International Schools in Cebu: List, Curricula and Fees

TL;DR: Cebu has four schools teaching a genuinely foreign curriculum with a checkable website: Cebu International School (full IB continuum, Pit-os), Singapore School Cebu (Singapore curriculum, Cambridge IGCSE, IB Diploma, Mandaue), CIE British School (English Key Stages, IGCSE, A Level, Kasambagan) and The Abba's Orchard (AMI Montessori, two Cebu City campuses). Only CIS publishes a real fee schedule: for SY 2026-27 it is US$3,927 plus ₱1,104,170 a year in Grades 11-12, roughly US$21,700, with a ₱341,373 one-time entrance fee on top. Everyone else tells you to email admissions. Several schools that show up on "best of Cebu" lists no longer have a working website.

If you are moving to Cebu with school-age children, the hard part is not the shortlist. It is that the shortlist is short, and that most of it will not tell you the price until you have already handed over an application fee.

This is the directory view: every school in Cebu province that teaches a foreign curriculum, what it actually offers, and what it actually publishes. If you want the narrower question of which Cebu schools handle kids coming home after years abroad, we cover that separately in schools for returnee and third-culture kids in Cebu.

The short list

Currency note: peso figures are what the school publishes. USD approximations use ~₱62 = US$1 as of August 2026 and are rounded.

Cebu International School: the only one that shows its numbers

CIS sits in Pit-os, in the hills north of Cebu City. It is the only school on this list that publishes a complete fee schedule, and it publishes it properly: a dated PDF, approved by the Board of Trustees on 3 February 2026, covering SY 2026-27.

The fee has two parts. A dollar fee, which the school describes as a charge used to pay international bills and remove currency conversion cost, and a peso fee covering tuition plus a fixed development fee. Families may settle the dollar portion in pesos at the bank rate of the day.

New students also pay a non-refundable ₱12,000 application fee. Returning students pay a ₱50,000 reservation fee, deductible from tuition. There is a 3% discount on the peso fee for paying in full by 5 June 2026, and a 5% sibling discount from the third enrolled child onward.

Two things in that document matter more than the headline. First, the entrance fee is a real number and it is charged once, per child, on entry — ₱341,373 from Grade 6 up. Budget it as year-one cost, not as a rounding error. Second, English support is priced separately: a one-time English as an Additional Language fee of ₱280,900 at beginner level, ₱167,200 intermediate, ₱114,800 advanced. If your child is arriving without strong English, that is a real line item.

On programmes, the IB organisation's own directory lists CIS as authorised for the Primary Years Programme, the Middle Years Programme and the Diploma Programme — the only school in Cebu with all three, and one of only a handful of continuum schools in the country. We list every IB World School in the Philippines with the programmes each one is actually authorised for. The school describes itself as the first IB continuum school in the Philippines and claims WASC and Council of International Schools accreditation plus EARCOS membership. Its site states more than 20 nationalities are represented.

Mid-year arrivals are handled explicitly, which is unusual and useful: join in semester one and you pay the full dollar, entrance and development fees plus prorated tuition; join in Q3 and the dollar and development fees drop to 75%; join in Q4 and they drop to 50%. The entrance fee never prorates.

Singapore School Cebu

Singapore School Cebu is on Zuellig Avenue in the North Reclamation Area of Mandaue City. It runs the Singapore curriculum through lower secondary, then Cambridge IGCSE at upper secondary, then the IB Diploma Programme at pre-university. The school states it is "the first and only campus in Cebu that is both an IB World School and Cambridge International School." The IB directory confirms the Diploma Programme authorisation; it does not list PYP or MYP for this campus.

It does not publish annual tuition. It does publish the entry charges for SY 2026-27, which is more than most:

• Processing fee: ₱10,000 preschool, ₱13,000 primary, ₱15,000 secondary and pre-university (~US$160-240)
• School developmental fee, one-time on entry: ₱80,000 preschool, ₱160,000 primary, ₱200,000 secondary and pre-university (~US$1,290-3,230)
• Reservation fee: ₱50,000, deducted from materials

Treat those as the cost of walking in the door, not the cost of a year. For the annual figure you have to ask.

The obvious fit here is families arriving from Singapore, or from Singapore-system schools elsewhere in Asia, who want curriculum continuity rather than a curriculum change on top of a country change.

CIE British School

CIE — the Centre for International Education — runs a Cebu City campus at 168 President Magsaysay Street, Kasambagan, alongside campuses in Makati and Tacloban. It is the British option in Cebu.

Its own description of the structure: a Foundation School covering the early years for ages 1 to 5, a Primary School covering Key Stages 1 and 2 for ages 5 to 11, and a High School covering Key Stages 3 and 4 for ages 11 to 16, with IGCSE in Years 10-11 and GCE A Levels in Years 12-13 through a sixth form. That is a full English pathway from nursery to university entry.

On accreditation the school's site lists membership of COBIS, the Council of British International Schools, membership of ECIS, an affiliation with Cambridge International, and status as an authorised Cambridge Assessment English exam centre. We could not check any of that against the Cambridge International school finder, because that directory is offline — see the note further down.

CIE does not publish fees. We checked the obvious paths on its site and got nothing but 404s. You will have to email.

If you are weighing IGCSE and A Level against the IB Diploma across the whole country, we compare the two systems in the British curriculum schools guide.

Montessori and the smaller options

The Abba's Orchard runs two Cebu City campuses in the Villa Aurora area of Kasambagan, one for Casa and Elementary ages and one running the Erdkinder adolescent programme. It describes its work as the Montessori Method with adherence to Association Montessori Internationale standards. We could not read its admissions or fee pages: the site returns a 406 to automated requests, so nothing about pricing or current programme detail could be verified from the school itself. Contact them directly rather than trusting a third-party number.

Global Leaders International School lists a Cebu City branch on its main site and describes itself as "an accredited Cambridge International School." It does not publish a Cebu address on the page we read, and its fee page carries no figures beyond a 10% sibling discount.

Bright Academy in Banilad is worth naming for a different reason. It is not a foreign-curriculum school — it teaches a DepEd-recognised programme, recognised in Region VII — but it takes a multinational intake and it is the sort of school expat families in Cebu actually end up at when international fees do not work. Its own fees page says school fees vary by year level and asks you to email; the only figures still on that page are pandemic-era discounts from SY 2020-2021.

Names on the lists that we could not verify

This is the part most Cebu roundups leave out.

Woodridge International School. Its domain, wis.edu.ph, no longer resolves — a DNS lookup returns NXDOMAIN. There is no school website to check. Everything written about its curriculum on directory sites traces back to pages that are gone. We are not describing a school we cannot open.

Cebu Japanese School. We could not find an official school-run website. What exists online comes from the Consulate-General of Japan in Cebu, not the school. If you need a Japanese-curriculum option in Cebu, contact the consulate rather than relying on a directory listing.

The Cambridge International school finder is offline. As of this writing, cambridgeinternational.org's own find-a-school tool returns the message that the search "is currently unavailable." That matters for anyone verifying a Cambridge claim in the Philippines right now: you cannot check it at source, so you are relying on the school's own statement and, if you want to be careful, on asking admissions for the Cambridge centre number in writing.

What the tables miss

Even a school that publishes everything is only publishing part of the bill.

• One-time entrance or development fees. CIS charges up to ₱341,373. Singapore School Cebu charges up to ₱200,000. These are per child and do not come back.
• Language support. Priced separately at CIS and rarely mentioned at all elsewhere.
• Transport. Pit-os is a genuine commute from the city. Bus is almost never in a published fee table.
• Uniforms, books, devices and trips. Reliably a five-figure peso number per year.
• External exam entries. IGCSE, A Level and IB Diploma subject entries are billed per subject and the amount depends on the exam board and the number of subjects.
• Application fees. Non-refundable, charged before you learn whether your child has a place.

Assume the first year costs meaningfully more than the second. For the national picture on how these fees compare with Manila and what the published ranges look like elsewhere, see international school fees in the Philippines.

How to choose

Start with the paperwork, not the prospectus. A foreign child studying in Philippine basic education normally needs a Special Study Permit from the Bureau of Immigration if they do not qualify for a student visa; the BI publishes the cost as ₱5,240 in combined application, implementation, service, certificate and legal research fees, plus US$50 for the I-card. Sort out which route applies to your family before you shortlist, using the Special Study Permit guide.

Then work in this order:

1. Curriculum continuity beats prestige. If your child is mid-IGCSE or mid-IB, keep the system. Switching board mid-course costs a year more often than parents expect.
2. Ask for the fee schedule in writing before applying. If a school will not put the annual figure and the one-time fees in an email, that is information about the school.
3. Ask what happens if your child needs English support, and what it costs. CIS is unusual in publishing it.
4. Drive the commute at 7am. Pit-os, Mandaue reclamation and Kasambagan are three very different morning journeys.
5. Ask about mid-year entry and refunds if your posting date is uncertain. CIS publishes its proration and refund rules; most do not.

You can also browse what else is registered in the city on our Cebu City schools directory.

Sources

• Cebu International School — School Fees and Payment Schedule 2026-27 (PDF)
• Cebu International School
• Singapore School Cebu — Admissions
• Singapore School Cebu
• IB — Find an IB World School (Philippines)
• CIE British School — Education
• CIE British School — Contact Us
• CIE British School — About Us
• Global Leaders International School
• Bright Academy — Tuition Fees
• Cambridge International — Find a Cambridge school
• Bureau of Immigration — Special Study Permit