What a trip to Manila costs
Manila, Philippines · MNL
Manila is usually the cheapest way into the Philippines from the US, and for most travellers it is a gateway rather than the destination itself.
Cheapest fare we can see right now
$419
Round trip from San Francisco (SFO) to Manila, 1 stop, airline code CI.
This fare is for Sep 30, 2026 to Oct 1, 2026 — 1 nights. Cached fares apply to their own dates, so this is not a price for dates you pick.
Fares by US origin
Cheapest cached round-trip fare per origin. Origins with no cached fare are left out entirely rather than estimated.
- San Francisco (SFO)Sep 30, 2026 · 1n · 1 stop$419
- Chicago (ORD)Nov 2, 2026 · 11n · 1 stop$495
- Los Angeles (LAX)Dec 26, 2026 · 22n · 2 stops$638
- New York (JFK)Jan 11, 2027 · 35n · 1 stop$777
- Seattle (SEA)Nov 6, 2026 · 2n · 1 stop$865
The whole trip, 1 nights
Built on the $419 fare above, over the 1 nights that fare actually covers. Everything below the fare is a planning estimate, not a quote.
- Flightcached fare
- $419
- Stay, 1 nightshostel to mid hotel · estimate
- $12–$55
- Food, 1 daysestimate
- $15
- Transfers and local transportflat allowance
- $40
- All in
- $486–$529
The published rate for Manila
The US Department of State publishes a per diem rate for Manila, Philippines. It is public domain, city-level and dated — the only sourced cost figure on this page besides the fare.
- Lodging ceiling, per nightmost the government will reimburse for a room
- $189
- Meals and incidentals ceiling, per daymost the government will reimburse for food
- $87
- Combined daily ceiling
- $276
Read that as a ceiling, not a price. It is set so a US Government employee can book a safe, available, full-service hotel at short notice and eat on expenses — a class of trip almost nobody reading this page is taking. You should expect to spend well below it, which is why the planning bands above sit where they do. Rate effective 1 June 2026, from the 1 September 2026 edition of the US Department of State table.
What different budgets reach
Whole-trip budgets, not airfare. Each assumes a fare around the $419 above, then spends what is left on rooms and food at our planning bands for Manila. A fare for different dates or a longer trip may cost more.
About $841 left after the fare — roughly 12 nights in a mid-range hotel, or 21+ nights hostel-style, food included either way.
About $1,441 left after the fare — roughly 20 nights in a mid-range hotel, or 21+ nights hostel-style, food included either way.
About $2,141 left after the fare — roughly 21+ nights in a mid-range hotel, or 21+ nights hostel-style, food included either way.
Where the money actually goes
- If the islands are the actual plan, the domestic hop out of Manila is a separate cost this page does not include.
- Traffic makes airport transfers slow and unpredictable; budget time as well as money for them.
- Daily costs sit above Vietnam and below the Caribbean, which puts Manila in the middle of this list on the ground.
Price Manila against your own budget
Set your number and your airport. We price flight, stay, food and transfers together, then show what is left per day.
Run Manila on $1,900Free · no account · planning ranges, not quotes
Manila sits in our US → Southeast Asia corridor — same pricing, whole region at once.
Manila trip costs: common questions
How much does a trip to Manila cost?
The cheapest cached round-trip fare we can currently see is $419 from San Francisco (SFO), for Sep 30, 2026 to Oct 1, 2026 — 1 nights. Adding TripByCost planning estimates for that trip length — $12 to $55 for a room, $15 for food and a $40 transfer allowance — puts the whole trip somewhere around $486 to $529. The fare is a real cached price; the stay, food and transfer figures are planning estimates, not quotes.
Which US airport has the cheapest flight to Manila?
Of the origins priced on this page (SFO, ORD, LAX, JFK and SEA), the cheapest cached round-trip fare right now is $419 from San Francisco (SFO), followed by $495 from Chicago (ORD). These are cached fares that travellers found in the last few days, not a live search of every US airport, so treat it as a snapshot rather than a permanent ranking.
Can you do Manila on $1,300?
About $841 left after the fare — roughly 12 nights in a mid-range hotel, or 21+ nights hostel-style, food included either way. That assumes the cheapest fare we can currently see ($419 round trip from SFO); a fare for your own dates may cost more. The room and food figures are TripByCost planning bands for Manila, not quotes.
Is Manila expensive?
For planning, TripByCost budgets Manila at roughly $12 a night for a hostel bed and $55 a night for a mid-range hotel room, plus about $15 a day for food. Those are our own planning bands rather than surveyed or quoted prices, and real prices move with season, neighbourhood and how far ahead you book. The one published figure we can point at is the per diem rate the US Department of State publishes for Manila, effective 1 June 2026: up to $189 a night for lodging and $87 a day for meals and incidentals. That is a reimbursement ceiling for US Government staff on business travel, not a typical price — expect to spend well under it.
Where these numbers come from
Fares are cached fares from the Travelpayouts / Aviasales data API — real prices travellers found in the last few days, shown with the dates they apply to. They are indicative, they expire, and they are not a live availability search, so always confirm with the airline or a booking site before you commit. Last refreshed 2026-09-24; refreshed at most every 6 hours.
The published rate comes from the US Department of State Foreign Per Diem Rates (DSSR 925). Public domain — a work of the US Government. We hold the 1 September 2026 edition, fetched 2026-09-01. Each city’s rate carries its own effective date, shown with it. These are government reimbursement ceilings for business travel, not prices. The lodging figure is the most the US Government will pay back for a hotel room, which is far above a hostel and above most mid-range tourist hotels; the meals figure is a per-day expenses cap. A budget traveller should expect to spend considerably less than both. We publish the rate because it is real, dated and checkable, not because it is what your trip will cost.
Stay, food and transfer figures in the trip stack are TripByCost planning bands, not surveyed prices and not quotes. No free public dataset publishes hostel or budget-hotel prices, and none can honestly be derived from a government hotel ceiling, so these remain our own estimates and we would rather say so than dress them up. They exist to answer “does this trip fit?” at planning stage. Real prices vary with season, neighbourhood, how far ahead you book and how you travel. Nothing on this page is an offer, and we do not sell flights or rooms.
TripByCost is free. We may earn a commission when you book stays, tours, eSIMs, or insurance via partner links — at no extra cost to you. We never earn anything on a flight. Rankings stay budget-first, not highest commission.