Of the three mandatory deductions on a Philippine payslip, PhilHealth is the simplest to compute — one flat rate, split down the middle. The part that trips people up isn't the rate; it's the floor and ceiling that decide what salary actually gets that rate applied to it.
- 5% Total premium rate, employee + employer combined
- 2.5% Your share, deducted from your payslip
- ₱10,000 Salary floor — below this, you're still charged as if you earn this
- ₱100,000 Salary ceiling — above this, the extra earns no additional premium
The short version
Take your monthly basic salary, clamp it between ₱10,000 and ₱100,000, then multiply by 5%. Half of that comes out of your payslip; your employer pays the other half on top, separately. Below ₱10,000 you're still billed on ₱10,000 minimum; above ₱100,000, everything past that ceiling contributes nothing extra.
The Formula
PhilHealth premiums run on your Monthly Basic Salary (MBS) — your base pay before overtime, allowances, or bonuses. The math is:
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1. Clamp your salary | Premium basis = your MBS, floored at ₱10,000 and capped at ₱100,000 |
| 2. Apply the rate | Total premium = premium basis × 5% |
| 3. Split it | You pay half (2.5%), your employer pays the other half (2.5%) on top of your salary — it's not deducted from what you earn |
Run your own numbers with the PhilHealth Contribution Calculator — it applies this same floor-and-ceiling logic automatically.
Three Salaries, Side by Side
The floor and ceiling matter most at the extremes. Here's what a minimum-wage earner, a ₱50,000/month employee, and a ₱100,000/month employee each actually pay.
| Minimum wage (₱800/day) | ₱50,000 / month | ₱100,000 / month | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly basic salary | ≈ ₱20,800 (₱800 × 26 days) | ₱50,000 | ₱100,000 |
| Premium basis used | ₱20,800 (above the floor, no clamp needed) | ₱50,000 | ₱100,000 (at the ceiling) |
| Employee share (2.5%) | ₱520.00 | ₱1,250.00 | ₱2,500.00 |
| Employer share (2.5%) | ₱520.00 | ₱1,250.00 | ₱2,500.00 |
| Total monthly premium | ₱1,040.00 | ₱2,500.00 | ₱5,000.00 |
Notice the minimum-wage row didn't need the ₱10,000 floor at all — ₱20,800 already clears it. The floor only kicks in for salaries genuinely below ₱10,000/month, which in practice means part-time or reduced-hours work, not a standard full-time minimum-wage position.
The ₱100,000 row is where the ceiling actually bites: someone earning ₱150,000 or ₱300,000 a month pays exactly the same ₱2,500 employee share as someone earning ₱100,000, because premiums stop scaling past the ceiling. PhilHealth contributions become effectively regressive at the top of the income scale — a smaller and smaller percentage of actual income the higher you earn past ₱100,000.
Employer share isn't "free money" long-term
The employer's 2.5% doesn't come out of your payslip, but it's still part of your total cost to your employer — it's factored into hiring budgets the same way SSS and Pag-IBIG employer shares are. It shows up in cost-of-employment math even though you never see it deducted.
What Counts as "Basic Salary"
PhilHealth premiums are based on basic pay only — the fixed monthly rate in your contract. These are typically excluded from the premium basis:
- Overtime pay
- Night differential
- Holiday and rest-day premium pay
- 13th month pay and other bonuses
- Non-taxable allowances (transportation, meal, etc., within regulatory limits)
This is why your PhilHealth deduction usually looks identical every month even if your take-home pay swings with overtime or a holiday-heavy pay period — the premium basis doesn't move with those extras.
Your PhilHealth share also matters beyond the deduction itself: it's one of the contributions subtracted from gross pay before your withholding tax gets computed, alongside SSS and Pag-IBIG. See the Withholding Tax on Compensation Guide for the full step-by-step, including the 2026 BIR table.
Quick Reference
If you just need the number for a specific salary: multiply your clamped monthly basic salary by 2.5% for your own share, or use the PhilHealth Contribution Calculator to skip the arithmetic entirely — it also breaks out the employer share and shows exactly which bracket your salary falls into.