SSS payment deadlines: when your contribution is due

For land-based OFWs, contributions for January to September are due by 31 December of the same year, and for October to December by 31 January of the following year. Voluntary, self-employed and non-working spouse members pay by the last day of the month after the month or quarter they are paying for. If a deadline falls on a weekend or holiday, you can pay on the next working day (SSS Pay Contributions page).

OFW deadlines

From SSS’s land-based OFW members page:

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31 January 2027 is a Sunday, so under SSS’s next-working-day rule, payment on Monday, 1 February 2027 is on time. If 31 December 2026 is declared a holiday, the same rule applies.

Land-based OFWs pay “anytime during the applicable year” through a payment reference number (SSS Pay Contributions page). Sea-based OFWs do not pay themselves: their manning agency remits the contributions.

Voluntary, self-employed and non-working spouse members

SSS’s Pay Contributions page gives one deadline for self-employed (SE), voluntary (VM) and non-working spouse (NWS) members, and household employers: the “last day of the month following the applicable month or calendar quarter as the case may be”.

• Monthly: January’s contribution is due by the end of February, February’s by the end of March, and so on.
• Quarterly: you can pay one, two or all three months of a quarter by the last day of the month after the quarter. For January to March, that is 30 April.
• Self-employed members “may pay their contributions monthly or quarterly” (SSS self-employed page).

Regular employers pay by the last day of the month after the month the contribution is for.

The 2019 implementing rules of RA 11199 (Rule 37 Sec. 5) gave self-employed members the same year-end deadlines as OFWs. SSS’s current pages give the monthly or quarterly deadline above, and this page follows them.

Paying ahead. SSS says “SE and VM, including NWS and OFWs, can pay their contributions in advance, regardless of number of months or years.” An advance payment counts for benefits and loans only once its month has passed. How to pay is in how to pay SSS contributions.

If you miss a deadline

• Self-employed, voluntary, non-working spouse and land-based OFW members: SSS’s Pay Contributions page says late payments “shall not be allowed”. For SE, VM and NWS members, “missed months shall remain as payment gaps since retroactive payments are not allowed”. For self-employed members, RA 11199 Sec. 22-A also bars retroactive payment, except as that section provides.
• Employers and household employers: late payment is accepted with a 2% monthly penalty “from the date the contribution falls due until fully paid”. Employees and household workers keep their right to SSS benefits even if the employer fails to pay.
• Farmers, fishermen and other self-employed people in the informal economy: SSS Circular 2022-028 lets them pay “contributions for any of the last twelve (12) applicable months” in the current month.

Effect on benefits and the 120 count. A pension needs 120 contributions paid “prior to the semester of retirement” (SSS retirement page), and Circular 2022-028, for farmers, fishermen and other self-employed people in the informal economy, says that “only contributions with payment date(s) prior to semester of contingency shall be considered in determining eligibility to benefits”. SSS’s full wording for land-based OFWs is quoted in how many contributions you need.

Gaps do not end your membership. SSS says benefits and loans “can still be availed of, as long as the member meets the qualifying conditions”. The OFW rules in full are in how land-based OFWs pay SSS.

Back to the SSS guide for OFWs.