TL;DR: Form 137, officially renamed School Form 10 (SF10) under DepEd's school-forms system, is a student's permanent academic record covering every grade level from Kindergarten onward. Public schools request it through the Learner Information System when a student transfers; individuals can request their own copy at their last school or the nearest Schools Division Office. A private school may withhold transfer credentials for the pupil's own unpaid financial obligation or property responsibility under Section 128 of DepEd Order No. 88, s. 2010, must release them once that is settled, and must forward the records anyway once the certificate of eligibility to transfer has issued. Public schools charge no tuition, and DepEd Order No. 54, s. 2016 reiterates that nonpayment of voluntary school contributions can never be a basis for non-issuance of clearance. Republic Act No. 11984 protects a certified disadvantaged student's right to sit exams and expressly leaves schools free to withhold records to collect. Standard processing runs from about a month up to a full grading period before it's flagged for follow-up.
Every Filipino parent eventually runs into "Form 137" — usually when a child transfers schools, applies to college, or needs proof of schooling for a visa. The form has technically been renamed School Form 10 (SF10) under DepEd's standardized school-forms system, but almost everyone, including registrars, still calls it Form 137. This guide covers what it actually contains, how the request process works at public and private schools, and — because it's the question most parents actually type into Google — what your rights are if a school refuses to release it because of an unpaid balance. Every rule cited below traces to a specific DepEd order, CHED memorandum, or law, linked in the Sources section.
What Is Form 137 (SF10)?
Form 137/SF10 is the Learner's Permanent Academic Record: a cumulative document that tracks the learning areas a student took, the quarterly and final ratings in each, and the general average, across every school year of basic education from Kindergarten through Grade 12. Unlike a report card, it isn't handed to parents periodically — it stays with the school (or the DepEd Schools Division Office) and only moves when a student transfers, graduates, or formally requests a copy.
Two identifying details make it usable across schools: the student's full name (recorded exactly as it first appeared in the school's records) and their Learner Reference Number (LRN), a 12-digit number assigned once and kept for life. Whoever requests the form should have the LRN ready; it's the fastest way for a registrar to locate the record if the name alone isn't enough.
What's the Difference Between Form 137, Form 138, SF9, and SF10?
Short version: Form 137/SF10 is the permanent cumulative record the school keeps, while Form 138/SF9 is the periodic report card that goes home with you. DepEd renamed both forms years ago as part of a push to standardize school documentation nationwide, but the old names never fully died out in everyday use.
| Old Name | Current Name | What It Is | When It's Issued | Who Holds It |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Form 137 | School Form 10 (SF10) | Permanent academic record — cumulative grades and history across all grade levels | On transfer, graduation, or individual request | The school, and the Schools Division Office |
| Form 138 | School Form 9 (SF9) | Report card — one grading period's grades, conduct, and attendance | After each grading period | The parent or learner |
The practical test is what you are being asked to prove. If someone wants to know how a child did this quarter, that is Form 138/SF9, and it is already in a drawer at home. If a receiving school, college, embassy, or employer wants proof that a learner actually completed Grade 6, Grade 10, or Grade 12 and at which schools, that is Form 137/SF10 — a single report card cannot show it.
Which document each institution asks for at which stage, what to do when you lose either one, and the one documented situation where DepEd accepts either are covered in Form 137 vs Form 138. If it is this year's grades you are trying to read, our SF9 report card guide goes through the card line by line.
What Does Form 137 Actually Look Like?
There is no single Form 137. DepEd Order No. 58, s. 2017 renamed the Permanent Record to the Learner's Permanent Academic Record and gave it three codes: SF10-ES for elementary, SF10-JHS for junior high school, and SF10-SHS for senior high school. The elementary and junior high versions share a layout and differ mainly in the learning areas listed. The senior high version is not a redesign — the same order says incoming Grade 11 continues to use the format and content of Form 137 issued under DepEd Order No. 69, s. 2016, renamed SF10-SHS. The order also tells schools to download the forms from deped.gov.ph under the Resources tab or from the Learner Information System support page, and discourages copies pulled from unofficial sites.
The same order describes what the form carries: only necessary and permanent data elements, sorted into two broad categories. The learner's personal information is filled in at the top — name as it appears on the PSA birth certificate, LRN, sex, birthdate, and the credential presented as proof of eligibility to enrol, which is how one SF10 links back to the previous one. The learner's academic progress and achievement is the body: one table per grade level, headed with the school name and School ID, district, division, region, school year, and adviser, then a row per learning area with quarterly ratings, a final rating and remarks, plus the general average and a remedial-classes section that records the recomputed final grade. At the foot sits the Certification, the school head's attestation that the learner is eligible for admission to a particular grade level. DepEd Order No. 58, s. 2017 is explicit that the school dry seal is affixed to the certification box and that the school head's signature and that seal are what make the form authentic and official.
Do not go looking for a filled-in specimen online. A real SF10 carries a named learner's grades, birthdate, and LRN, so any "sample" circulating with names and marks on it is either fabricated or a privacy problem — and it is not what a registrar will accept anyway, since only the school prepares and signs the form.
The field-by-field walkthrough — which version applies to your child, what each block captures, why some subject rows are legitimately blank, and the eight-point check to run before you hand a copy to anyone — is in What a Form 137 Looks Like, Section by Section.
How Do You Request Form 137 When Transferring Schools?
For a standard school-to-school transfer, you generally don't request Form 137 yourself. Under DepEd Order No. 54, s. 2016 ("Guidelines on the Request and Transfer of Learner's School Records"), the receiving school enrolls the learner in the Learner Information System (LIS), which automatically flags the transfer to the student's previous school. The previous school's registrar then prepares Form 137 and sends it to the receiving school directly, by mail, courier, or through the Schools Division Office — not through the student or parent.
Notably, the same DepEd order states plainly that "learners and/or their parents or guardian are not allowed to hand-carry the Permanent Records (Form 137) to the receiving school." If your new school asks you to personally deliver a sealed copy, that's outside the standard process; it's worth confirming directly with the DepEd Schools Division Office if this happens. For a full walkthrough of the transfer process itself, see our guide to transferring schools in the Philippines and, for senior high specifically, switching schools in Grade 11.
How Long Does It Take to Get Form 137?
DepEd Order No. 54, s. 2016 sets rough timelines rather than a single guaranteed turnaround. For a standard transfer, the receiving school should have the learner's Form 137 in hand before the end of the first grading period. For a mid-year transfer, the rule tightens to 30 days from the student's first day of attendance at the new school.
If the record hasn't arrived a month after the LIS notification, the receiving school clicks "follow up maturing request" to alert the originating school. If nothing has arrived by the end of the first grading period, the receiving school informs the School Governance and Operations Division (SGOD) at the Schools Division Office so it can intervene; for a mid-year transfer the same escalation is triggered at thirty days. In practice, public school transfers within the same division tend to move faster than transfers across regions or from a closed private school, since the latter may require locating archived records at the SDO instead of the school itself.
The separate question — how long the school's own desk work is supposed to take — is answered in the DepEd Citizen's Charter (2026 Edition), which publishes a service standard and a fee for each records transaction. Every one of them is free at a public school:
| Service | Published processing time | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Issuance of SF10, elementary and junior high (school to school, via LIS) | 4 days, 2 hours | None |
| Issuance of SF10, senior high (certified true copy to a receiving institution) | 1 hour, 45 minutes | None |
| Certified learner's academic records (SF9/SF10) for local employment | 3 hours, 59 minutes | None |
| Academic School Records for CAV, if the record is available at the school | 5 hours, 15 minutes | None |
| Academic School Records for CAV, if the record is not at the school (referred to the SDO on a CAV 2 form) | 3 hours | None |
Read those as agency working time, not calendar days — the charter counts only the hours a DepEd office spends on your request, so a "3 hours, 59 minutes" service still means coming back another day in a busy school. The elementary and junior high transfer is the exception, classified as a "complex" transaction because the registrar has to prepare the record, route it to the school head for signing, and send it by courier, and the charter restates that "DepEd Order No. 54, s. 2016 mandates schools to deliver the SF 10 within thirty (30) days."
Disclaimer: processing times and requirements can vary by school and Division Office. Confirm current timelines directly with your school's registrar or the nearest DepEd Schools Division Office.
What If a School Withholds Form 137 Over Unpaid Fees?
The answer turns on who the school is and what the debt is for, not on how big it is.
Private schools are governed by the 2010 Revised Manual of Regulations for Private Schools in Basic Education, issued as DepEd Order No. 88, s. 2010, which by its own Section 2 applies to all private educational institutions in basic education. Section 128, "Withholding of Credentials," provides that "the release of the transfer credentials of any pupil or student may be withheld for reasons of suspension, expulsion or nonpayment of financial obligations or property responsibility of the pupil or student to the school," and that "the credentials shall be released as soon as his obligation shall have been settled." So a documented, itemized balance in the student's own name is a valid ground, and the school is on a clock the moment it is paid.
Three things in the same manual bound that power. The obligation has to be the pupil's or student's own — Section 128 is written around obligations "of the pupil or student to the school," not a sibling's account. Section 141 then obliges the private school last attended, once the certificate of eligibility to transfer has been issued, to forward the official school credentials promptly to the requesting school "regardless of whether it may be found that prior to or after the receipt of the request that he still has certain monetary or property obligations to the school" — the leverage sits at the certificate stage, not after it. And the second paragraph of Section 128 gives DepEd its own remedy: if, after due inquiry, a school is found to have unjustifiably refused to issue transfer credentials or student records, the Department may issue them itself, and may impose administrative sanctions on the school.
Public schools are outside that manual entirely, and there is no tuition to owe in the first place. What governs them is DepEd Order No. 54, s. 2016, the order that sets the request-and-release process for Form 137 and Form 138. Its "Other Provisions" section reiterates, specifically in relation to the release and issuance of those two forms, the rule in DepEd Order No. 41, s. 2012 that "in no case shall non-payment of voluntary school contributions or membership fees be made a basis for non-admission, non-promotion or non-issuance of clearance to a student by the school concerned." DepEd Order No. 41, s. 2012 is the order that lists what counts as voluntary: PTA contributions, the school publication fee, and membership fees in the Boy and Girl Scouts, the Philippine National Red Cross, the Anti-TB fund drive, and pupil or student organisations.
Republic Act No. 11984, the No Permit, No Exam Prohibition Act approved on 11 March 2024, is the law most often raised at this point, and it does not free your records. Section 4 requires covered institutions to let a Disadvantaged Student who cannot pay tuition and other fees take the scheduled periodic and final examinations without a permit — for K to 12, for the entire school year — on a certificate of disadvantaged status issued by the municipal, city or provincial social welfare officer or a DSWD regional office. The same section then states that the Act is "without prejudice to the right and power of educational institutions to require the submission of a promissory note, withhold records and credentials of students and such other legal and administrative remedies available to them for the collection of unpaid fees." It protects the exam, not the record.
The first move is the same either way: ask for a written, itemized statement of account, put your own request in writing and date it, and work out which side of that line the charge falls on before you argue or pay.
The full picture — the thirty-day clock in Batas Pambansa Blg. 232, the CHED rule that applies once you reach college, the citation that legal-commentary sites keep getting wrong, and how to escalate through the Schools Division Office — is in When a School Withholds Your Records.
How Do You Request Form 137 for Yourself (Visa, Job, or College)?
If you're not transferring but need your own copy — for a visa application, an employer, or a college that wants your complete record — go to the last school you attended (or the nearest Schools Division Office if that school has closed) and bring a valid government-issued ID. Have your LRN ready, or at minimum your last school's name and your year of attendance, since some older records aren't yet fully digitized in the LIS.
If you're requesting on someone else's behalf, the DepEd Citizen's Charter is specific about what the school will ask for. For the senior high SF10 and for certified records generally, an authorized representative needs an authorization letter plus a photocopy of the requester's government-issued ID and the representative's own ID. For the Certification, Authentication and Verification (CAV) route, DepEd draws a line: an immediate family member (mother, father, sibling, spouse, child) may use a plain authorization letter, but anyone else needs a notarized Special Power of Attorney.
If the document is for use abroad, the sequence is school → DepEd Regional Office → DFA. The school issues certified true copies of the Form 137/SF10 (two copies), the diploma or certificate of completion, and a school transmittal letter. You then file a CAV application at the Regional Office's Records Section with a CAV application form, photocopies of your PSA birth certificate and passport for validation, two passport-size photos, and a long brown envelope. The charter puts the Regional Office's own CAV processing at 3 hours, 30 minutes with no fee, and the office seals the documents in a brown envelope addressed to the DFA Authentication Section with an instruction not to open it — you carry the sealed envelope to the DFA for apostille, which is a separate agency with its own schedule and fees. The DepEd steps are quick on paper; the queueing, the school's own turnaround, and the DFA appointment are what actually consume the calendar, so start well ahead of any visa interview date.
If the school no longer holds your record at all, the charter has a path for that too: the school issues a School Referral Form (CAV 2) and directs you to the Schools Division Office instead, a service the charter budgets at 3 hours with no fee.
What Do Colleges and Employers Actually Use Form 137 For?
Colleges rarely need the full Form 137/SF10 for admission itself; they typically ask for the SF9 report card and a Certificate of Good Moral Character at that stage. Form 137 becomes relevant later, for enrollment verification, credit evaluation for transferees, or when a school needs to confirm a student actually completed a specific grade level somewhere else. Employers and visa processors sometimes request it as documentary proof that an applicant finished a stated level of schooling, especially when a diploma alone isn't considered sufficient.
Practical Tips Before You Request Form 137
- Know your LRN before you go. It's on old report cards and school IDs; having it ready speeds up almost every DepEd transaction.
- Settle small balances before you need the record, not after. Waiting until a transfer deadline to negotiate a payment plan puts you in a weaker position.
- Don't accept "walang record" as a final answer for a public school closure — escalate to the Schools Division Office, which retains archived records.
- Ask for everything in writing. A verbal refusal to release records is hard to escalate; an emailed or texted refusal is not.
- Start visa-related requests early. Between school processing, DepEd regional authentication, and DFA apostille, budget weeks, not days.
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Sources
- DepEd Order No. 54, s. 2016 — Guidelines on the Request and Transfer of Learner's School Records (official PDF)
- DepEd Order No. 88, s. 2010 — 2010 Revised Manual of Regulations for Private Schools in Basic Education (official PDF, Sections 127, 128, 139-141)
- Republic Act No. 11984 — No Permit, No Exam Prohibition Act (LawPhil, official text)
- DepEd Order No. 41, s. 2012 — Revised Guidelines on the Opening of Classes, including the rule on voluntary school contributions (official PDF)
- DepEd Order No. 58, s. 2017 — Adoption of New Forms for Kindergarten, SHS, ALS, Health and Nutrition, and Permanent Records (official PDF, SF10-ES, SF10-JHS, SF10-SHS)
- DepEd Citizen's Charter, 2026 Edition — school and regional office records services, processing times and fees (official PDF)
- DepEd LIS Support — official School Form templates and downloads
- SchoolFinderPH — What a Form 137 Looks Like, Section by Section
- SchoolFinderPH — Form 137 vs Form 138: The Difference
- SchoolFinderPH — When a School Withholds Your Records
- SchoolFinderPH — SF9 Report Card Explained for Parents
