Quick answer

Registering an ordinary partnership with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) costs at least about ₱2,120 in government fees — a filing fee of 1/5 of 1% of your partnership’s capital (with a ₱2,000 floor), a legal research fee equal to roughly 1% of that filing fee, and a ₱100 name reservation charge. The bigger your capital contribution, the higher the filing fee climbs, and that SEC total does not yet include notarization or the separate registrations you still need to complete with the BIR and your city or municipal government.

Most people budget for the SEC fee alone, then get surprised later by BIR and City Hall costs on top of it. Here is the full sequence, with the actual numbers at each stage.

Cost at a Glance

In practice, a small partnership with a modest capital contribution can expect to pay a little over ₱2,000 to the SEC itself. A partnership formed with a larger capital base will pay proportionately more, because the core filing fee scales with capital rather than staying fixed.

Step 1: Reserve Your Partnership Name

Registration starts with reserving your proposed business name through the SEC’s online registration system. The SEC checks the name against its database to make sure it is not identical or confusingly similar to an existing registered entity. A successful reservation costs ₱100 and holds the name for 30 days — enough time to finish drafting your Articles of Partnership and gather your other documents. If your first choice is unavailable, you can usually submit alternates during the same session rather than starting over.

Hold on to your reservation payment confirmation. You will need to submit it together with your other documents when you file for registration proper.

Step 2: Draft and Notarize the Articles of Partnership

The Articles of Partnership is the core document: it identifies the partners, the partnership’s name and principal office, its purpose, the capital each partner is contributing, and how profits and losses will be shared. Because a partnership contract involving a meaningful capital contribution has to be executed as a public instrument under Philippine law, notarization is not optional — it is part of what makes the document valid for SEC filing purposes.

Notarial fees are not fixed by the SEC; they depend on the notary public you use and can vary by city and by how many pages and signatories are involved. It is worth getting a quote from your notary before finalizing the document, since this cost sits outside the SEC’s own fee schedule entirely.

If any partner is contributing real property rather than cash, that contribution needs to be described and valued in the Articles, and you should expect additional requirements — and potentially additional taxes — tied specifically to that property transfer. Those are assessed separately from the partnership’s SEC filing fee.

Step 3: File With the SEC and Pay the Registration Fee

Once your Articles of Partnership are notarized, you file them with the SEC along with the required cover sheet, your name reservation payment confirmation, and (where applicable) a Joint Undertaking to Change Name — a commitment to change the partnership’s name later if the SEC determines, after the fact, that it is too similar to another registered name. The SEC then assesses your filing fee based on the capital stated in your Articles.

How the Filing Fee Is Computed

The formula is 1/5 of 1% of the partnership’s capital — that is, capital × 0.002 — subject to a floor of ₱2,000. On top of that, the SEC collects a legal research fee equal to roughly 1% of the filing fee itself. Here is how that plays out at a few capital levels:

Notice that the minimum fee makes registration relatively cheap for smaller partnerships, but the cost rises in direct proportion once your stated capital passes roughly ₱1,000,000. If you are deciding how much capital to declare in your Articles, this fee curve is one factor worth weighing — alongside the more important question of how much capital your business actually needs to operate.

Payment is typically made through the SEC’s designated payment channels once your application has been assessed and a payment order is issued. Filing in person or online follows the same fee structure; what changes is processing convenience, not the amount you owe.

Costs After SEC Registration

Getting your SEC Certificate of Registration means your partnership legally exists as a juridical entity. It does not mean you are ready to operate. Before you can lawfully do business, issue receipts, or hire staff, you still need to register separately with:

Each of these carries its own fees, and local government fees in particular vary widely from one city or municipality to another, and often scale with your declared capital or gross receipts as well. There is no single national number to quote here — budget for it as a separate line item and confirm the actual schedule with your local treasurer’s office once you know where your principal office will be.

Does a Limited Partnership Cost More?

The SEC applies the same filing fee formula — 1/5 of 1% of capital, minimum ₱2,000 — whether you are forming an ordinary (general) partnership or a limited partnership. What changes between the two is not the registration cost but the liability structure: in a limited partnership, at least one partner remains a general partner with unlimited liability, while the limited partners’ exposure is capped at their capital contribution, provided they do not take part in managing the business. That distinction shapes your Articles of Partnership and how you structure the entity, not the SEC fee schedule itself.

Professional partnerships — law firms, accounting firms, and similar practices — go through the same SEC registration process and fee structure as any other partnership, subject to whatever additional rules their governing professional board imposes.

How Long Does Registration Take?

Once your documents are complete and correct, SEC processing itself is fast — name verification, document review, payment, and certificate release can, in a straightforward case, be completed within the same day at the counter. What actually extends a registration timeline in practice is not SEC processing speed but incomplete or inconsistent documentation: a name that gets flagged as too similar to an existing one, an Articles of Partnership with unclear capital contribution language, or missing signatures. Getting your documents right the first time is the single biggest lever you have over how long registration takes.

Budgeting Realistically

If you are pricing out the whole process, plan for three cost buckets rather than one: the SEC fees described above (roughly ₱2,100 and up depending on capital), a separate allowance for notarization and any professional drafting help, and a further allowance — harder to pin down in advance, since it is locality-dependent — for BIR and local government registration once your SEC certificate is in hand. Treating SEC registration as the finish line, rather than the first of three separate registrations, is the most common budgeting mistake new partners make.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the ₱2,000 SEC filing fee a flat rate for every partnership? No. It is the minimum, not a flat rate. The actual fee is 1/5 of 1% of your partnership’s stated capital, so the ₱2,000 figure only applies while that percentage calculation falls below ₱2,000 — roughly, capital up to ₱1,000,000. Above that, the fee rises in proportion to your capital.

Do I need a lawyer to register a partnership with the SEC? It is not a legal requirement, but the Articles of Partnership has to be notarized and correctly drafted, and errors there are the most common cause of delay. Many partners have a lawyer draft or review the Articles even if they handle the SEC filing themselves.

Does the SEC filing fee include BIR and business permit registration? No. The SEC fee only covers registering the partnership as a juridical entity. BIR registration and your city or municipal business permit are separate processes with their own separate fees, handled after the SEC issues your Certificate of Registration.

Is a limited partnership more expensive to register than a general partnership? The SEC fee formula is the same for both. What differs is the liability structure set out in the Articles of Partnership, not the registration cost itself.

This commentary is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For guidance specific to your situation, please consult a licensed attorney.

Partnership registration itself is one of the more predictable costs in setting up a business in the Philippines — the SEC fee schedule is formulaic, which is more than can be said for what comes after it.