A Proposed BI Fee Could Add P480 to Your Next International Trip

(SPOT.ph) Flying out of the country is already expensive enough: airfare, travel tax, terminal fees, baggage fees, airport food you bought out of desperation. Now, there could be another charge to watch out for if a proposed Bureau of Immigration (BI) project pushes through.

This proposed BI project to upgrade immigration screening includes a $4 user fee per international traveler, which would be built into airline ticket costs, according to the Civil Aviation and Immigration Security Services (CAISS) Project Information Memorandum posted on the BI website. That’s about P240 per traveler if we use the P60 to $1 conversion.

If the fee is applied to both departure and arrival, a roundtrip flight could cost around $8 or about P480 more.

The proposed fee is intended to help fund CAISS, a new border-control system that the BI said will improve traveler processing and security screening. In plain terms, the project covers the technology that is used to check travelers, verify identities, process immigration data, assess risks, and flag persons of interest at international gateways.

The total project cost is estimated at P10.744 billion. Instead of the government paying for the system upfront through public funds, the project is being pursued as a public-private partnership. That means a private partner would finance, build, and maintain the system, then recover its investment through the user fee collected from travelers. The resulting $4 fee would be split between the private partner and the BI.

Also read: No More Rebooking Fees on Flights? The DOTr Wants to Make It Happen

Let's take a look at the timeline.

Based on BI's available documents so far, the project has already cleared a major step: the unsolicited proposal was approved and opened to comparative challenge. That means the proposal is no longer just an idea floating around—it is already in procurement.

The proposal has actually been moving through the PPP process for a while now. CAISS started as an unsolicited proposal from Securiport LLC, which was submitted through the PPP Center in May 2023. The Department of Justice—the approving body under the PPP Code—approved the project on December 2, 2025. By February 2026, the PPP Center had published an invitation for comparative proposals, where other qualified private groups were given a chance to challenge the original proposal.

BI's recent bid bulletin on CAISS also showed the notice of award is targeted for September 11 to 14, 2026. That said, the new user fee would only be finalized once CAISS is awarded and the final PPP agreement is signed.

Also read: CAAP Hikes Passenger Fee to P900 for International Flights