Money sent home by overseas Filipinos (OFs) fell to $2.71 billion in May, dropping to its lowest level in a year and signaling that growth may be losing steam amid renewed deployment risks stemming from the Middle East conflict.

The latest Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) data released on Wednesday, July 15, showed that cash remittances in May were the lowest in a full year, following the $2.66 billion recorded in May 2025.

Despite the slight month-on-month decline from $2.72 billion in April, May cash remittances increased by two percent year-on-year.

During the month, land-based workers contributed $2.17 billion to the total, up 2.1 percent year-on-year, while sea-based workers contributed $543 million, up 1.7 percent.

Despite the continued slowdown, the BSP said cash remittances in May remained resilient, reflecting “sustained inflows from OFs.”

Personal remittances—a broader category that includes informal channels and remittances in kind—reached $3.03 billion during the month, up 2.1 percent from $2.97 billion in May 2025.

From January to May, cash remittances increased by 2.5 percent to $14.11 billion from $13.77 billion in the same period last year. It also bears noting that the five-month figure was the highest on record.

Since January, the United States (US) remained the primary source of cash remittances, accounting for nearly two-fifths of total. This was followed by Singapore at 7.4 percent, Saudi Arabia at 6.4 percent, Japan at 5.1 percent, and the United Kingdom (UK) at 4.6 percent.

Cumulative personal remittances for the first five months reached $15.74 billion, up 2.6 percent from $15.34 billion a year ago.

According to the BSP, the US’ dominance as a source is partly due to the common practice of remittance centers abroad routing funds through US-based correspondent banks. Consequently, banks often attribute the origin of funds to the most immediate source rather than the actual country where the worker is located.

Cash remittances, which serve as a growth engine, accounted for 7.4 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2026. They accounted for 7.3 percent of GDP in 2025, the lowest in 25 years, following a steady decline from 7.5 percent in 2024 and 7.7 percent in 2023.

For 2026, the BSP forecasts cash remittances to reach $36.6 billion, representing a 2.7-percent growth rate from the actual 2025 figure of $35.63 billion. However, this would be slower than the actual growth rate of 3.3 percent recorded last year.

Ruben Carlo O. Asuncion, chief economist at Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank), said the latest remittance figure, while positive, suggests that growth could be losing steam. Asuncion added that the renewed risk stemming from the US-Iran re-escalation could hurt overseas Filipino workers’ (OFWs) employment and deployment in the Middle East.

SM Investments Corp. (SMIC) group economist Robert Dan J. Roces said remittances “tend to be lumpy and are influenced by the timing of transfers, exchange rate movements, and seasonal factors.”

Roces said that, from a broader perspective, the trend “still looks resilient, supported by a healthy overseas labor market.”

“For businesses and consumers, what’s more important is whether this becomes a sustained slowdown, but for now it looks more like month-to-month volatility than a change in the underlying trend,” Roces said.