Short answer. Wages must be paid at least twice a month, at intervals not exceeding sixteen days. No employer may pay less often than once a month, even by agreement. If a force majeure genuinely prevents payment on time, the employer must pay as soon as the disruption ends.
What the law says
Wages shall be paid at least once every two (2) weeks or twice a month at intervals not exceeding sixteen (16) days.
Labor Code, Article 103 — Time Of Payment. Read the full provision →
The minimum frequency the law sets
Article 103 fixes the outer limit on how long an employer can go between paydays: wages shall be paid at least once every two (2) weeks or twice a month at intervals not exceeding sixteen (16) days. An employer can pay weekly, or twice a month, or on any schedule that keeps within that sixteen-day gap, but it cannot stretch the interval further. The article also states plainly that no employer shall make payment with less frequency than once a month under any circumstances — that floor is not negotiable by contract.
The narrow exception for force majeure
The article allows a delay only where payment on time genuinely "cannot be made" because of force majeure or circumstances beyond the employer's control. Even then, the obligation does not disappear — it is deferred, and the employer must pay the wages immediately after such force majeure or circumstances have ceased. This is a narrow allowance for events actually outside the employer's control, not a general excuse for cash-flow problems or administrative delay, which the article does not treat as force majeure. The exception also does not suspend the wage obligation itself, only its timing — the employer still owes every peso of wages accrued during the disruption, and the delay does not reduce or excuse the amount ultimately due once payment resumes.
Work that cannot be finished within two weeks
For a task that takes longer than two weeks to complete, and where there is no collective bargaining agreement or arbitration award covering it, the article sets two specific conditions instead of a flat rule: payments must still be made at intervals not exceeding sixteen days, proportionate to the work already completed, and a final settlement must be made once the work is finished. So even long, single-task engagements are not exempt from the interval rule — they are paid in installments tied to progress rather than in one lump sum handed over only when the whole undertaking is done. Where a collective bargaining agreement or arbitration award does cover the engagement, that agreement's own payment terms control instead of this default schedule.
Where the interval rule can be varied — and where it cannot
The two conditions for long-running tasks apply only in the absence of a collective bargaining agreement or arbitration award, so a bargaining agreement or an award can set a different payment scheme for that kind of work. What no agreement can do is push the interval past the article's own floor: the prohibition on paying less frequently than once a month is stated without qualification. It is also worth being clear about what Article 103 does not govern. It fixes how often wages fall due — not how much they must be, not what may lawfully be deducted, and not the place or form in which they are handed over. If the complaint is that pay keeps arriving late, the payroll record settles it: the dates each pay period covered against the date payment was actually released.