BIR Form 1601-C

BIR Form 1601-C is the monthly return of the tax you withheld from your employees' pay. Sahora works out its figures from your payrolls and prints a working copy on the BIR's own form. This guide shows how to get it and what to check before you file.

Sahora prepares the return. You file and pay it yourself, through eBIRForms, eFPS or your usual channel.

Before you start

The month's payrolls must be approved and released (see Releasing a payroll). A payroll counts in the month of its pay date.
Your BIR registration details (TIN, registered name and address, RDO code, signatory) and your filing channel should be set in Company setup → Payroll settings (see BIR details and your work place). They are printed on the form.

Open the month's return

Open Reports and click BIR 1601-C.
Choose the Month and click Apply.

The page shows Part II, items 14 to 25, for the month: total compensation, the non-taxable parts (minimum wage of minimum wage earners and their premiums, 13th month pay and other benefits, de minimis benefits, the employees' SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG shares, other non-taxable pay), taxable compensation and the total tax withheld. It also says which filing channel your company uses and when this month's return is due.

Open Per employee to see each employee's compensation, non-taxable and taxable pay, and tax withheld.

Download the working copy

Click Working copy (PDF, whole company). The return opens in Sahora's PDF viewer, where you can download or print it.
For the figures in a spreadsheet, click Excel.

The working copy has the month's figures printed onto the BIR's own Form 1601-C. Items 26 onward (adjustments, penalties) are left for you to enter when filing. Use it to fill in the return in eBIRForms or eFPS.

Filters don't change the return

If you filter the page by employee, department or branch, the items on screen and the Excel cover only those employees. The PDF is always the return for the whole company, since a return can't be filed for part of it.

Screenshot to come: The BIR 1601-C report with items 14 to 25 and the Working copy button

After you file and pay

Open the filing calendar.
On the month's 1601-C row, click Mark remitted, enter the date, reference and amount, and click Save.

Filed months can't be unlocked

Once a month's 1601-C is marked remitted, the approved payrolls paid in that month can no longer be unlocked. Corrections then go through an adjustment run (see Adjustment runs and back pay). If you marked it by mistake, click Undo on the calendar.

The amounts you record also fill Part II of your yearly BIR Form 1604-C, so record every month.

What can go wrong

"No approved payroll yet.": no payroll has been released yet. The return counts released payrolls only.
"Item 20 isn't zero: some pay couldn't be matched to items 15 to 19. Check the employees below before filing.": some non-taxable pay couldn't be placed on a line of the form. Open Per employee, look at the Non-taxable column and check those employees' payslip lines before filing. Ask Sahora support if you can't find it.
"The year-end refunds are larger than this month's tax withheld by ...": this happens in the month of the year-end payroll when refunds exceed the tax withheld. The BIR doesn't accept a negative return, so the PDF shows zero. The screen tells you to credit the excess against the following months' tax; it also appears as the over-remittance on the 1604-C. See Year-end.

Good to know

Tax withheld in January for last year's annualization ("Withholding tax still due") is included in January's return.
The due date follows your filing channel and eFPS group. See The filing calendar.
Owners, payroll officers and Finance can download the return.

Where this guide gives a rate, limit or number of days set by law, it is the one in force today, 24 October 2026, from the official tables Sahora uses for payroll.