BIR Form 1601C: How to File Monthly Withholding on Compensation (2026 Step-by-Step)

If you handle payroll for even one Philippine employer, BIR Form 1601C is the form you fill most often. Every single month. For every client. For the rest of your career.

It is also, mathematically, the form Philippine accountants and bookkeepers waste the most cumulative hours on — because the data barely changes from month to month, but the form has to be refilled, re-encoded into eBIRForms, and re-submitted every single cycle.

This guide walks you through what 1601C actually is, who needs to file, the upcoming June 10 deadline (June 11–15 for eFPS filers), the exact filing steps, the mistakes that get returns rejected or penalized, and how to stop retyping the same 80 percent of the form every month.

What is BIR Form 1601C?

BIR Form 1601C is the Monthly Remittance Return of Income Taxes Withheld on Compensation. It is the return a withholding agent — almost always the employer — files with the Bureau of Internal Revenue to remit the income tax that was deducted from employees’ salaries that month.

Think of it as the BIR’s way of receiving income tax in monthly installments throughout the year, instead of waiting until April. The amounts you remit each month with 1601C show up later on the employee’s annual BIR Form 2316.

Who is required to file 1601C?

You must file BIR Form 1601C every month if you are:

• An employer (corporation, partnership, sole proprietor, NGO, association, or government office) with at least one employee on payroll
• A withholding agent designated as such by the BIR
• A business that pays compensation income — even if no tax was withheld for the month (zero-filing is still required)

This last point trips up new bookkeepers. Even if no employee’s compensation crossed the withholding tax threshold for the month, you still file 1601C as a zero-tax return. Skipping the filing entirely is what triggers the open-case penalty.

The June 2026 deadline

For compensation withheld during May 2026, the return must be filed and the tax paid on or before:

• June 10, 2026 for non-eFPS filers (manual and eBIRForms)
• June 11–15, 2026 for eFPS filers — e-filing is staggered by industry group under RR 26-2002 (Group E files by the 11th, up to Group A by the 15th), but e-payment for all groups is due June 15

If the deadline falls on a weekend or a declared non-working holiday, the deadline moves to the next working day — but never assume it has moved without checking the BIR’s official calendar.

Missing the deadline costs you:

1. A 25 percent surcharge on the tax due
2. 12 percent annual interest from the original deadline to the date of actual payment
3. A compromise penalty ranging from ₱200 to ₱50,000, scaled to the tax amount

For a return that may only have ₱8,000 of tax due, the penalties can easily exceed the tax itself.

How to file BIR Form 1601C, step by step

Step 1: Gather the inputs from your payroll

Before you open the form, have ready:

• The employer’s TIN, RDO code, registered name, and registered address
• Total compensation paid that month (taxable and non-taxable)
• Total tax withheld for the month
• Any prior month adjustments (over- or under-withholding)
• Number of employees on payroll

If you run payroll the same way every month — and you do — most of these fields are identical to last month’s form. That is the part that makes manual refiling so painful, and which we will solve at the end of this guide.

Step 2: Open eBIRForms (or eFPS) and select Form 1601C

If you are a non-eFPS filer, open the BIR’s eBIRForms package, select Form 1601C, and choose the correct calendar month. eBIRForms is still Windows-only as of 2026 — if you are on a Mac, you will need to run it through a virtual machine, use a workaround like Wine, or use a service that submits on your behalf.

Step 3: Fill in Part I — Background Information

Part I asks for the employer’s identity: TIN, RDO code, line of business, registered name, address, ZIP, and contact details. This entire section is the same every month for the same client — copy-pasting it from last month’s return is faster than retyping it.

Step 4: Fill in Part II — Computation of Tax

Part II is where the actual numbers go:

• Total amount of compensation paid
• Statutory minimum wage earners (exempt from tax)
• Holiday pay, overtime, night shift differential, hazard pay of MWEs (also exempt)
• 13th month and other benefits up to the ₱90,000 exclusion
• De minimis benefits within the BIR limits
• Gross taxable compensation
• Total tax required to be withheld
• Any over- or under-remittance from prior months
• Total amount payable

Step 5: Validate and submit

Click Validate in eBIRForms. The validator will flag missing required fields, malformed TINs, and arithmetic that does not tie out. Fix everything it flags before submitting — a return that bounces still counts as unfiled, and the deadline does not pause while you fix it.

Once submitted, you will receive a Tax Return Receipt Confirmation via email (eFPS filers get a Filing Reference Number instead). Save it. The BIR considers this your proof of timely filing.

Step 6: Pay the tax

Pay via authorized agent bank, GCash/Maya, LandBank Link.BizPortal, DBP Pay Tax Online, or directly through eFPS if you are enrolled. Keep the payment confirmation alongside the filing confirmation.

Common 1601C mistakes that cost accountants money

Wrong RDO code. The most common rejection cause. The RDO code on the form must match the RDO code on file for that TIN — if the client moved RDOs and you did not update it, the return bounces.

Missing zero-filings. No tax withheld this month does not mean no filing required. Skipping zero-month filings is how clients accumulate open cases and end up with penalty notices a year later.

Mixed-up tax periods. Choosing the wrong month in eBIRForms — filing June’s return as May, or vice versa — creates a duplicate-period record that is painful to unwind.

Miscoded MWE exemptions. Minimum wage earners are completely exempt from income tax on compensation, including overtime, holiday pay, night differential, and hazard pay. Failing to mark them as MWE inflates the taxable compensation and the tax due.

Forgetting the 90K exclusion. 13th-month pay and other benefits are exempt up to ₱90,000 combined. Treating the entire 13th-month payout as taxable is a common over-withholding error.

Stop retyping 1601C every month

Here is the part that matters for your sanity: 80 percent of next month’s 1601C is identical to last month’s 1601C for the same client. Same TIN. Same RDO. Same registered name and address. Same line of business. Same employee roster, more often than not.

The only things that genuinely change month-to-month are the compensation numbers and the tax withheld.

That is exactly the problem BoltPDF was built to solve. You prefill each client’s static data — TIN, RDO, employer info, recurring employee details — once. Every month, you only enter the figures that actually change, and BoltPDF generates the filled 1601C in seconds.

It also covers the rest of the BIR forms that share most of the same data — 2316, 1604C, 0619E, 1601EQ, 2550Q, 2551Q, and 1701Q — so the same prefill profile drives every return for the same client across the entire year.

If your June 10 deadline is sneaking up on you, try BoltPDF free and have your 1601Cs filled before lunch.

Quick reference

• Form: BIR 1601C — Monthly Remittance Return of Income Taxes Withheld on Compensation
• Who files: Any employer with at least one employee, even for zero-tax months
• Deadline: 10th of the following month (eFPS: staggered filing on the 11th–15th by group, payment on the 15th)
• Next deadline: June 10, 2026 (eFPS: June 11–15) for May 2026 compensation
• Late penalties: 25% surcharge + 12% annual interest + ₱200–₱50,000 compromise penalty
• Filing channels: eBIRForms (Windows), eFPS (if mandated — large taxpayers, TAMP, and other covered groups)

File it on time, file it every month, and stop retyping the parts that never change.

BoltPDF helps Philippine accountants and bookkeepers prefill recurring government forms once and reuse the data forever. Learn more at boltpdf.com.