Rice tariff rate stays at 15% until March

Upgrade to High-Speed Internet for only ₱1499/month!

Enjoy up to 100 Mbps fiber broadband, perfect for browsing, streaming, and gaming.

Visit Suniway.ph to learn

January 29, 2026 | 12:00am

Unless world prices fall below $370/MT

MANILA, Philippines —   Rice tariff will remain at 15 percent, the lowest on record, until the end of first quarter unless international prices fall below $370 per metric ton (MT), a ranking agriculture official said.

Department of Agriculture (DA) Assistant Secretary and spokesman Arnel de Mesa said the threshold established by the government to increase rice tariffs has not yet been breached.

Citing the guidelines, De Mesa said rice tariffs may be increased by five percentage points to 20 percent once the average price of five percent broken Vietnam rice falls between $350 per MT and $367 per MT.

De Mesa pointed out that the average price of the benchmark rice variety last December was at $387 per MT, which was used as reference price whether to adjust the tariff rate on the commodity this month or not.

Furthermore, De Mesa disclosed that the next round of review whether to increase the rice tariff rate or not will be in April with March serving as its reference price point.

President Marcos issued late last year Executive Order 105 that sought to establish a flexible rice tariff mechanism depending on prevailing international prices as a way to protect local farmers’ income.

At prevailing international prices, the retail price of imported five percent broken Vietnam rice, which is the most imported variety in the country, should be well within the DA’s maximum suggested retail price of P43 per kilo, De Mesa said.

Despite the tariffs remaining unchanged, De Mesa claimed that the DA’s other interventions such as talking to industry players to limit the entry of imported rice stocks in the country will help in preventing farmgate prices from sliding further.

De Mesa reiterated that rice traders and millers have committed to Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. to buy fresh palay at P17 per kilo and dry palay at P21 per kilo to guarantee farmers’ profit.

The agriculture official said total rice imports from January to February could be around 600,000 MT after industry players initially agreed to limit import arrivals in February to about 300,000 MT.

Managing or even suspending the importation of rice has been one of the measures being used by the government to prevent palay prices from freefalling due to influx of cheaper imported stocks.

The Philippines officially returned to the international rice market last Jan. 1 with imports as of Jan. 22 reaching around 247,272 MT.

Rice imports last year settled at 3.38 million MT, down by almost 30 percent from the record-high volume of 4.8 million MT in 2024 after the government imposed a four-month import ban from September to December.