The long weekend has a way of doing this to us. National Day fills the void decks with red and white, the fireworks go up over the bay, and you are on a video call with home, holding the phone up so your mother can see the lights behind you. She says the same thing she always says. Ang ganda naman diyan, anak. And you feel it land in your chest, because after all these years she has still never stood where you are standing.
That ache shows up in our group chats every August. Pwede ko bang padalhin ang nanay ko para makita kung saan ako nagtatrabaho? The good news is that for most of us the answer is yes, and it is simpler than we fear. The part people get wrong is what happens after they arrive, how long they can stay, and the difference between a visit and keeping a parent here. So let me walk you through it the way I would explain it to a kabayan over coffee at Lucky Plaza.
The visa most of us do not need
The worry most kababayans carry about this one falls away fast. Philippine passport holders do not need an entry visa to visit Singapore. Your parents book the flight, they land at Changi, and an ICA officer gives them a social visit pass at the counter. No embassy queue in Manila, no visa sticker, no agent fee. The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority keeps the list of who needs a visa, and the Philippines is not on it (ICA, visa requirements).
One thing to hold in your head. The passport gets them to the counter, but the ICA officer decides how many days they get. Most Filipino visitors receive up to 30 days, though the officer reads each case on its own. Your parents should carry proof they will go home: a return ticket, your address, enough money for the trip. A retiree with a clear reason to visit and a child working here on a valid pass is an easy case to wave through.
The free step your parents cannot skip before they fly
Before your mother boards in Manila, someone needs to submit her SG Arrival Card. It is free, it takes a few minutes online, and it is the digital version of the old landing card. Filipinos flying back to Singapore already know this drill, and it works the same for a visiting parent. Do it for them if they are not confident with the phone, and use an email address you check, because the electronic visit pass lands in that inbox. We wrote the full walk-through in our guide on the SG Arrival Card you cannot skip, and every word of it applies to Tatay too.
Skip this step and the trouble starts at the boarding gate in Manila, not at Changi. Airlines check for it before they let anyone fly. Better to sort it at home over merienda than to watch your mother stranded at NAIA with a boarding pass she cannot use.
Thirty days went fast. Can they stay longer?
Say the visit is going well. The apo have latched onto their lola, nobody wants the month to end, and you start doing the math on the calendar. You can ask ICA to extend a short-term visit pass, and many families do.
You apply through ICA's e-Service, online, before the current pass runs out. ICA asks you to submit the request when the pass has 14 days or less of validity left, so do not leave it to the final night. An extension can carry the stay to as much as 89 days counted from the day they entered. If the total time in Singapore crosses 90 days, a fee of S$40 applies (ICA, seeking an extension of a visit pass). Approval is never automatic, and ICA can ask why the stay needs to run longer, so keep the reason honest and simple: family visit, child working here, going home on this date.
For a lot of us, one good long visit a year is the shape this takes. Parents come for a season, meet the neighbours, sit through a fiesta or a National Day, and fly home before anyone overstays anything. Overstaying is the one line you never let them cross, because it follows them the next time they try to enter, and it can touch you as their host.
The parent pass, and why it is not built for most of us
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Now the harder question, the one people mean when they say they want their parents "here." Can a parent live in Singapore with you long term? There is a pass built for that, the Long-Term Visit Pass for parents, and you should know the honest shape of it.
The Ministry of Manpower lets you sponsor your parents for an LTVP only if you hold an Employment Pass and earn a fixed salary of at least S$12,000 a month, with your employer as the sponsor (MOM, LTVP eligibility). That is a high bar on purpose, and it sits well above what most kababayans on a Work Permit, an S Pass, or a helper's salary bring home. If that is your situation, the parent LTVP is not the route for you, and no agent can bend that rule for a fee. Anyone who says they can is selling you a story.
This is a different pass from the one that brings a spouse and children. If your dream is to have your husband, wife, or kids here, that runs on its own salary rule, and we laid it out in our guide on the S$6,000 rule that decides if you can bring your family. Parents sit in a separate, stricter lane. For the EP holders who do clear the S$12,000 mark, the LTVP is real and worth doing, and MOM's page is the place to start.
Money talks before the plane ticket
A visiting parent is a joy and also a cost, so plan it with open eyes. The flight is the easy number. The one people forget is health. No Singapore subsidy covers your parents while they visit, and a night in a hospital here bears no resemblance to a Philippine hospital bill. If Nanay has hypertension, diabetes, a heart condition, anything that could flare, buy her travel insurance for the trip that covers medical care and bring her regular medicines in her hand-carry with the prescription. It costs little next to the peace of mind.
Budget for the ordinary things too, the extra grocery run, the transport, the day out you have promised yourself you would give them. Our travel guide from kababayans who already live here is a good map for showing parents around without burning your sweldo, from the free light shows to the hawker meals that taste like home.
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Before you book, check the source
Immigration rules move, and the numbers in this piece are the ones on the government pages as of August 2026. The visa-free list and the visit-pass details live with ICA at ica.gov.sg. The parent LTVP salary rule and the sponsorship steps live with MOM at mom.gov.sg. Before you book anything, open those two pages yourself and confirm the current figures, because the live page always wins over any guide, including this one.
Bring them home to your Singapore
Most of us cannot move our parents here, and that is its own kind of grief we carry without saying it out loud. Almost all of us can bring them for a season, and that season is enough to change something. There is a particular look on a father's face the first time his OFW daughter walks him through the city she has been sending money from, the kind of thing that happens more this weekend than any other. He sees the real thing, past the Facebook photos, the MRT and the crowd and the daughter who knows which exit to take.
So this National Day, hold the phone up a little higher on that call home. Then start looking at flights. Your parents standing next to you at the next fireworks, tired from the walk and grinning through it, is a thing you can make happen. Kaya natin ito, kabayan.
Photo: chensiyuan / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
