Is CBD legal in Philippines?

Legal status

Controlled as a cannabis extract, with one narrow medical exception. Entry 29, cannabis resin, extracts and tinctures, is on page 6 of the Dangerous Drugs Board's Updated Lists of Scheduled Controlled Substances as at 06 July 2025 in its 1961 Schedule I section. Board Regulation No. 3, Series of 2020 reclassifies "Drug products containing CBD with no more than 0.1 percent (0.1%) tetrahydrocannabinol" from Schedules 1 and 2 to Schedule 4 of the Philippine Schedule, which its own section 1(f) defines as "a category of dangerous drugs": such a product stays a dangerous drug. A drug product means one "in finished pharmaceutical dosage form", so CBD oils, gummies and other retail products are not reached by the reclassification, and the 0.1 percent figure is not a hemp allowance or a personal possession threshold. The signed copy records adoption on the 24th day of a month left blank in 2020, and its commencement, fifteen days after publication and registration, is not established.

Consequences if caught

Possession is section 11, measured "regardless of the degree of purity thereof". Section 11 sets bands for "marijuana resin or marijuana resin oil" (10 grams, 5 grams, and less than 5 grams) and for marijuana (500 grams, 300 grams, and less than 300 grams); which limb a court would apply to a CBD extract is not stated in the Act and was not established here, so no band is asserted. Section 13 imposes "the maximum penalties provided for in Section 11" on anyone found possessing a dangerous drug during a party, social gathering or meeting, or in the proximate company of at least two persons, "regardless of the quantity and purity", which is life imprisonment and a fine of PHP 500,000 to PHP 10,000,000. Importing or bringing a dangerous drug into the Philippines (section 4) and selling, giving away, delivering, distributing, transporting or brokering one (section 5) each carry life imprisonment and a fine of PHP 500,000 to PHP 10,000,000 "regardless of the quantity and purity involved", and manufacture (section 8) carries the same penalty. Each applies "unless authorized by law". Use is section 15: after a confirmatory test, a minimum of six months' rehabilitation in a government centre for a first offence, and 6 years and 1 day to 12 years with a fine of PHP 50,000 to PHP 200,000 for a second. RA 9165 prints "life imprisonment to death" in its penalty clauses, among them sections 4, 5, 8, 11 and 16. Republic Act No. 9346 of 24 June 2006 provides in section 1 that "The imposition of the penalty of death is hereby prohibited" and in section 2(b) substitutes life imprisonment where the law violated does not use the nomenclature of the Revised Penal Code, which RA 9165 does not. Section 98 of RA 9165 applies Revised Penal Code nomenclature to a minor offender, "reclusion perpetua to death", so for a minor RA 9346 section 2(a) substitutes reclusion perpetua. No drug offence carries death, and the fines set by RA 9165 are unchanged.

If prescribed or medical

Under Board Regulation No. 3, Series of 2020 only a physician with an S2 licence who belongs to a neurology specialty division or society may prescribe a qualifying CBD drug product, on the Department of Health special prescription form, which section 5(c) also requires for the Authorization application; whether Board Regulation No. 10, Series of 2025, as extended by Board Regulation No. 5, Series of 2026, displaces that form for CBD products is not established. The patient needs an Authorization from the Dangerous Drugs Board, with a PHP 500 fee, alongside a Compassionate Special Permit from the FDA.

Documentation

No document makes a retail CBD product lawful to carry in. A qualifying CBD drug product needs the Board's Authorization and the FDA permit described above; anything else is an imported dangerous drug under section 4 of RA 9165.

Drug laws and enforcement change and vary within a country. This is not legal advice. Always confirm with Philippines’s embassy or official drug authority before traveling; penalties can be severe, including imprisonment.