In the Philippines, cheques (usually spelt "checks" locally) are written in English, in pesos and centavos, using the million system for amounts. They clear electronically through the Philippine Clearing House Corporation, usually by the next banking day, and they stay a central part of business life because of post-dated check culture and the Bouncing Checks Law, BP 22.

This guide explains how to write a Philippine check correctly, why the single payee line matters, how long a check stays valid, what BP 22 says, and how to set up printing for Philippine banks in ChequeMaster.

Why checks still matter in the Philippines

InstaPay and PESONet have taken over many small transfers, but checks remain the normal way to pay suppliers, landlords, contractors and government fees in many businesses. The main reason is the post-dated check (PDC). Landlords ask for a year of PDCs with a lease. Car loans, equipment financing and supplier credit are commonly secured with a set of dated checks, one per instalment.

A business that issues dozens of PDCs a month needs to know which are still outstanding, and BP 22 gives every one of them legal weight. Clear, consistent printing and a proper record of each check matter more here than in most countries.

How to write a Philippine check correctly

  • Date: follow the order printed on the leaf. Philippine practice usually puts the month first, and many people write the month as a word (for example "October 9, 2026") to avoid ambiguity. Where the leaf has date boxes, put one digit in each box under its label.
  • Payee: there is one "Pay to the order of" line. Use the payee's registered name and keep it short; a long company name with branch and description runs into the amount box. Shorten "Incorporated" to "Inc." where the payee accepts it.
  • Amount in words: use the million system, not lakh. PHP 1,250,000.50 reads "One Million Two Hundred Fifty Thousand Pesos and Fifty Centavos", often shortened to "... Pesos and 50/100". Several Philippine layouts have only one line for words, so long amounts need a smaller font.
  • Amount in figures: two decimal places for centavos, with comma separators (1,250,000.50), written close to the peso sign.
  • Fill the gaps: close the words with "Only" or asterisks so nothing can be added in the space left over. On a single words line this space is exactly where alterations happen.
  • Crossing: two parallel lines across the top-left corner, often with "Payee's Account Only", restrict the check to deposit into the named payee's account. See crossed cheques.
  • Bottom band: never write or print on the coded strip along the bottom edge.

Validity: stale after six months

Philippine banks treat a check as stale once it is more than six months past its date, and stale checks are refused for clearing. Some banks apply it as 180 days, which can expire a few days earlier than six calendar months. A stale check does not cancel the underlying debt; it only means the bank will not pay that piece of paper. Confirm the exact rule with your bank if a check is close to the limit.

For PDCs, the six months run from the date on the check, not from when you issued it. A twelve-month set of rent cheques is fine, because each one is presented in its own month.

Clearing: the Check Image Clearing System

The Philippine Clearing House Corporation (PCHC) runs the Check Image Clearing System (CICS). The receiving bank captures an image and data from the check and presents it electronically to the paying bank, so the paper no longer travels. When CICS went live under an agreement between the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and PCHC, clearing came down to one banking day from the old three to five days, and full implementation followed in 2017.

Two practical points. Your bank's deposit cut-off decides which day counts as day one. And because the image is what gets checked, neat printing inside each field and no overwriting help avoid returns.

BP 22: the Bouncing Checks Law

General information, not legal advice. Laws and bank rules change; check with your bank or a qualified lawyer for your situation.

Batas Pambansa Blg. 22 makes it an offence to issue a check knowing there are not enough funds to cover it, where the check is then dishonoured for insufficient funds, or would have been if the drawer had not stopped payment without valid reason. Under Section 1 of BP 22, the penalty is imprisonment of 30 days to one year, or a fine of up to double the check amount (capped at PHP 200,000), or both, at the court's discretion. The drawer is usually given written notice of dishonour and a short period to pay before the case proceeds.

BP 22 applies to each check separately, so a bounced set of PDCs can mean several cases. The safest habit is to keep a register of every post-dated check you have issued and check balances before each date. Our guide to managing post-dated cheques explains a simple routine, and the PDC schedule generator builds a dated list for an instalment plan.

Pre-added Philippine bank layouts

ChequeMaster is not limited to these banks. It works with any bank's cheque, in any country. The layouts below are simply the Philippine bank layouts that come pre-added, so you can start printing without any setup. For any other bank, build a layout from a scan of a blank leaf in a few minutes, and add as many banks and layouts as you need.

  • Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI)
  • BDO Unibank
  • China Banking Corporation (two layouts)
  • Metropolitan Bank (Metrobank)
  • Security Bank Corporation (two layouts)

China Bank and Security Bank each have two layouts because they have issued two stationery designs: one with a single date line and one with boxed date digits. Look at your own cheque book and pick the layout that matches the date area. Switching a cheque book's layout later takes a few clicks, and a test print shows a mismatch immediately.

Philippine checks are wide but shallow, so set the printer's paper guides carefully and check vertical position first on a test print. For any other bank, build a layout from a scan of a blank leaf; see how to create a cheque layout.

Setting up ChequeMaster for the Philippines

  1. Choose Philippine Peso as the currency and 2 decimal digits.
  2. Select the million/billion words system and switch thousand separators on.
  3. Choose the date format that matches your leaf (month first in most cases).
  4. Create a cheque book with your bank's layout and the number range on the leaves. Set the A/C Payee text to the crossing wording you use, such as "Payee's Account Only".
  5. On single-line layouts, reduce the font size of the amount-in-words field and keep the ** tamper-proof marks on.
  6. Test-print on plain paper and compare against a real leaf before printing on a cheque.

ChequeMaster records every check with its number, payee, amount, date and status, so you can filter forward-dated checks still marked Issued and see which PDCs are coming up. Update statuses as checks clear each month.