Field notes.Former Filipinos pay less. Here is the rule.

A claim that floats around the diaspora is that former Filipinos get a discount on the SRRV. Vague as it sounds, it points at something real. There is a former-Filipino track, and on a couple of specific figures it genuinely costs less. The trick is knowing exactly where the saving lives, and where it does not.

The rule, on the numbers. For the former-Filipino Courtesy category, the visa deposit is $1,500 for applicants 50 and older, and $3,000 for those 40 to 49. There is a second, quieter saving on dependents: the additional visa deposit of $15,000 that other applicants owe for each dependent beyond the two the certificate covers is waived for former Filipinos. The annual PRA fee on this track also runs lower than the foreign-national figure.

Who the track is for

The former-Filipino category is exactly what the name says: people who were once Philippine citizens, including those who have since reacquired citizenship. It is a status you document, not a discount you ask for. If that history is yours, the lower deposit and the waived dependent deposit are on the table; if it is not, this particular track is not the lane, and that is fine, because it is rarely the only option.

For many former Filipinos there is a second door entirely, the 13A. The Non-Quota Immigrant Visa by Marriage, the 13A runs through the Bureau of Immigration, not PRA, and is built on a valid marriage to a Philippine citizen. It carries its own annual obligation rather than a held deposit, so for someone married to a Philippine citizen it can be the better long-run fit, or it can be the worse one, depending on how the deposit, the fees, and the yearly duties net out for that household.

Single-sourced, then screened

Every figure above comes from one verified library and is checked against the current PRA rules, so you are not planning around a number someone half-remembered in a comment thread. What we do beyond quoting it is decide the route: former-Filipino Courtesy, foreign-national Courtesy, Classic, or the 13A, against your age, your dependents, your marriage, and your documents. The lower deposit is only a win if it is the right visa for you, and that is the part we screen.