A plain-English guide for foreign employers budgeting the true cost of a Filipino team — with a worked example you can copy.
If you employ a Filipino staff — directly, through a local entity, an offshore agency, or an Employer of Record (EOR) — maternity leave is not a perk you choose to offer. It is a legal entitlement you have to fund. Underestimate it and it quietly blows a hole in your annual people budget. Understand it, and it becomes a predictable line item you can plan around.
This is the question we get most from firm owners in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, the UAE, the US, the UK and Europe: when my Filipino employee goes on maternity leave, how much do I actually pay? Here is the clear answer, and the exact numbers.
What Philippine law requires
Maternity leave is governed by Republic Act No. 11210, the 105-Day Expanded Maternity Leave Law. In short:
105 days of paid leave for every live childbirth, regardless of the employee’s civil status, how she gave birth, or how long she has worked for you.
An extra 15 days of paid leave if the employee qualifies as a solo parent.
60 days of paid leave in the case of miscarriage or emergency termination of pregnancy.
An optional 30 days unpaid, the employee may take at her option, on top of the 105 days, with due notice.
To qualify, the employee must have at least three monthly SSS contributions in the 12-month period before the semester of childbirth, and must notify her employer of the pregnancy. As the employer, you cannot opt out of this, and you cannot reduce her pay during the leave.
Who actually pays — SSS vs. you
The paid leave comes from two sources, and this split is the key to budgeting correctly:
- The SSS maternity benefit — paid by the government’s Social Security System, based on the employee’s salary credits. It is capped. For a 105-day live childbirth, the statutory maximum is PHP 70,000, because the benefit is computed on a maximum salary credit of PHP 20,000 per month. Any salary above that does not increase the SSS payout.
- The salary differential — the difference between the employee’s full pay for the leave period and what SSS pays. Under RA 11210, the employer must top this up so the employee receives her full salary. This is your cost, and it grows as salaries rise, precisely because the SSS side is capped.
The formula is simple: Salary differential = full pay for the leave period − SSS maternity benefit.
A worked example: PHP 48,000 salary + PHP 2,000 allowance
Say you have a full-time Filipino team member earning a basic salary of PHP 48,000 a month plus a fixed allowance of PHP 2,000 — a total monthly pay of PHP 50,000. She has a standard live childbirth and takes the full 105 days.
Worked example: one female employee, one live childbirth | |
Basic monthly salary | PHP 48,000 |
Fixed monthly allowance | PHP 2,000 |
Full monthly pay (basic + allowance) | PHP 50,000 |
Maternity leave (live childbirth) | 105 days = 3.5 months |
Full pay for the leave period (PHP 50,000 x 3.5) | PHP 175,000 |
Less: SSS maternity benefit (statutory maximum) | – PHP 70,000 |
Salary differential you shoulder | PHP 105,000 |
Over the 3.5-month leave, she receives her full pay of PHP 175,000. SSS reimburses PHP 70,000 of it. You shoulder the PHP 105,000 salary differential. That last figure is the number to put in your budget.
What this means for your budget
- Budget the differential, not the salary. Set aside roughly the salary differential — here, PHP 105,000 — per eligible female employee, per pregnancy. It is a real, one-off cost, not something you can spread away.
- The higher the salary, the bigger your share. Because SSS caps out at PHP 70,000, a higher-paid employee means a larger share falls on you. A senior hire on PHP 90,000 would see almost the entire top-up come from your side.
- It counts toward 13th-month pay. The salary differential is treated as part of basic salary when computing the employee’s 13th-month pay, so it carries a small downstream cost too.
- Contributions keep running. SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG contributions continue during the leave. These are modest, but they belong in a fully-loaded cost estimate.
How UpStaff handles this for you
If your Filipino staff are engaged through UpStaff’s Employer of Record service, you never touch Philippine paperwork. We register and pay the statutory contributions, file the SSS maternity claim, compute the salary differential correctly, and keep your employee fully paid throughout her leave — while she continues to work for you, on your systems, to your standards, right up to the day she goes on leave. The cost is billed to you transparently, so there are no surprises.
Planning the true cost of a Philippine team? Tell us the roles and salaries you have in mind, and we’ll model the fully-loaded cost — including statutory leave — so you can budget with confidence.
UpStaff Remote · www.upstaffremote.com
This guide is general information for budgeting, not legal or tax advice. Figures reflect Republic Act No. 11210 and SSS rules current as of 2026; statutory ceilings are periodically updated. For a compliant, employee-specific computation, talk to UpStaff.