The Embassy and its consular section are not in the same building
The Embassy of the Philippines is at 1600 Massachusetts Avenue NW. Consular services are at the Chancery Annex, 1617 Massachusetts Avenue NW, across the street. Going to the wrong one is the most common wasted morning in Washington.
Visa and civil registry applications are accepted by mail only. There is no counter for them here.
The Consular Section of the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C. is the
Philippine post for the American South East and for almost the entire Caribbean. It
is the only one of the twenty Philippine offices in the United States that is part of
an embassy rather than a consulate general, and that is not a technicality: it
changes where you go, what you can do at a counter and what you have to put in an
envelope.
The Embassy itself sits at 1600 Massachusetts Avenue NW. Consular work happens
somewhere else — at the Chancery Annex, 1617 Massachusetts Avenue NW, across the
street. Turning up at the chancery for a passport is the most common wasted morning
in Washington.
Address, hours and contact details in Washington, D.C.
Two things about this post catch people out, and both are worth knowing before you
plan a day around them.
The counter is only open for three services. Passports run Monday to Friday
from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM, dual citizenship only Tuesday to Friday and only in the
morning, and notarials only in the afternoon slot, 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM. Every one of
them needs an appointment.
Visa and civil registry are mail-only. There is no window for them in
Washington. A Report of Birth or a Report of
Marriage is posted to the Civil Registration Unit at 1617 Massachusetts Avenue NW with
four notarised forms, a money order and a prepaid return envelope, and it comes back
in three to five business days once it arrives.
The Embassy also runs the consular outreach programme for its region, which
is how Filipinos in Tampa, Atlanta or the Caribbean get served without flying to
Washington. Those appointments are free.
What this post can do for you
A Philippine career post handles the full consular catalogue. These are the procedures people come for, most searched first:
- Philippine passport renewal in the United States: Ten years for adults, five for minors, printed in Manila and mailed back in six to eight weeks. Why you must appear in person and why nine months’ notice is the real deadline.
- Philippine dual citizenship under RA 9225: For natural-born Filipinos who lost citizenship by naturalising abroad. The oath does not require renouncing your other nationality, and minor children come in as derivatives.
- Special Power of Attorney and consular notarisation: Twenty-five dollars a document, personal appearance required, and the consulate will neither draft your document nor act as your witness.
- Report of Birth and Report of Marriage: How to register a child born in the United States or a marriage celebrated here so that they exist in the Philippine civil registry. Mail-only at most posts.
- Affidavit of One and the Same Person: The document that fixes a name that does not match between your PSA birth certificate and your US passport. It is what stops most dual citizenship and passport applications.
- Philippine visa and visa-free entry for US travellers: US passport holders enter visa-free for 30 days, balikbayans for a year, and 9(A) visas are now filed online at evisa.gov.ph — not at the consulate counter.
Honorary consulates under this post
They cannot issue passports or take the dual citizenship oath, but they are the closest official Philippine contact in their area and the first place to hear about an outreach mission:
- Philippine Honorary Consulate in Miami — 1200 Brickell Avenue, Suite 310, Miami, FL 33131
- Philippine Honorary Consulate in Atlanta — 3340 Peachtree Road NE, Suite 1685, Atlanta, GA 30326
What you can settle without going to Washington, D.C.
More than people expect, and this is where most wasted trips come from. Three of the most searched Philippine procedures in the United States do not happen at a consulate at all:
- PSA certificates — birth, marriage, death and CENOMAR — are issued by the Philippine Statistics Authority and ordered online. The consulate asks for them; it does not print them.
- Apostilles on American documents come from the Secretary of State of the state that issued them. Since 15 May 2019 the consulate cannot authenticate them.
- NBI clearance is issued by the NBI in the Philippines and applied for by mail. The only consular step is notarising your fingerprint card.
What genuinely requires you at a counter is anything with a signature or a fingerprint on it: the biometrics for a passport, the oath of allegiance, and signing a power of attorney in front of a consular officer.
Fees, accepted payment methods and document checklists are on the requirements page, and every procedure has its own guide in the procedures section.
philippineconsulates.us is an independent information guide to the Philippine consulates in the United States. We are not the Philippine Consulate General, the Philippine Embassy or any government agency. We do not book, sell or manage appointments: every post runs its own system. We check the details regularly, but they can change without notice — always confirm with the post before you travel.