the local side.

Where your money goes

Your contribution is split in two (Circular 2024-010):

Regular SS, on MSC up to PHP 20,000

PHP 1,200 to 3,000

MPF, on MSC from PHP 20,500 to 35,000

PHP 75 to 2,250

Total a month

PHP 1,200 to 5,250

• The regular SS part pays for your pension and the cash benefits, which SSS works out on salary credits up to PHP 20,000.
• The MPF part, on salary credit above PHP 20,000, goes to your own savings account in the MySSS Pension Booster. It is paid out with your final benefit and cannot be withdrawn before. See the SSS MPF guide.

The full bracket table is in the SSS contribution table for voluntary members and OFWs, and the SSS contribution calculator works out your own amount.

Your salary credit

Your MSC follows the monthly earnings you declare when you register, until you declare new ones (SSS OFW members page). The rules for changing it:

• Under 55: you can change it as often as you like and by as many brackets as you like, without a written request, but never below PHP 8,000.
• 55 and over: you can raise it only once a year, and by one bracket, with or without proof of earnings.
• Exceptions at 55 and over: the first time you change to OFW membership from employed, self-employed or voluntary, you can raise it without limit. And when a new schedule raises the maximum MSC, you can go up to the new maximum if you were already at the old one.

Changing to OFW membership

You do not need a form. SSS’s membership page says members who already have an SS number before leaving “can immediately resume payment of contributions using the Payment Reference Number (PRN) and payor type is Overseas Filipino Worker”. The change from employee, self-employed or voluntary member to OFW happens “once payment is validated”, and counts as your declaration that you have left your Philippine job or stopped being self-employed.

In My.SSS, that means choosing Overseas Filipino Worker as the membership type when you generate the PRN. The steps are in how to pay SSS contributions.

Deadlines and paying from abroad

• January to September contributions: by 31 December of the same year.
• October to December: by 31 January of the following year.
• If the deadline falls on a weekend or a Philippine holiday, you can pay on the next working day.

Late payment after the deadline is not allowed for land-based OFWs (SSS Pay Contributions page). Paying ahead is allowed, for any number of months. Dates for every member type are in SSS payment deadlines.

You can pay online from anywhere, or in person at SSS’s partner banks and remittance companies abroad. The lists are in how to pay SSS contributions.

Coming home for good? When your overseas contract ends, you can keep paying as a voluntary member: see voluntary SSS contributions. If you work for yourself instead, you pay as a self-employed member. See SSS for the self-employed.

Back to the SSS guide for OFWs.