Philippine Consulate in California

California is the centre of the Filipino United States and the only state in the country with three Philippine offices: consulates general in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and an honorary consulate in San Diego. It is also one of only two states whose consular jurisdiction is drawn by county rather than by state line.

Philippine offices in California

Which post covers your county in California

California is split between two consulates general, and the line is drawn by county, not by region or by distance. This is the single most useful thing to check before booking anything: an appointment at the wrong post is a wasted appointment.

Counties Philippine post Where
Imperial, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura Consulate General in Los Angeles 3435 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 550, Los Angeles, CA 90010
The other 46 counties, from Alameda and Contra Costa up to Del Norte, Modoc and Siskiyou — including Sacramento, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Fresno, Monterey and Tulare Consulate General in San Francisco 447 Sutter Street, 6th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94108

The boundary runs further north than most people assume. Kern County — Bakersfield — is Los Angeles, while Tulare and Fresno, just up the valley, are San Francisco. San Luis Obispo is Los Angeles; Monterey is San Francisco.

How far the consulate is from your city

Driving distances to the post that covers each city, calculated at posted speed limits and without traffic:

City Philippine post Distance Journey
Oakland San Francisco 10 miles 20 min by car
Long Beach Los Angeles 26 miles 39 min by car
Vallejo San Francisco 31 miles 44 min by car
San Jose San Francisco 49 miles 1 h 1 min by car
Sacramento San Francisco 86 miles 1 h 46 min by car
Bakersfield Los Angeles 109 miles 2 h 10 min by car
San Diego Los Angeles 125 miles 2 h 32 min by car
Fresno San Francisco 186 miles 3 h 41 min by car

Three procedures that never reach a counter

The most frequent wasted journey in this system is for a document the consulate cannot produce. There are three of them:

  • PSA certificates — birth, marriage, death, CENOMAR — come from the Philippine Statistics Authority and are ordered online.
  • Apostilles on documents issued in California come from the state’s own competent authority. Since 15 May 2019 the consulate cannot authenticate them.
  • NBI clearance is issued in the Philippines and applied for by mail; only the fingerprint card needs a consular officer.

The procedures that genuinely need you at a window are the ones where a consular officer has to watch you do something: give fingerprints for a passport, swear the oath of allegiance, or sign a power of attorney.

Getting the county right matters more here than anywhere else in the country. An appointment booked at the wrong post is a wasted appointment, and both posts are busy enough that a second one is not quick to come by.

philippineconsulates.us is an independent information guide to the Philippine consulates in the United States. We are not the Philippine Consulate General, the Philippine Embassy or any government agency. We do not book, sell or manage appointments: every post runs its own system. We check the details regularly, but they can change without notice — always confirm with the post before you travel.

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