TL;DR: India is not the cheaper market for experienced software engineers. With statutory costs added, a Filipino engineer with 5 to 9 years' experience costs about $14,300 a year, and an Indian engineer at the same level about $15,800. Choose the Philippines for English and client-facing work, and India for depth in backend, data and AI.
An Indian software engineer with 5 to 9 years' experience earns ₹1,441,407 a year on Payscale's 2026 data, about $15,100. A Filipino engineer at the same level earns ₱763,872, about $12,200.
India's lower employer costs close part of that gap but not all of it, and five days ago India made its side a little dearer by raising the provident fund wage ceiling.
- 1Philippine statutory costs add about 17% to a mid-career salary, against about 5% in India.
- 2India's provident fund ceiling rose from ₹15,000 to ₹25,000 a month on 17 September 2026.
- 3The Philippines ranks 28th on the EF English index; India ranks 74th.
- 4India has 21.9 million developers on GitHub, second only to the US.
Software Engineer Salaries: Philippines vs India
At the entry level the two markets pay almost the same in dollars. The gap opens with experience: by 10 to 19 years, an Indian engineer earns about 49% more than a Filipino one.
The figures are Payscale's total pay by years of experience for the Software Engineer title, updated in July 2026 for both India and the Philippines.
| Experience | India, a year | In USD | Philippines, a year | In USD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 1 year | ₹537,425 | $5,622 | ₱310,361 | $4,969 |
| 1 to 4 years | ₹753,561 | $7,883 | ₱431,170 | $6,903 |
| 5 to 9 years | ₹1,441,407 | $15,078 | ₱763,872 | $12,229 |
| 10 to 19 years | ₹2,222,139 | $23,245 | ₱977,738 | $15,653 |
Conversions use the European Central Bank reference rates for 22 September 2026, which work out to $1 = ₹95.60 = ₱62.46.
That also answers a common search: ₹1 buys about ₱0.65, so an Indian salary in pesos is roughly two thirds of its rupee figure.
What an Indian Engineer Costs the Employer
India's statutory costs are small for an engineer's salary because the main one is capped. Employer provident fund is 12% of wages, 8.33% of it going to the pension scheme, but only on wages up to a ceiling.
The Cabinet raised that ceiling from ₹15,000 to ₹25,000 a month on 16 September 2026, and it took effect the next day. For any engineer paid above it, employer provident fund rises from ₹21,600 to ₹36,000 a year.
- Provident fund: 12% of wages up to ₹25,000 a month, so at most ₹3,000 a month unless the employer chooses to pay on the full wage.
- EDLI and admin charges: 0.5% each on the same capped wage, per the EPFO contribution rates.
- Gratuity: 15 days' wages for each year of service, which an employer accrues at about 4.81% of wages. It is capped at ₹20 lakh.
- ESI and statutory bonus: both stop at ₹21,000 of monthly wages, so neither applies to a typical engineer.
The Labor Codes, in force since 21 November 2025, decide what counts as wages. Under the Labour Ministry's FAQ, allowances above 50% of total pay are added back to wages. So we take wages as half of pay, the lowest share the rule allows.
For the engineer on ₹1,441,407, that comes to ₹73,649 a year, or 5.1% on top of pay. An employer that pays provident fund on the full wage instead of the ceiling adds ₹86,484 in provident fund alone, which takes the share to about 8.6%.
Indian offers are usually quoted as cost to company (CTC), a figure that often already includes employer provident fund and gratuity, so check which way a candidate's number is stated before adding these costs again.
What a Philippine Engineer Costs the Employer
The Philippines charges a higher share, and the biggest item is not a contribution. It is the 13th-month payment, one twelfth of a year's basic pay under Presidential Decree 851. Three capped social insurance contributions sit on top:
- SSS: 10% of the monthly salary credit, which stops at ₱35,000, plus ₱30 for employee compensation cover. That is ₱3,530 a month at the top of the SSS contribution table.
- PhilHealth: a 5% premium on salary up to ₱100,000 a month, split equally, so the employer pays 2.5%.
- Pag-IBIG: 2% of a fund salary capped at ₱10,000, so ₱200 a month.
On ₱763,872 a year those four items add ₱127,513: ₱63,656 in 13th-month pay, ₱42,360 in SSS and EC, ₱19,097 in PhilHealth and ₱2,400 in Pag-IBIG.
Because SSS is capped, the share falls as pay rises, from 21.8% for a first-year engineer to 15.4% at 10 to 19 years. Our Philippines payroll, benefits and tax guide covers the payroll calendar.
- 13th-month pay, one twelfth of basic
- 12.5% SSS and PhilHealth, both capped
- ₱200 a month Pag-IBIG
- 12% provident fund to a ₹25,000 wage ceiling
- 1% EDLI and admin on the same wage
- Gratuity, 15 days' wages per year
Total Annual Cost of One Engineer
A foreign company without a local entity hires through an employer of record, which employs the engineer and bills the company monthly. Deel lists $599 a month per employee with no country surcharge, and Remote lists $699.
At Deel's price the fee is $7,188 a year in either country, so it does not change which market is cheaper. It does shrink the gap in percentage terms.
| Experience | India, statutory only | India, with EOR | Philippines, statutory only | Philippines, with EOR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 1 year | $6,122 | $13,310 | $6,051 | $13,239 |
| 1 to 4 years | $8,480 | $15,668 | $8,367 | $15,555 |
| 5 to 9 years | $15,849 | $23,037 | $14,270 | $21,458 |
| 10 to 19 years | $24,212 | $31,400 | $18,065 | $25,253 |
Below five years the two markets cost the same within about $120 a year, which is noise next to the spread inside either market.
From five years up, the Philippines is cheaper, by about $1,600 a year at 5 to 9 years and $6,100 at 10 to 19. Treat these as local-market floors.
Engineers who work for foreign companies usually earn above them, which is why teams hiring through us typically save 50-70% against a US hire rather than the 85% or more these figures imply.
Our Philippines and India cost-to-hire pages break the numbers down by role.
Pay growth points the same way. Aon projects Indian salaries to rise 9.1% in 2026, with technology platform and product companies at 9.4% and global capability centers at 9.3%. For the Philippines, Aon's forecast is 5.2%.
On those rates, the salary gap at 5 to 9 years widens by about $700 a year.
English and Communication
This is the widest gap between the two markets. The Philippines scored 569 on the EF English Proficiency Index 2025, in the High band and second in Asia after Malaysia.
India scored 484, down six points on the year, in the Low band and just under the global average of 488.
A national average says little about the engineers a foreign company interviews, and India's top tier is fluent.
The difference is depth: in the Philippines, clear spoken and written English runs through most of the pool, so roles in daily standups, customer calls and demos are easier to fill there.
For those roles, developers from the Philippines are usually the faster match.
Talent Pool and Skills Depth
India's pool is on a different scale. GitHub's Octoverse 2025 counts 21.9 million developers in India, up from 4.5 million in 2020.
India added more than 5.2 million in 2025, a little over 14% of all new developers on GitHub, and GitHub projects it will pass the US by 2030, at 57.5 million against 54.7 million.
The Philippines has no developer census to set against that. The IT and business process industry body IBPAP counts 1.89 million full-time staff in 2025, but most work in customer and back-office services.
IT and digital services account for 190,000, and global capability centers for 270,000. The two national numbers are not like for like, and the honest reading is that India's engineering bench is many times deeper.
Depth matters most for niche and senior searches.
A backend engineer with Kafka and Rust, a data engineer with a specific cloud certification, or a senior machine learning engineer who has shipped models to production: these shortlists fill faster in India.
The Philippines is strongest in web full-stack work, the Microsoft .NET and Azure stack, and QA. Developers from India are the better bet for backend systems at scale, data engineering and AI work.
Attrition and Retention
Indian IT services attrition has settled in a 12% to 14% band.
In results for the quarter to 30 June 2026, Wipro reported 13.9% voluntary attrition over twelve months, TCS 13.6%, Infosys 13.0%, down from 14.4% a year earlier, and HCLTech 12.7%.
Those are the four largest services firms. Across all sectors, Aon measured 16.2% attrition in India in 2025.
The Philippines publishes no software-specific attrition figure, only numbers for the wider IT and business process industry, so we do not quote one.
In our placements, retention in both markets depends far more on pay against the local market and on management than on the country.
Time Zones and Working Hours
Manila is on UTC+8 and India on UTC+5:30, so the Philippines is 2.5 hours ahead of India all year. Neither country uses daylight saving. Against New York, Manila is 12 hours ahead in summer and 13 in winter, and India 9.5 and 10.5.
Neither market overlaps the US working day without a shifted schedule. A 9am to 5pm New York day in summer runs from 9pm to 5am in Manila and 6:30pm to 2:30am in India.
In the Philippines, hours between 10pm and 6am carry a 10% night-shift differential, so a full US-hours shift adds up to 10% to daily pay.
For UK and European teams India fits better: a 9am London start is 1:30pm in India in summer and 4pm in Manila. A team mixing both markets shares most of its working day.
Which Market Fits Which Role
- Product, frontend and full-stack roles
- Engineers in customer calls and demos
- .NET, Azure and QA teams
- Senior hires, where it costs less
- Backend systems and data engineering
- Senior AI and machine learning roles
- Rare skills and large hiring volumes
- Overlap with UK and European hours
Many teams split by role rather than pick one country: a product engineer in Manila and a data engineer in Bangalore, 2.5 hours apart.
For how these two compare with Poland, Romania and Ukraine on non-engineering roles, see our India, Eastern Europe and Philippines hiring cost comparison.
The Philippines vs UK developer costs post runs the same Philippine cost model against a London team.
Hiring Engineers from the Philippines or India
We recruit vetted software engineers in both markets, usually with a shortlist within 24 hours, at 50-70% lower payroll than a US hire.
In the Philippines we can employ them for you through our Philippines employer of record, so you need no local entity. There is no cost until you hire. Tell us who you need.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it cheaper to hire software engineers in India or the Philippines?
Below five years' experience they cost about the same once statutory costs are added. From five years up the Philippines is cheaper, by about $1,600 a year at 5 to 9 years and $6,100 at 10 to 19, on Payscale pay data.
What is the time difference between India and the Philippines?
The Philippines is 2.5 hours ahead of India. Noon in Manila is 9:30am in India, and neither country changes its clocks.
How much is an Indian salary in Philippine pesos?
At the 22 September 2026 ECB reference rates, ₹1 is about ₱0.65. A ₹1,441,407 salary is about ₱941,800 a year, well above the ₱763,872 a Filipino engineer earns at the same experience level.
