Philippines or Pakistan
Two countries side by side across the same rows as the full comparison. A dash means the value is missing: fields are not filled with guesses. about the data
| Philippines | Pakistan | |
|---|---|---|
| Salary in IT | — | — |
| Citizenship | 10 years | — |
| Partner can work | yes | — |
| Parents | — | — |
| Pets | no trouble | difficult |
| Pet limit | 3 | no limit |
| Quarantine | no | — |
| Residence permit fee | — | — |
| Rent, 2 bedrooms | $ 373 · estimate | $ 145 · estimate |
| Basket | $ 22,6 | $ 14,8 |
| Life expectancy | 69.95 | 67.8 |
| Homicides/100k | 4.31 | 4.33 |
| Natural hazards, 0–10 | 8.2 | 7.4 |
How the two sets of routes differ
Long-stay routes in this reference: Philippines — 32, Pakistan — 22. Types present in both: work, study, family, investment and repatriation. Philippines adds: retirement.
Fees, thresholds and deadlines
Philippines: fees range from 1,010 to 37,060 PHP. Routes with no fee: 2. Routes stating an income threshold: 1; the lowest is 800 USD a month. Routes with a published decision deadline: 1; the shortest is 2 days. Pakistan: fees range from 200 to 400 PKR. Routes with no fee: 1. Routes with a published decision deadline: 9; the shortest is 1 days.
Beyond the first permit
Permanent status: Philippines after 1 year; the other country publishes no term. Citizenship: Philippines after 10 years; the other country publishes no term. Pakistan allows a second citizenship, Philippines does not.
Philippines in brief
What sets the Philippines apart from its neighbours is the language: English is official and used in business, so there is no separate language barrier. Getting in is easy — 30 days visa-free under a wide list of countries, extendable on the spot; permanent status through marriage arrives after one probationary year, which is rare in this guide. The 9(g) work visa, on the other hand, is firmly tied to the employer: the labour department issues the hiring permit for that specific company. The digital nomad visa created by Executive Order No. 86 in April 2025 is not open to everyone: the reciprocity condition requires the applicant's country to issue such visas to Filipinos itself and to host a Philippine Foreign Service Post. The order sets no income threshold at all — the widely quoted figure of 24,000 dollars a year comes from consultants' commentary, not from the text. The main constraint is not bureaucratic: on the INFORM scale this is one of the most hazard-exposed countries in the world — earthquakes 9.7 out of 10, tsunamis 9.4, typhoons 9.2. Naturalisation takes 10 years and requires giving up the previous citizenship.
Pakistan in brief
Pakistan is the world's fifth most populous country, with English-language official paperwork and a visible IT outsourcing industry in Karachi and Lahore. The work route has two steps: a mission abroad issues an entry work visa for three months — within 48 hours under the service's own rules and without security clearance — while an extension of up to two years with multiple entries is decided by the Ministry of Interior, where clearance is mandatory, as is a recommendation from the Board of Investment. The visa policy sets out a rule rare for the region: if the agencies do not answer within 30 days, the case counts as approved. The visa is issued to the worker and the family at once. The directorate describes no permanent residence for an ordinary foreigner: a long stay rests on renewing the visa. Citizenship is available on a closed list of grounds, and the list is asymmetric by sex — a foreign woman married to a Pakistani man is on it, a foreign man married to a Pakistani woman is not. Bringing in cats and dogs requires a prior permit from the agriculture ministry, while antibody titration is not needed. The background in figures: life expectancy 67.8 years (World Bank, 2024), homicides 4.33 per 100,000 (UNODC, 2024), average PM2.5 concentration 58.4 µg/m³ — almost twelve times the WHO guideline (World Bank, 2023). INFORM rates natural risks at 7.4 out of 10, with floods at 9.5 and earthquakes at 9.2 — among the highest values in the world.
Other comparisons
Philippines or… Taiwan · South Korea · Japan · Thailand · Kazakhstan · Lebanon · Uzbekistan · Malaysia
Pakistan or… Azerbaijan · Bangladesh · Kuwait · Iraq · Mongolia · Oman · People's Republic of China · Sri Lanka
More on each: Philippines · Pakistan. Build your own comparison — up to four countries
This material is for reference and is not legal, tax or immigration advice. Visa rules, tax thresholds and prices change. Before deciding anything, check the official sources and consult a licensed professional in the relevant country.