"Business course" covers about a dozen genuinely different degrees in the Philippines, governed by different CHED memorandum orders, with different unit totals and, crucially, different answers to the question of whether there is a licence at the end.
This post is the map. Each programme gets its cluster, its governing memorandum order where one exists, and a link to the full guide on this site. If you already know which degree you want, skip to it. If you do not, read the cluster headings first.
The one thing they all share
CHED Memorandum Order No. 17, series of 2017 states that new programme offerings under the Business and Management cluster, including allied programmes, must offer the six units of common business and management courses. Those are Operations Management with total quality management, and Strategic Management, three units each.
That six-unit block plus the 36-unit General Education core under CMO No. 20, series of 2013 is why shifting inside the business cluster in first or second year usually costs less than shifting out of it. It is also why the differences between these degrees show up mainly from second year onward.
Most of the business PSGs also describe their curricula as vertically aligned with the Accounting, Business and Management strand of senior high school. That does not lock non-ABM students out. CMO No. 17 directs schools to offer bridging courses so students from other strands end up at par. Our ABM strand guide and post on which strand to take for business cover that decision.
Cluster 1: business administration and management
BS Business Administration (BSBA) — CMO No. 17, series of 2017. Minimum 122 units, including a 24-unit business administration core, a 24-unit professional major, 12 units of electives and a 6-unit internship of 600 hours. The order also discontinued the old BS Commerce nomenclature and told schools still using it to rename.
The five majors named in the order:
| BSBA major | What the CMO says it prepares you for |
|---|---|
| Human Resource Management | recruitment, staffing, training and career development inside an organisation |
| Marketing Management | marketing, market research, advertising and public relations |
| Financial Management | corporate finance, investment management, banking, credit, trust, insurance and securities markets |
| Operations Management | manufacturing, agri-business and service operations, purchasing, inventory, logistics and supply chain |
| Business Economics | banking, economic and development planning, general management |
Full guides: BSBA degree guide, BSBA subjects, BSBA Financial Management, BSBA Marketing Management, BSBA Human Resource Management, BSBA Operations Management.
BS Entrepreneurship — CMO No. 18, series of 2017. Minimum 129 units built around a 49-unit entrepreneurship core, a 12-unit specialised track and 12 units of electives. No internship; instead, Business Plan Implementation I and II run inside a school business incubation facility that the CMO requires the school to maintain. Read the BS Entrepreneurship guide, and if you are torn between the two, our post on entrepreneurship versus business administration puts the two curricula side by side.
BS Office Administration — CMO No. 19, series of 2017. The administrative and records side of an organisation. See the BS Office Administration guide.
None of the three leads to a licensure examination.
Cluster 2: accountancy and audit
This is the cluster where the licence lives, and CHED split it into four separate degrees in 2017 rather than treating them as accountancy majors.
- BS Accountancy — CMO No. 27, series of 2017. The route to the CPA Licensure Examination. BS Accountancy guide.
- BS Management Accounting — CMO No. 28, series of 2017. Internal decision support rather than external audit and attest. BS Management Accounting guide.
- BS Internal Auditing — CMO No. 29, series of 2017. BS Internal Auditing guide.
- BS Accounting Information Systems — CMO No. 30, series of 2017. The systems and controls side.
The distinction matters more than the names suggest. Only BS Accountancy is designed against the CPA examination. The other three are accounting degrees without that specific endpoint, which is a reasonable choice for some careers and a costly surprise for anyone who assumed otherwise. If the CPA route is the goal, start with which strand to take for accountancy and the accountant salary picture.
Cluster 3: tourism and hospitality
BS Tourism Management and BS Hospitality Management are covered together by CMO No. 62, series of 2017. The old Hotel and Restaurant Management nomenclature predates it and still appears on some campuses and in a lot of search results.
Guides: BS Tourism Management, BS Hospitality Management, BS Hotel and Restaurant Management, BS Travel Management. If you cannot tell the first two apart, we wrote tourism versus hospitality for exactly that.
Neither leads to a PRC licensure examination. Both are heavy on practicum, which means the cost question is not just tuition but uniforms, laboratory fees and immersion placements. Ask for the full fee schedule, not the tuition line.
Cluster 4: degrees tied to a regulated profession
Two business degrees exist because a profession's own law created a need for them.
BS Real Estate Management — CMO No. 28, series of 2011, issued on the basis of Republic Act No. 9646, the Real Estate Service Act of the Philippines. See the BS Real Estate Management guide and, for the licensure side, the real estate broker exam guide.
BS Customs Administration — CMO No. 30, series of 2021. The order sets a minimum of 145 units over four years covering customs and tariff management, supply chain and logistics management, international trade, technology and the practice of the customs broker profession. See the BS Customs Administration guide.
For both, the degree and the licence are separate things and the eligibility rules sit in the profession's own statute and its regulatory board's issuances, not in the CHED order. Check those directly before you build a plan around them. Our list of courses with board exams shows where each one leads.
Cluster 5: quantitative and economics
BS or AB Economics — CMO No. 32, series of 2017 covers Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts economics programmes. Whether a given school runs it out of a business college or an arts and sciences college changes the feel of the degree considerably. See the BS Economics guide.
BS Actuarial Science sits next door: mathematics and statistics applied to insurance and risk, with a professional examination track run by actuarial bodies rather than by PRC. See the BS Actuarial Science guide.
BS Agribusiness applies management to agricultural enterprises and is often housed in a college of agriculture rather than business. See the BS Agribusiness guide.
The one that does not fit
BS Legal Management is marketed almost everywhere as a pre-law degree and is usually housed in a business or management college. We could not locate a dedicated CHED memorandum order prescribing it as its own programme with its own Policies, Standards and Guidelines.
That is not a reason to avoid it, but it does change how you should shop for it. Without a national PSG setting a floor, the curriculum is largely the school's own design, and two BS Legal Management programmes can differ substantially. Compare actual curriculum checklists side by side, and check how the law subjects are staffed. Our BS Legal Management guide covers what the degree typically contains and how it relates to law school admission.
How to use this list
- Decide first whether you want a licence. That single question splits the cluster in two and is much harder to change later than a major is.
- Then pick the cluster, not the major. Majors are chosen at the end of second year at many schools anyway.
- Read the memorandum order for the programme you are serious about. They are public on CHED's issuances pages and they tell you the actual required subjects, which no brochure does.
- Check the school's own curriculum checklist against it. CHED sets a minimum; schools routinely add units, and that is what you will pay for and study.
- Ask the registrar what carries over if you shift. The shared blocks help, but the answer is institutional.
Sources
- Commission on Higher Education, CHED Memorandum Order No. 17, series of 2017, Revised PSGs for the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration — https://legacy.ched.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/CMO-17-s-2017.pdf
- Commission on Higher Education, CHED Memorandum Order No. 18, series of 2017, Revised PSGs for the Bachelor of Science in Entrepreneurship — https://legacy.ched.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/CMO-18-s-2017.pdf
- Commission on Higher Education, 2017 CHED Memorandum Orders (index listing CMOs 19, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32 and 62) — https://legacy.ched.gov.ph/2017-ched-memorandum-orders/
- Commission on Higher Education, CHED Memorandum Order No. 27, series of 2017, Revised PSGs for Bachelor of Science in Accountancy — https://legacy.ched.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/CMO-27-s-2017.pdf
- Commission on Higher Education, CHED Memorandum Order No. 62, series of 2017, PSGs for BS Tourism Management and BS Hospitality Management — https://legacy.ched.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/CMO-62-BS-Hospitality-Tourism-Management.pdf
- Commission on Higher Education, CHED Memorandum Order No. 32, series of 2017, PSGs for Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts in Economics programs — https://legacy.ched.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/CMO-32-s-2017.pdf
- Commission on Higher Education, CHED Memorandum Order No. 30, series of 2021, PSGs for Bachelor of Science in Customs Administration — https://legacy.ched.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/CMO-30-s.-2021.pdf
- CHED Memorandum Order No. 28, series of 2011, PSGs for Bachelor of Science in Real Estate Management (Supreme Court E-Library) — https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocs/11/53415
