A payroll officer closes the year’s BIR 2316s and the 1604-C alphalist

The payroll officer gets signed BIR Form 2316 PDFs, a matching alphalist CSV, and a filled BIR Form 1604-C.

Payroll users keep reporting 2316s that will not generate and alphalist files that do not tally.

New hires cannot get the 2316 from their last employer, so HR cannot finish the year’s tax.

First-time hires ask how to get the TIN, SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG numbers HR wants.

Every January, a payroll officer or HR person deals with three papers that depend on each other. These are a BIR Form 2316 for each employee, the alphalist that lists them, and the BIR Form 1604-C, the Annual Information Return of Income Taxes Withheld on Compensation. Every employer who withholds tax on compensation must give a BIR Form 2316 to each employee, including minimum wage earners and employees whose pay had no tax withheld. Both the employee’s BIR Form 2316 and the BIR Form 1604-C with its attached Alphalist of Employees and Alphalist of Minimum Wage Earners are due on or before January 31 of the next year. If an employee resigns during the year, the certificate is due on the day the last payment of compensation is made.

The totals on the BIR Form 1604-C and the alphalist come from the same numbers as the BIR Form 2316 certificates. For that reason, the payroll officer finishes the year’s payroll, annualizes each employee, and checks the BIR Form 2316 certificates first. When a mid-year hire had an earlier job in the same year, the employee must give a certified copy of the previous employer’s BIR Form 2316 so the new employer can add that taxable pay and tax withheld into the year’s computation.

After preparing the certificates, the employer must collect signatures. Under RMC 29-2024, BIR no longer accepts BIR Form 2316 copies without the employee’s signature, especially for employees who qualify for substituted filing. Substituted filing applies when an employee received purely compensation income from only one employer in the Philippines for the year and the tax withheld equals the tax due. For those qualifying employees, RR 11-2018 has the employer submit the duplicate signed BIR Form 2316 copies to the BIR office with the Sworn Declaration (Annex C) and the Certification of the List of Employees Qualified for Substituted Filing (Annex F) not later than February 28. Ask your RDO to confirm the deadline and the way to submit for the current year.

Employee TIN, name, and personal details: Part I of BIR Form 2316 needs the employee’s TIN, full name, RDO code, registered address, date of birth, and contact number.

Employer TIN, name, and address: Part II of BIR Form 2316 and the BIR Form 1604-C header need the employer’s registered details and whether the employer is the main or secondary employer.

Annualized payroll totals per employee: Part IV-B and Part IV-A of BIR Form 2316 need basic salary, allowances, 13th month and other benefits, de minimis benefits, employee SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG contributions, and tax withheld.

Previous employer’s BIR Form 2316: For a mid-year hire who had an earlier job in the year, Part III, item 22, and item 25B need the previous employer’s details, taxable pay, and tax withheld.

Employee email addresses for signing: When the payroll officer sends a signing link with an email address, the employee receives a 6-digit code to verify and sign the BIR Form 2316.

1. Send a new-hire form link. When onboarding during the year, the HR clerk can create a form link for new hires who have no account. The link can include forms such as BIR Form 1902 and the SSS E-1 personal record, and you can set an expiry like 14 days and a maximum number of uses on the link. The new hire answers the questions and gets the filled PDF.

2. Match your payroll sheet columns. At year-end, the payroll officer prepares a spreadsheet or a payroll export with one row per employee. In PhilForms, the officer saves a column mapping once, or builds a workflow recipe, so the sheet’s headers match the BIR Form 2316 fields. Fixed values like the employer’s TIN and registered name go in the constant settings so they fill on every certificate.

3. Check rows with a dry-run. Before spending any credits, the payroll officer can test the setup with dry mode turned on. A dry run on a recipe shows the mapped columns, any unmapped columns, and the row count, while a dry run on a batch shows the credit price and any rows that the form’s checks would refuse. If an employee’s row has a typo or a wrong amount after filling, the officer can revise that document for free within 7 days, up to 5 edits, as long as the employee’s TIN stays the same.

4. Fill the 2316 batch. The payroll officer runs the batch or Google Sheets integration to produce one sealed BIR Form 2316 PDF per employee. One batch takes up to 1,000 rows on paid plans, or 200 rows on the 30-day Pro trial, and returns a ZIP file with a manifest. Every BIR Form 2316 issued is also recorded on the Certificates register.

5. Request employee e-signatures by link. RMC 29-2021 allows electronic signatures on BIR Form 2316 when the certificate is an exact replica of the latest BIR version and carries the employee’s signature too. From the certificate register, the payroll officer requests a signature for each BIR Form 2316, which creates a signing link valid for 30 days. When an email address is included, the employee requests a 6-digit one-time code, checks their compensation and tax figures, ticks the substituted filing box if eligible, and draws their signature.

6. Download the 1604-C alphalist. Because every issued BIR Form 2316 stays on the Certificates register, the payroll officer does not retype the year-end numbers for the alphalist. On the Certificates page, the officer opens the register for BIR Form 2316 and downloads the 1604-C alphalist as a CSV or PDF, with minimum wage earners placed in Schedule 2 and totals added up. The officer then uses those same totals to fill BIR Form 1604-C.

Putting taxable 13th-month pay in item 34. On BIR Form 2316, the exempt part of 13th-month pay and other benefits in item 34 is capped at ₱90,000 for the year. Any amount above ₱90,000 is taxable and must go in item 48, not item 34. On item 36, include only the employee’s share of SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG contributions, never the employer’s share.

Ticking substituted filing for two employers. An employee who had two or more employers in the same year, whether at the same time or one after another, does not qualify for substituted filing. Do not have them sign the substituted-filing boxes in items 55 and 56. That employee must file their own BIR Form 1700 return by April 15 of the next year.

Submitting unsigned 2316s for substituted filers. Under RMC 29-2024, BIR no longer allows employers to submit BIR Form 2316 copies without the employee’s signature for those qualified for substituted filing. Make sure both the employer signature in item 53 and the employee signature in item 54, plus the substituted-filing signatures in items 55 and 56, are on the certificate before the February 28 submission.

Re-issuing a certificate without RE-PRINT. Under RMC 29-2021, an electronic BIR Form 2316 may be issued only once. Any re-issued copy or copy given after the original must carry a RE-PRINT watermark in Cambria font, size 144. Copies downloaded later from the certificate register carry this RE-PRINT mark automatically.

The payroll officer gets a ZIP file of sealed BIR Form 2316 PDFs, one for each employee row in the batch, along with a manifest file listing each document ID and any row errors. As employees sign through their signing links, the register tracker updates from sent to signed, and both the employer and the employee can download the same signed PDF. From the same register, the officer downloads the BIR Form 1604-C alphalist in CSV, JSON, or PDF format with the BIR columns and Schedule 2 for minimum wage earners, plus a filled BIR Form 1604-C PDF.

The payroll officer still checks all annualized tax computations and completes the alphalist columns that a BIR Form 2316 does not show: nationality, employment status, region, reason of separation, the split of tax withheld between January to November and December, and the previous employer’s breakdown. To get the DAT file for eSubmission, the officer uses the BIR’s Alphalist Data Entry module. The employer files BIR Form 1604-C through the Offline eBIRForms Package or eFPS, and submits the electronic alphalist through eFPS or by BIR’s eSubmission email with the validation receipt on or before January 31. Finally, the employer gives each employee their signed BIR Form 2316 by January 31, and submits the duplicate signed copies with Annex C and Annex F to the RDO not later than February 28.

PhilForms fills PDF forms and keeps your certificate register, but it does not calculate payroll or update SSS, PhilHealth, or Pag-IBIG contribution tables when rates change. It cannot make a previous employer release a missing BIR Form 2316 for a mid-year hire, and it does not resolve final pay or clearance disputes with resigning employees. It also does not generate the BIR alphalist DAT file or submit returns to BIR systems; you still use BIR’s Alphalist Data Entry module, eBIRForms, eFPS, and eSubmission.

• BIR Form 2316: employer guide, deadline and substituted filing
• 1604-C and the alphalist with your 2316s
• Form pack: employer with staff
• BIR 2316
• BIR 1604-C
• Pag-IBIG MDF
• A bookkeeper issues BIR Form 2307 certificates from one spreadsheet
• A liaison firm stops retyping each client’s details on BIR Form 1901
• A family registers a kasambahay with SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG