How to buy Bitcoin in the Philippines, step by step

Reviewed by the Crypto Philippines Editorial TeamUpdated September 28, 2026 · 11 min read

To buy Bitcoin in the Philippines, open an account on a BSP-licensed app such as Coins.ph, Maya or GCash (GCrypto), verify it with a valid government ID and a selfie, add pesos by InstaPay or from your e-wallet, then buy BTC on the Convert or Spot screen. Coins.ph starts at ₱60 and Maya at ₱1.

That’s the short version. The long version matters because the small choices, like which screen you buy on, how you fund your account and where you keep the coins afterwards, decide whether your first ₱5,000 of Bitcoin costs you ₱10 or ₱200 and whether it stays safe. Below is the full process a first-timer actually goes through, in the order you’ll meet it. If you haven’t picked a platform yet, start with our comparison of the best crypto exchanges in the Philippines.

Step one: choose your route

There are three realistic ways for a Filipino to buy Bitcoin with PHP today, and each suits a different person. The first is the e-wallet you already use. GCash has GCrypto inside GInvest, powered by the licensed exchange PDAX, and Maya runs its own licensed crypto service. If your account is fully verified, there’s no new sign-up and your pesos are already sitting there.

The second is a local exchange such as Coins.ph or PDAX. You open a separate account and fund it from your bank, but in return you get a real order book, lower trading fees and far more coins. Coins.ph lists around 150 tokens and PDAX about 73.

The third is a card on a global exchange. CEX.IO, for example, has operated since 2013, is registered with FinCEN in the US as a money services business, holds US state money transmitter licences and is registered with the Bank of Spain. It accepts Visa and Mastercard from Filipino users and lists 300+ coins. It is not licensed by the BSP, though, and has no peso wallet, GCash or InstaPay, so it works as a card on-ramp rather than a place to cash out in pesos.

The GCash route has its own quirks, limits and fees, and we cover them fully in our GCash crypto guide. If you want to pay in physical cash, see how to buy crypto with cash. Whatever you pick, check that the peso side runs through a firm on the BSP list of virtual asset service providers. Our page on licensed crypto exchanges explains who is on it and who was flagged.

Step two: verify your identity (KYC)

Every licensed platform in the Philippines has to know who you are before it lets you move real money. That’s anti-money-laundering law, not red tape the app invented. In practice you need three things: one valid, unexpired government ID, a selfie taken in the app, and a few minutes to type your address, job and source of funds.

Coins.ph publishes its list of accepted valid IDs: passport, driver’s licence, SSS card with the birth date visible, PRC ID, postal ID, UMID, voter’s ID and the PhilSys National ID in all three forms (the PVC card, the paper ePhilID and the digital ID). If you haven’t registered for the national ID yet, PhilSys is free and the ePhilID is accepted. Foreigners living in the Philippines use an international passport or their ACR I-Card. Expired IDs are rejected, and so are photos with glare or cropped edges.

Don’t skip full verification to save time. A basic Coins.ph account can deposit ₱10,000 a day but can’t send or receive crypto at all. Identity-verified accounts get ₱1 million a day. Coins.ph says the review typically takes 24 to 48 business hours, so do it before you need to buy.

The full process, start to finish

1. Install the official app

   Download Coins.ph, PDAX, Maya or GCash from the App Store or Google Play and check the developer name. Fake clones are a common scam.

2. Sign up and turn on 2FA immediately

   Use a strong unique password and an authenticator app. SMS codes are better than nothing, but SIM-swap fraud exists.

3. Verify with ID and selfie

   Use a PhilSys ID, passport, UMID or driver’s licence. Good light, no glare, all four corners visible.

4. Cash in pesos

   InstaPay arrives in seconds, up to ₱50,000 per transfer. PESONet has no scheme cap and settles in batches on banking days.

5. Buy Bitcoin

   Use Convert for simplicity or Spot for lower costs. Start small and check the final BTC amount before you confirm.

6. Decide where to keep it

   Leave small amounts in the app, or move larger amounts to your own wallet after a small test transfer.

Step three: fund your account with InstaPay or PESONet

Once you’re verified, you need pesos inside the app. On an e-wallet they’re already there. On an exchange you send them from your bank or e-wallet, and you have two rails to choose from.

InstaPay is real-time, runs 24/7 and is capped at ₱50,000 per transaction. It’s what you want for a first purchase. PESONet has no scheme cap but clears in batches at 10:00, 13:00 and 16:00 on banking days, so a Friday-evening transfer may only land on Monday. It’s the better choice for larger amounts.

The fees mostly disappeared in 2026. The BSP’s summary of transfer fees as of 31 August 2026 shows BPI, BDO, Metrobank, Security Bank, RCBC and UnionBank charging nothing for either rail. GCash, Maya and GrabPay still charge ₱10 per InstaPay transfer. Coins.ph doesn’t charge you for receiving InstaPay or PESONet. One trap: PDAX charges about 2.9% if you top up directly from GCash, so a bank transfer is much cheaper there. The full breakdown by platform is in our crypto exchange fees guide.

Step four: place the order (Convert vs Spot)

Here’s where beginners leave the most money on the table. Most apps have two ways to buy.

Convert, the simple screen

Convert (sometimes called Quick Buy) works like a money changer: you type ₱5,000, the app quotes a price, you confirm. Coins.ph explains on its trading fees page that Convert has no trading fee, but that you pay the spread, the gap between the buy and sell rate. GCash and Maya work the same way. It’s simple, and it’s fine for small amounts.

Spot, the order book

Spot trading matches you with other buyers and sellers in an order book. On Coins.ph the base-tier fee is 0.15% if you take an existing offer (a market order, “taker”) and 0.10% if you place a limit order that waits in the book (“maker”). A market order fills instantly at the best available price. A limit order lets you name your price, say ₱5,200,000 per BTC, and fills only if the market reaches it. For a first purchase, a market order for a small amount is perfectly fine. Once you buy regularly, limit orders save money.

What ₱5,000 of Bitcoin really costs

Let’s make it concrete. On 28 September 2026, the Coins.ph BTC/PHP order book showed buyers at ₱5,219,086 and sellers at ₱5,226,951, a spread of about 0.15%. If you had spent ₱5,000 with a market order on Spot, you would have bought at ₱5,226,951 and received about 0.000956 BTC before the fee. The 0.15% taker fee is about ₱7.50, leaving roughly 0.000955 BTC.

If you sold that Bitcoin straight back, you’d sell at the lower price and pay another fee, getting back about ₱4,977. Withdraw that to your bank by InstaPay for ₱5 and your full round trip cost about ₱28, or 0.55%. That’s the realistic floor for small trades in the Philippines.

Now compare. Buying the same ₱5,000 with a card on a global exchange costs 0.49% to 4.99% plus a service charge, so between about ₱25 and ₱250 before any conversion your bank applies to a peso card. On GCash or Maya the cost is hidden in the spread, which neither publishes. You can measure it yourself by checking the buy and sell price side by side; our fees and spreads guide shows how.

The quickest way to buy crypto in the Philippines

People ask for the “quickest way” when they want Bitcoin today. Here are honest timings, not marketing ones.

Already verified on GCash or Maya: a few minutes. You open GCrypto or Maya’s crypto tab, accept the terms the first time, and buy with your wallet balance. This is genuinely the fastest route for most Filipinos.

New Coins.ph or PDAX account: plan for one to two days. Sign-up takes ten minutes, but ID review can take 24 to 48 business hours, and a weekend adds more. After approval, an InstaPay deposit arrives in seconds and the purchase itself is instant.

Card on a global exchange: the card payment is instant once your account is verified, but the verification time depends on the exchange’s review, which we couldn’t confirm as a fixed figure. New CEX.IO customers are also capped at US$1,000 a day for their first three months.

The slow part is almost always verification, not buying. So if you think you might want Bitcoin next month, verify this week.

Step five: moving Bitcoin to your own wallet

You don’t have to withdraw. For small amounts, a licensed app is a reasonable place to keep coins. But if you want full control, you’ll send BTC to a wallet where only you hold the recovery phrase.

Three rules keep you safe. First, check the network. For Bitcoin, choose the Bitcoin network unless you know exactly why you’d pick another; sending over a network your wallet doesn’t support is the classic way to lose coins. Second, send a test transaction: move a small amount, confirm it arrived, then send the rest. The extra network fee is cheap insurance. Third, copy and paste the address, then check the first and last four characters, because clipboard-hijacking malware exists.

Expect a network fee on every withdrawal, which varies with the coin and how busy the network is. For transfers of ₱50,000 or more, BSP rules require the platform to collect information about the sender and receiver, so don’t be surprised by extra questions. When the time comes to turn Bitcoin back into pesos, our guide to selling crypto for cash covers banks, GCash and pawnshops.

Security basics and common first-time mistakes

Turn on two-factor authentication with an authenticator app, not only SMS. Use an email address that also has 2FA, because whoever controls your email can often reset your exchange password. Never share one-time codes, even with someone who claims to be support. Licensed apps never ask for your password or OTP by chat.

The mistakes we see most often are predictable. People buy on the Convert screen for months without comparing the spread. They fund a PDAX account from GCash and lose 2.9% before buying anything. They send coins on the wrong network. And the costliest: they trust a “mentor” on Facebook or Telegram who promises daily returns. Read our crypto scams guide before you send money to anyone you met online. Also avoid offshore exchanges the SEC has flagged, such as Binance, OKX or Bybit; the Philippine crypto rules explain why.

Bitcoin isn’t the only coin beginners buy. Many Filipinos start with a stablecoin because its value tracks the US dollar; our guide to buying USDT in the Philippines explains networks and rates. If you live in Metro Manila and prefer to ask questions face to face, the Manila crypto guide lists staffed counters and offices.