BIR Form 1902: How a First-Time Employee Gets a TIN in the Philippines

BIR Form 1902 is the Application for Registration for Individuals Earning Purely Compensation Income — the form a first-time employee (local or alien) uses to get a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) from the Bureau of Internal Revenue. In practice, the employer prepares and files it on the new hire’s behalf at the Revenue District Office (RDO) covering the employer’s address, so the employee is properly registered before the first payroll cutoff.

This guide covers who files BIR Form 1902, what it requires, why a new hire should never end up with two TINs, and how it differs from the BIR Form 1901/1903 track used for businesses. For registering a business or professional practice instead of an employee, see How to Register a New Business with the BIR; for correcting or updating a registration later, see BIR Form 1905: Updating Your BIR Registration and RDO Transfer.

Who is BIR Form 1902 for? #

BIR Form 1902 applies only to individuals earning purely compensation income — salary or wages from a single employer — who have never had a TIN before. It covers both first-time local (Filipino) employees and resident or non-resident alien employees working in the Philippines. It is not for freelancers, sole proprietors, or professionals earning business or professional income; those individuals register instead under BIR Form 1901.

Registration of this kind traces to Section 236 of the National Internal Revenue Code (NIRC), which requires every person subject to internal revenue taxes to register with the BIR and obtain a TIN, and to keep that registration current. A new employee who already holds a TIN from a prior job, a prior business registration, or a one-time transaction (via BIR Form 1904) should never file BIR Form 1902 to request a “new” TIN — the existing TIN carries forward for life under Section 236.

Who actually files it — the employee or the employer? #

The new hire fills out the personal details on BIR Form 1902, but the employer is the one who typically submits it to the BIR, since registering new employees for withholding purposes is standard onboarding practice before the first payroll run. This is why the form is usually bundled into a company’s pre-employment paperwork alongside the employment contract and government-mandated benefit enrollments (SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG).

The completed form is filed at the RDO that has jurisdiction over the employer’s registered business address — the office or branch where the employee will actually report for work — not the RDO nearest the employee’s home. This matters because it determines where the employee’s tax records sit going forward, including where a later BIR Form 1905 transfer would need to be filed if the employee moves employers into a different RDO’s jurisdiction.

What documents does a new employee need? #

Required attachments are minimal because BIR Form 1902 is a first-time registration, not an update, but the exact list differs slightly for local versus alien employees. At minimum, the BIR needs enough identifying information to assign one permanent TIN and tie it correctly to the employer withholding on the employee’s behalf.

There is no registration fee for filing BIR Form 1902 — the ₱500 Annual Registration Fee that businesses used to pay was abolished outright for all registrants under the Ease of Paying Taxes Act (RA No. 11976), effective January 22, 2024, and employee TIN issuance itself has never carried that fee.

Filing timeline: how soon after hiring? #

BIR Form 1902 should be filed at or shortly after the employee’s start date, since Section 236 of the NIRC ties registration to the point a person becomes subject to withholding, and delayed registration can hold up correct payroll withholding from day one. Employers commonly build this into onboarding checklists so the TIN is on file before the first cutoff, rather than treating it as an afterthought once withholding computations are already due.

Can a new employee register online through ORUS? #

Yes — the BIR’s Online Registration and Update System (ORUS), at orus.bir.gov.ph, now handles new-employee TIN applications alongside the traditional over-the-counter filing at the RDO, and employers increasingly use it to cut down on manual paperwork. An applicant creates an ORUS account, selects the registration category matching BIR Form 1902, uploads the required ID, and submits — with the TIN issued electronically once BIR staff validate the submission.

A related change worth knowing: under Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) No. 31-2024, issued February 27, 2024, the BIR instructed employers that they no longer need to send newly hired employees to an RDO in person to get a TIN Verification Slip before payroll can begin. Employers now verify an employee’s existing TIN through ORUS’s online TIN verification facility instead — which matters directly for BIR Form 1902, because it is precisely this verification step that confirms whether a new hire already has a TIN and therefore should not file the form at all.

Why one employee should never hold two TINs #

Section 236 of the NIRC entitles every individual to exactly one TIN for life, and Section 275 of the NIRC — the Tax Code’s general catch-all penalty provision — imposes a fine of up to ₱1,000 and/or imprisonment of up to six months on a person who violates a registration requirement, including ending up with more than one TIN. This most commonly happens when an employee who already has a TIN from a previous employer, an old business registration, or a prior BIR Form 1904 one-time registration is mistakenly issued a second one by a new employer that skipped verification.

If a duplicate TIN is ever discovered, the fix is not to keep using either number quietly — it is to request cancellation and consolidation of the extra TIN through BIR Form 1905 at the RDO holding the record, so payroll withholding and any future filings sit under a single, correct TIN. See BIR Form 1905: Updating Your BIR Registration and RDO Transfer for how that correction request works.

A worked example #

Maria Santos, 23, accepts her first full-time job as a junior bookkeeper at a small accounting firm in Quezon City, starting August 4, 2026. She has never had a TIN. During onboarding, HR verifies through ORUS that no TIN exists under her name, then completes BIR Form 1902 on her behalf using her Philippine National ID (showing her name, birth date, and home address in Cavite) and files it with the RDO covering the firm’s Quezon City office — not an RDO near her home in Cavite. The TIN is issued before her first payroll cutoff on August 15, so her employer withholds compensation tax correctly from her very first payslip, and she never has to visit an RDO herself.

BIR Form 1902 vs. BIR Form 1901 vs. BIR Form 1904 #

The three forms all result in a TIN, but each targets a different taxpayer situation, and picking the wrong one is a common early mistake. BIR Form 1902 is exclusively for individuals whose only income is compensation from an employer; BIR Form 1901 is for self-employed individuals, professionals, and mixed-income earners running a business or practice; BIR Form 1904 is for one-time taxpayers (estate, donor’s, or capital gains tax) or people who need a TIN solely to transact with a government office under Executive Order No. 98. See How to Register a New Business with the BIR for the BIR Form 1901/1903 track if the reader is registering a business rather than a job.

Summary #

BIR Form 1902 registers a first-time employee for a TIN under Section 236 of the NIRC, and in practice the employer files it at the RDO covering its own address once ORUS verification confirms the new hire has no existing TIN. There’s no registration fee, documentation is limited to a valid ID (plus a passport for alien employees), and the one-TIN-for-life rule under Sections 236 and 275 means an employee who already has a TIN should never be issued a second one — BIR Form 1905 is the correct route to fix a duplicate if one slips through. Getting this step right on day one avoids withholding delays and a much messier cleanup later.