Label rules › Philippines

Philippines food label requirements: FDA AO 2014-0030

Prepackaged food sold in the Philippines is labelled under Republic Act 7394 (the Consumer Act), the FDA Act (RA 9711) and DOH Administrative Order No. 2014-0030 on the labelling of prepackaged food. Labels are in English or Filipino. Non-food consumer products follow the Consumer Act’s labelling rules under the DTI.

Checked: 29 October 2026

Mandatory items

What every food label carries

The product name, the ingredient list, net content in metric units, the name and address of the maker, packer, distributor or importer, the country of origin for imports, the lot, the date marking (“Best before”, “Use by” or “Expiry date”), the Nutrition Facts, allergens, and directions for use and storage. Products also need FDA registration (a Certificate of Product Registration); keep its number to hand, as most brands print it.

Front-of-pack warnings: still bills

Bills in the House (among them the Healthy Food Marketing and Labelling Act of 2026) would require black octagonal warnings for products high in sugar, sodium or saturated fat, and a Senate proposal suggests a 1–5 health rating. None is law yet; the FDA has also drafted new guidelines on nutrition and health claims.

Why the rules look like this

Philippine labels are in English because the market is, and their pressure points are sugar and counterfeits:

1. 1992 — the Consumer Act (RA 7394) sets labels in English or Filipino and gives the DTI the non-food goods; that split between FDA and DTI still decides who checks a pack.
2. 2009 — the FDA Act turns the old Bureau of Food and Drugs into the FDA, with product registration for processed food.
3. 2014 — AO 2014-0030 rewrites prepackaged food labelling, with Nutrition Facts on every pack.
4. 2018 — the TRAIN law taxes sugar-sweetened drinks; makers cut sugar and many drinks change their labels.
5. 2026 — bills for black warning octagons reach Congress, following Mexico, Chile and Peru. If they pass, the front of Philippine packs will change the way Mexico’s did.

Seasons that sell packs

Christmas starts in September — the “ber months” — and lasts into January, the longest holiday selling season in the world, so gift packs and hampers are designed by mid-year. Pasalubong, the treats brought home from a trip or from abroad by overseas workers, makes sturdy, travel-proof boxes with clear labels a national format.

Who answers for the label

The manufacturer, importer, distributor and retailer — the whole chain the Consumer Act names — with the FDA licence holder answering for the registration.

The designer and the printer are not named by these laws — but a contract can make them pay for the reprint. Keep the client’s written approval of the final copy; Drint’s review link records it.

If the label is wrong

The FDA can refuse or cancel a product’s registration, order a recall, seize goods and publish public health warnings naming unregistered or mislabelled products — a common sight on its website. The Consumer Act punishes mislabelling with fines and imprisonment, and the DTI can pull non-food goods without the required marks from shelves. For imports, the Bureau of Customs holds goods whose labels do not match their registration.

Who else loses, beyond the fine

A wrong label costs more than its fine, and the cost travels down the chain:

1. The shopper — an undeclared allergen can put someone in hospital; that is why recalls for allergens move fastest.
2. The brand — a recall notice with its name stays online for years, and retailers may delist the product.
3. The importer and distributor — stock held at the port or in a warehouse, storage fees, relabelling labour, sometimes a whole container sent back.
4. The shop — products immobilised or pulled from shelves in the middle of a season.
5. The printer — a reprint at its own cost if the contract says so, and a lost client either way.
6. The designer — the reprint blamed on the artwork, unless the client’s approval is on record.

Placement and the registration

The product name and net content go on the principal display panel; net content is in metric units, and English units may follow. The other items may sit on the information panel. The FDA issues a Certificate of Product Registration for each processed food; print its number as the FDA register shows it. Imported food names the importer or distributor in the Philippines.

Mistakes, and a check before printing

The usual problems: “FDA approved” printed on the pack — registration is not an approval and should not be advertised as one; imperial units only; an imported pack with no local importer; a Nutrition Facts table copied from the US format without checking the Philippine reference values.

1. Write the label in English or Filipino.
2. Put name and metric net content on the front.
3. Add lot, date marking and storage.
4. Use the Philippine Nutrition Facts format the FDA order gives.
5. Avoid “FDA approved”; print the registration number only.

Cosmetics and other consumer goods

Cosmetics notified to the FDA under the ASEAN Cosmetic Directive carry the product name and function, directions, the full ingredient list, the country of manufacture, the name and address of the company responsible in the Philippines, the contents, the batch number, the manufacturing or expiry date and precautions. Other consumer products follow the Consumer Act’s labelling rules under the DTI — product name, maker or importer, net quantity, country of origin, directions and warnings — and goods under mandatory certification carry the PS mark or the ICC sticker.

Worked example: a 200 g box of butter cookies

Made in Vietnam and sold in the Philippines, the pack reads, line by line (the client’s own names and numbers replace those in brackets):

1. BUTTER COOKIES
2. Ingredients: wheat flour, butter (milk), sugar, egg, salt, leavening agent (sodium bicarbonate).
3. Allergen information: contains wheat, milk and egg.
4. Net wt. 200 g
5. Best before: [day month year] · Lot no.: [ ]
6. Store in a cool, dry place.
7. Manufactured by: [manufacturer], Vietnam · Imported and distributed by: [name, address in the Philippines]
8. FDA Reg. No.: [as on the Certificate of Product Registration]
9. Nutrition Facts: serving size [ ] g, servings per pack [ ]

Why it reads this way

English is enough; the local importer and the registration number are what imported packs most often forget.

How Drint helps

Three kinds of people make packs for the Philippines with Drint, and each needs something different:

Free, no account: the barcode generator, the mm to inches converter and the paper sizes table.

1. A business with its own brand — Drint has no label kit for the Philippines yet, so the checklist on this page is your check before export. See the pack in 3D before it is printed, send the design to the person who must approve it with a review link, and hand the printer one CMYK PDF/X-4 with the die on its own layer, so nobody retypes the label.
2. A household business — start from a ready dieline cut to your exact box or bag size instead of paying for a die drawing, use your own photos on 3D mockups for your online shop, and keep the mandatory text exactly as you wrote it: Drint never translates or rewords a client’s copy.
3. A designer — lay out several markets from one design, each with its own language and items, keep every client’s approvals in one place, and show finished packs on a portfolio page at drint.io/your-name.

Laying it out in Drint

1. Drint has no label kit for the Philippines yet: add a text block for each item of the table above, in the order the law lists them.
2. Paste the client’s copy as they wrote it — Drint does not translate or reword it.
3. Place official marks (symbols, numbers, logos) from the authority’s own files at their stated size; export the CMYK PDF/X-4 with the die on its own layer for your printer.

Official sources

1. Food and Drug Administration Philippines
2. Department of Trade and Industry

Drint checks this label while you design, for 47 countries: see how the label-law check works.

Lay out the label in Drint

Questions

A summary written to design packs, not legal advice. Check AO 2014-0030, the product’s FDA registration and current FDA circulars before printing.