How much money did OFWs send home to the Philippines in 2025?

Overseas Filipinos sent a record USD 35.63 billion in cash remittances through Philippine banks in 2025, up 3.3% from USD 34.49 billion in 2024, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas cash-remittance series (BSP Overseas Filipino Cash Remittances table, archived capture 2026-02-18). That is a national aggregate — the total flowing through the whole formal channel from every overseas Filipino combined — not an amount any single sender is expected to match. The broader personal-remittance measure, which adds transfers in kind, runs several billion dollars higher; confirm its current total on the BSP remittance statistics.

What is the difference between BSP cash remittances and personal remittances?

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas publishes two figures. Cash remittances count money sent through banks and BSP-regulated remittance channels — USD 35.63 billion in 2025 — and this is the headline number in most news coverage (BSP cash-remittance table, archived capture 2026-02-18). Personal remittances are broader: they add remittances in kind and informal-channel transfers, so the personal total runs several billion dollars above the cash figure each year. When two articles quote different totals for the same year, this is usually why. Confirm the current personal-remittance total on the BSP remittance statistics.

Which country sends the most OFW remittances to the Philippines?

The United States is the largest recorded country of source: USD 14.15 billion of the USD 35.63 billion in cash remittances in 2025, or about 40%, per the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas country breakdown (archived capture 2026-02-18). BSP flags on the same table that this overstates the true origin — remittances routed through correspondent banks and money couriers are lodged under the country of the main office, which is often in the US. Singapore ranks second (USD 2.58B), then Saudi Arabia (USD 2.34B) and Japan (USD 1.79B) in 2025 — Singapore's rank reflects the same booking-hub effect.

When during the year do OFW remittances peak?

December, consistently. Cash remittances reached USD 3.52 billion in December 2025 — the single highest month of that year, per the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas monthly cash-remittance series (archived capture 2026-02-18). The year-end spike tracks 13th-month pay, holiday bonuses abroad, and Christmas sending, and it repeats every year: December is the peak month in the BSP series year after year. The twelve 2025 monthly figures sum to the published annual total of USD 35.63 billion, which is the internal check that the monthly and annual series agree.

Is there an average amount each OFW sends home per month?

There is no single official per-sender figure to cite. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas publishes a national aggregate — USD 35.63 billion in cash remittances for all of 2025 — while the Philippine Statistics Authority Survey on Overseas Filipinos measures remittance at the household level through a separate annual survey (bsp.gov.ph; psa.gov.ph). The two use different denominators and produce different 'averages', both correct on their own terms. Any 'the average OFW sends X per month' figure is one calculation choice from that data, not a target — every household's situation differs.

How much do OFWs send home: the BSP remittance figures by year

“How much do OFWs send home” has a clean top-line answer, and it is a national figure, not a personal one. Overseas Filipinos sent a record USD 35.63 billion in cash remittances through Philippine banks in 2025, up 3.3% from 2024, per the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) cash-remittance series. That is the total flowing through the whole formal channel from every overseas Filipino combined. It is the number the headlines mean, and it is the number this page leads with, dated and by year. What it is not is a benchmark for any one sender.

OFW cash remittances by year, in USD (BSP; archived capture 2026-02-18) Posted terms — see sources

Year	Cash remittances (USD)	Change vs prior year
2022	$32.539 billion	—
2023	$33.491 billion	+2.9%
2024	$34.493 billion	+3.0%
2025	$35.634 billion	+3.3% (record)

Cash remittances coursed through banks and BSP-regulated remittance channels, in USD, full-year totals. Source: Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Overseas Filipino Cash Remittances table — the live bsp.gov.ph page blocks fetch tools, so this is verified against the Bureau's own table via an archived capture dated 2026-02-18 (BSP's 16 February 2026 full-year release). Growth percentages computed from BSP's own annual totals.

How to read the top-line number

Cash remittances are the money overseas Filipinos send home through banks and BSP-regulated remittance channels, measured in USD as it enters the receiving system. The 2025 total of $35.63 billion is the figure most news coverage means by “OFW remittances”, and BSP publishes it monthly through the year with year-to-date running totals, then a full-year total each February for the year just ended (BSP cash-remittance table, archived capture 2026-02-18).

Two things the aggregate is, stated plainly:

It is a total, across everyone. $35.63 billion is the sum of every recorded formal transfer from all overseas Filipinos in 2025. Dividing it by any population estimate produces an arithmetic average, but that average is a statistical artefact, not a description of what a typical sender does.
It is the formal, recorded channel. The series captures cash moving through banks and regulated remittance operators — the large majority of recorded flows. It does not directly capture hand-carried cash, or the value of the things inside a balikbayan box (that is the in-kind side, counted in the broader personal-remittance measure below, not in cash remittances).

And one thing it is not:

It is not a target. Nothing in the BSP figure says an individual sender should remit a particular amount. The aggregate answers “how much do overseas Filipinos send home, in total” — a macroeconomic question — not “how much should I send”, which is a household question the data cannot answer.

Where the money comes from — top country sources

BSP breaks the cash-remittance total down by country of source. The United States is the single largest recorded origin by a wide margin. The order below the US carries a surprise: Singapore ranks second, ahead of Saudi Arabia — a signal of how much of the total is booked through financial hubs rather than sent from where senders actually live (see the caveat under the table).

Top country sources of OFW cash remittances, USD, ranked by 2025 (BSP; archived capture 2026-02-18) Posted terms — see sources

Country of source	2024	2025	Share of 2025 total
United States	$14.014 billion	$14.146 billion	~39.7%
Singapore	$2.481 billion	$2.584 billion	~7.3%
Saudi Arabia	$2.219 billion	$2.343 billion	~6.6%
Japan	$1.707 billion	$1.786 billion	~5.0%
United Kingdom	$1.622 billion	$1.647 billion	~4.6%
United Arab Emirates	$1.521 billion	$1.637 billion	~4.6%
Canada	$1.231 billion	$1.248 billion	~3.5%
Qatar	$0.977 billion	$1.038 billion	~2.9%

Country-of-source cash remittances, full-year, in USD, top eight by 2025 (BSP Overseas Filipino Cash Remittances table, archived capture 2026-02-18). Shares are computed from BSP's own country totals against the $35.634 billion 2025 total. Read the US and Singapore figures with the BSP caveat below — both are inflated by remittances booked through banks and couriers headquartered there, so the table shows recorded country of source, not where senders live.

Why the US share is overstated in the data

BSP prints a caveat directly on the cash-remittance table: remittances coursed through correspondent banks are attributed to “the most immediate source”, and transfers sent through money couriers “cannot be disaggregated by actual country source and are lodged under the country where the main offices are located, which, in many cases is in the US”. So the United States shows up as the dominant origin partly because it is where the intermediary banks and couriers are headquartered — not only because that much money originates from Filipinos in the US. The same effect lifts Singapore into second place: it is a booking hub for the region as much as a sender country. The ~40% US share and the ~7% Singapore share are real in the accounting; neither is a clean measure of where senders actually live (BSP cash-remittance table, archived capture 2026-02-18).

The year-end peak — December, every year

Remittances are seasonal, and the shape repeats. December is the single highest month in the BSP series year after year, tracking 13th-month pay, year-end bonuses abroad, and Christmas sending. In 2025, cash remittances reached $3.52 billion in December — the peak month of the year (BSP monthly cash-remittance series, archived capture 2026-02-18). The twelve 2025 monthly figures add up to the published $35.63 billion annual total, which is the internal check that BSP’s monthly and annual series agree.

What the BSP series does and does not count

Counted: cash through the formal channel

Transfers through banks and BSP-regulated remittance operators, in USD, as recorded by the receiving system. This is the $35.63 billion 2025 headline.
Not in cash remittances: the box

The value of balikbayan-box contents is an in-kind transfer. It sits in the broader personal-remittance measure, not in the cash figure — one reason two totals for the same year differ.
Broader measure: personal remittances

Cash plus in-kind plus informal-channel transfers. The personal-remittance total runs several billion dollars above cash each year; confirm its current value on the BSP remittance statistics.
Not a per-person figure

Everything here is a national aggregate. BSP does not publish 'the average OFW sends X'; any such number is a downstream calculation, not a BSP series.

Personal remittances, and the figures this page does not assert

Alongside cash remittances, BSP publishes a broader personal remittance series that adds transfers in kind and informal-channel flows. That total runs several billion dollars above the cash figure each year, which is the usual reason a news article and a government release can quote different “OFW remittance” totals for the same year and both be right — one is citing cash, the other personal.

This page leads with the cash series because it is the cleanest, most frequently cited headline and every figure above is confirmed against the BSP cash-remittance table. For the current personal-remittance total, and for remittance as a share of GDP or GNI — figures BSP publishes in its full-year press release but which are not confirmable at the same archived-table vintage used here — confirm with the BSP remittance statistics rather than any second-hand number. A remittance-to-GDP share quoted without the BSP release behind it is a figure to check, not to repeat.

Why two sources quote different averages

There is a second official Philippine source, and it measures something different. The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) runs the annual Survey on Overseas Filipinos (SOF), a household survey that reports remittance received per OFW-sending household, along with the channel, frequency, and corridor (psa.gov.ph; checked 2026-05-21). BSP measures money moving through banks, in aggregate; PSA measures money received by households, through survey responses. Both are accurate. They are not measuring the same thing, so they do not produce the same “average”.

The cross-country anchor is the World Bank Migration and Development Brief, which places the Philippines consistently among the top-five remittance-receiving countries worldwide and supplies the corridor data the World Bank Remittance Prices tracker draws on (knomad.org; checked 2026-05-21). When a page cites “the average OFW remittance”, the honest read is to ask which source, which year, and which denominator — because a BSP-aggregate figure, a PSA household figure, and a World Bank cross-country figure are three different measurements, not three quotes of one number.

What this page is and is not for

This page orients you to the national remittance data: what overseas Filipinos send home in total, by year, where it comes from, and when it peaks — sourced to BSP and dated. It deliberately does not recommend a remittance amount for any individual, because that is a household-budget question the aggregate cannot answer. For how a single paycheck splits across life abroad, padala, and savings, see the OFW monthly budget split; for the document side of working abroad, the OFW documents checklist.

For getting a specific transfer home — which channel, which provider, which payout method, at what posted cost — the operational pages carry the dated comparisons: the cheapest way to send money, the apps vs banks vs padala comparison, how long a remittance takes, cash pickup vs bank deposit vs e-wallet, sending to GCash from abroad, and the corridor pages for Canada, the UK, and the UAE.

How to read this page’s dates

The cash-remittance figures above are BSP’s full-year 2025 series, released in February 2026 and verified here against the Bureau’s own table via an archived capture, because the live bsp.gov.ph host blocks automated fetch tools. The lastChecked date in the frontmatter is the vintage of that capture. BSP updates the series monthly and posts the next full-year total each February, so the annual figures on this page are the current ones until the following year’s release. Figures this page does not assert as hard numbers — the personal-remittance total and the GDP/GNI share — are marked “confirm with the BSP remittance statistics” rather than filled in from second-hand coverage.