Davao City · Living Snapshot 2026
What it actually costs
to live in Davao, right now.
Electricity, water, internet, rent, wages and savings — the numbers a renter, an OFW or a mover has to plan around. Every figure carries the source that published it and the date we read it. Where we don't have a figure, the page says so instead of guessing.
Living in Davao, in 9 numbers.
Power is at ₱12.90/kWh and rising, the minimum wage is ₱540/day across the region, and a one-bedroom asks ₱6,000–25,000 depending on where you look. Each tile below carries its own source and date.
Figures current to 12 September 2026 Next review rolling — each series on its own cadence 9 datasets Every figure traces to a dated, cited source.
Your fixed bills come to about ₱13,838 a month.
Housing plus the three utilities, for one renter · mid-area 1br · 150 kwh · 15 m³ water. This stops before food, transport and lifestyle — we don't publish a Davao figure for those, so the budget calculator is where you add your own.
| Bill | ₱ / month | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Rent (1BR, mid area) | ₱10,000 | Matina–Ecoland low end |
| Electricity | ₱1,935 | 150 kWh @ ₱12.90/kWh |
| Water | ₱404 | 15 m³ on the DCWD schedule |
| Internet | ₱1,499 | entry fibre plan |
| Fixed total | ₱13,838 |
A kilo of rice: ₱33–38 before COVID, ₱54.06 now.
The one daily necessity with a citable Davao price back to pre-COVID. Each dot is a real, quoted retail price — PSA's twice-monthly survey and DA-Davao's Bankerohan monitoring — not a smoothed line. Rice held near ₱36–39 through 2022, then climbed with the 2024–26 rice surge.
The authoritative continuous series (PSA Region XI CPI, 2018=100, and PSA Davao City retail prices back to 2019) is downloadable only by a person in a browser — every PSA host blocks automated access. This chart plots the points that are citable today; backfilling the full monthly series is a logged human-capture task.
Food inflation swung from +9.1% to -2.4% and back to +8.7%.
PSA's Region XI food-and-non-alcoholic-beverages rate, year-on-year. It ran 7–9% through 2023–24, then fell below zero for most of 2025 — Davao food genuinely got cheaper — before surging back past 8% in 2026. Bars below the line are deflation; each is one cited monthly reading.
11 verbatim-cited monthly points (PSA Region XI, via SunStar & Mindanao Times), every one the “food and non-alcoholic beverages” group for all-income households — never the “food” sub-index or the bottom-30% series, which differ. Full-year averages: 2024 6.3%, 2025 -0.8%. Gap months await the PSA OpenSTAT backfill.
Since May '22, power has run ₱8.69–13.29/kWh. The latest cycle, August 2026, is ₱12.90.
Davao Light's all-in residential rate, by month back to May '22. It swings on spot-market generation charges rather than the utility's own distribution charge — a 53% gap between its cheapest and priciest months. Earlier months are cited to Davao news reports; recent cycles come from our dated archive. 2020–2021 aren't shown — Davao Light's own rate archive isn't machine-readable that far back.
Show the numbers
| Cycle | ₱/kWh |
|---|---|
| May '22 | 10.55 |
| Aug '22 | 13.29 |
| Nov '23 | 9.12 |
| Dec '23 | 8.74 |
| Jan '24 | 8.82 |
| Jun '25 | 8.69 |
| Jul '25 | 8.78 |
| Dec '25 | 9.71 |
| Jan '26 | 11.72 |
| Feb '26 | 10.30 |
| Mar '26 | 10.63 |
| Apr '26 | 10.53 |
| May '26 | 10.35 |
| Jun '26 | 12.30 |
| Jul '26 | 13.09 |
| Aug '26 | 12.90 |
Estimate your electricity bill → The 2026 rate surge, explained → Read your DLPC bill →
The first 10 m³ cost ₱265.05. After that it climbs in 4 steps.
DCWD bills a flat minimum charge for the first 10 cubic meters, then a rising per-cubic-meter rate for each bracket above it. A 5 m³ lifeline rate of ₱100.00 covers the lowest users.
Minimum charge ₱265.05 · Lifeline ₱100.00
Show the tier table
| Bracket | ₱/m³ |
|---|---|
| 11–20 m³ | 27.79 |
| 21–30 m³ | 35.89 |
| 31–40 m³ | 47.70 |
| 41 m³ and above | 69.53 |
Home fibre runs ₱1,499–2,999 a month.
We don't yet publish a dated monthly-price series for internet — provider promos change faster than we can cite them — so this is the current plan band, not a trend.
A monthly internet series is planned, not faked. Installation varies by promo. As re-checked 2026-09-06: PLDT Home bills installation at ₱100/mo over the 36-month term (~₱3,600 total) unless the application qualifies for its Fiber Sale promo, which waives it; Converge standard installation runs ~₱2,500, waived on higher FiberX tiers; Globe GFiber postpaid pages return HTTP 403 to any automated request, so no Globe figure is quotable at source. The ₱0–₱3,600 band still brackets the market.
A one-bedroom asks ₱6,000–25,000, depending where.
Typical asking rents across five areas, by unit type — toggle below. These are LiveDavao's own field ranges, not a surveyed index, so read them as a guide to the spread, not a quote.
Range = typical asking rent, 1 bedroom
Find your neighbourhood → Mid-range rentals, area by area → Rent per square metre →
Five neighborhoods, six trade-offs.
Each area scored 0–5 on the things renters weigh. The radar overlays them (higher is better on every axis); the grid below keeps the raw scores with each axis's true direction.
| Area | Walkable | Safe | Family | Night-shift | Flood risk | Noise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toril–Mintal | 1 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| Buhangin | 2 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| Matina–Ecoland | 4 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| Bajada–Obrero | 5 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 4 |
| Lanang | 4 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
Where they sit on the map
Rent tracks geography here: the outer districts — Toril, Buhangin — anchor the low end, the central Bajada–Lanang corridor the high. Tap a marker for the 1-bedroom asking band, its flood-risk read and the full guide. Approximate area centres (OpenStreetMap); rent and flood scores as of Apr 2026.
The rent market, segment by segment.
The Living Cost Index measures the same rental segments each quarter. Median asking rent per segment, with the middle-50% band — the full longitudinal view is on the Index page.
The regional floor is ₱540/day.
The Region XI floor has climbed from ₱370/day in Aug '18 to ₱540/day today under RB XI-24 — a 46% rise across five wage orders, with one flat stretch from 2019 to mid-2022 when no order took effect. Agriculture is ₱525/day. It is a regional floor, covering Davao City and the surrounding provinces.
Show the numbers
| Effective | Non-agri ₱/day | Agri ₱/day |
|---|---|---|
| Aug '18 | 370 | 365 |
| Feb '19 | 396 | 391 |
| Jun '22 | 427 | 422 |
| Jan '23 | 443 | 438 |
| Mar '24 | 462 | 457 |
| Sep '24 | 481 | 476 |
| Mar '25 | 510 | 505 |
| Mar '26 | 525 | 515 |
| Sep '26 | 540 | 525 |
What the wage rents → Minimum wage vs the rent market → What a kasambahay legally costs →
Pag-IBIG MP2 paid 7.12% last year — well above a bank time deposit.
MP2 is the government savings program most Davao workers can join. Its annual dividend has run well above a bank time deposit — the shaded band is a net-rate bank reference, not a Pag-IBIG figure.
Why a savings account loses to inflation → MP2 for OFWs and the self-employed → Download CSV
6 rulings that set your rent and your wage.
The wage orders and rent-control instruments in force, each with its issuer, its effective window and the source we read it from.
DOLE Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board, Region XI. Status: in-force. Effective 13 March 2026 – 31 August 2026.
SourceDOLE Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board, Region XI. Status: in-force. Effective 13 March 2026.
SourceDOLE Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board, Region XI. Status: in-force. Effective 1 September 2026.
SourceDOLE Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board, Region XI. Status: in-force. Effective 13 March 2026.
SourceNational Human Settlements Board, Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development. Status: in-force. Effective 1 January 2025 – 31 December 2026.
SourceCongress of the Philippines. Status: in-force.
SourceNote: the widely-reported 1% same-tenant annual rent-increase cap comes from the NHSB resolution's press coverage, not from a readable copy of the instrument itself, and its stated window runs only to 31 December 2026. We show the resolution's existence and dates, which are on the public register; we do not assert the 1% figure as statute. Whether the cap reaches your unit at all is a separate test — see the ₱10,000 coverage test.
The aircon (1 hp) costs ₱2,786/month to run. The electric kettle, ₱145.
What each appliance adds to your monthly bill at today's ₱12.90/kWh rate, using typical wattage and daily hours. Change the rate and every bar moves with it.
At ₱12.9/kWh
Show the numbers
| Appliance | ₱/month | Watts | h/day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aircon (1 HP) | ₱2,786 | 900 | 8 |
| Desktop PC | ₱681 | 220 | 8 |
| Water heater | ₱677 | 3500 | 0.5 |
| Refrigerator | ₱511 | 55 | 24 |
| Refrigerator, inverter | ₱325 | 35 | 24 |
| Ceiling fan | ₱271 | 70 | 10 |
| Stand fan | ₱213 | 55 | 10 |
| LED TV | ₱170 | 110 | 4 |
| Rice cooker | ₱155 | 400 | 1 |
| Electric kettle | ₱145 | 1500 | 0.25 |
Electricity — Davao Light residential ₱/kWh — Davao Light & Power Co., via regional press (SunStar Davao, Manila Bulletin) , Aug 2026 · read 2026-09-06
Water — DCWD tariff, minimum & lifeline — Davao City Water District bill-calculator schedule (Internet Archive capture) , Mar 2026 · read 2026-09-06
Minimum wage — Region XI (RB XI-24) — dole-nwpc , Sep 2026 · read 2026-09-06
Pag-IBIG MP2 & regular-savings dividends — Pag-IBIG Fund annual dividend declarations (via PNA / GMA News) · read 2026-08-24
Rent bands & neighborhood scores — LiveDavao field research + Living Cost Index , Apr 2026 · read 2026-09-06
Rent control — 1% same-tenant annual cap — NHSB Resolution 2024-01 under RA 9653 (register entry; provision uncapturable) · read 2026-08-27
Free for everyone in Davao
Run these numbers on your own life.
Free tools for rent affordability, your monthly budget, the electricity bill and MP2 — no sign-up, no ads, no data collected.