There is no single urban planning software in the Philippines, and this guide ranks none. The work splits into six jobs, and each job has a different set of options. DILG says it will provide its document management system for LGUs (DMS4LGUs) free of charge. DICT's eLGU system handles online LGU services such as permits. QGIS is free and open source. ArcGIS is sold in the Philippines through Geodata Systems, and we found no public price. Philippine vendors and universities publish systems for LGU revenue, permits and tax mapping. Writing the CLUP itself is professional planning work, not a software purchase. Every source below was read on October 11, 2026.
Most searches for urban planning software are really asking one of two things: which tool draws the zoning map, and which system the LGU should run for permits, records and hazard data. The honest answer is a different tool for each job. This page lists what the official pages say, job by job, with the cost model each one publishes. If your office is deciding what to buy, build or simply download, start with the table by job.
Pick one tool per job, not one tool for everything. This is what the sources we read show for each.
| CLUP preparation | Planning consultancies (a service), a requirements checklist, and a GIS for the maps |
|---|---|
| GIS and zoning maps | QGIS, ArcGIS (via Geodata Systems), NAMRIA Geoportal Philippines, LGI GIS-ULIS, MapX |
| Zoning administration and clearances | No dedicated system described in the sources we read. See the permit systems, or a small custom tracker |
| Permits and BPLS | DICT eLGU, Infoman RISE LGU |
| Records and document management | DILG DMS4LGUs, plus human-led digitization of paper records |
| Hazard data | HazardHunterPH (GeoRiskPH), NAMRIA Geoportal Philippines |
No software we found writes or approves a CLUP. RA 10587, the Environmental Planning Act of 2013, requires a Certificate of Registration to practice or offer to practice environmental planning (Sec. 14), and its list of planning services includes comprehensive land-use plans (Sec. 5(a)(1)). In practice the plan is prepared by licensed people, in-house or through a consultancy, and software supports them. The legal basis and review path are explained in our CLUP entry and CLUP requirements guide.
What software does here: it tracks the data requests and milestones a plan depends on, and it checks completeness before submission. Nova Gov's public CLUP checklist lists the requirements (20 sections and 5 supporting studies, which is our own structure and not a number DHSUD publishes); checking a draft against it happens inside a pilot login. For the plan itself, a planning consultancy is a service, not software. PRIMEX, for example, lists on its own project page a January 2018 to December 2020 assignment to review a city's CLUP, zoning ordinance, CDP, LDIP and ELA. See also the guidebook explainer and the CDP guide.
This is where a GIS comes in. QGIS describes itself as free and open source, licensed under GNU GPLv2+, available on Windows, Mac and Linux. ArcGIS is Esri's commercial GIS. In the Philippines, Geodata Systems Technologies calls itself the sole authorized Philippine distributor of Esri and lists software access, consulting, technical support, training and implementation. Its page shows no prices. As of October 11, 2026 we found no public price, so treat ArcGIS as quote-based.
For base maps and public layers, NAMRIA runs Geoportal Philippines. Its home page lists map apps including CLUP, Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, Lot Plotter and Map Composer. NAMRIA's site says it offers maps, publications and other resources free, while products in its sales catalog are for sale, so check the terms of each layer before you reuse it in a plan.
Two Philippine systems point at parcels rather than zoning. GIS-ULIS from LGI Consultants is a GIS-based unified land information system meant to consolidate land-related information on all parcels of an LGU, linked to tax maps and cadastral data. MapX, from Caraga State University researchers, is a geospatial platform for visualizing and managing land and real property data; the pages we read describe real property tax mapping, not zoning.
A map in any of these tools is a drawing. The zoning map and ordinance get their legal force from the sanggunian, which enacts integrated zoning ordinances in consonance with the approved CLUP (RA 7160, Secs. 447 and 458). The municipal CLUP documents we have found posted online for Laguna, Cavite and Rizal are listed on the Laguna, Cavite and Rizal pages.
We did not find an official page that describes a dedicated zoning-clearance system for LGUs. The permit systems below list business, building and working permits, but none of the pages we read describes a zoning review step as a module. If you run one of them, ask the vendor or agency directly whether zoning review is routed and recorded in the system. If it is not, this is a typical gap for a small custom tracker: a queue of applications, the zoning decision, and the supporting maps in one place.
DICT's eLGU system is a national government option. DILG reported on October 22, 2025 that 942 LGUs (41 cities and 901 municipalities) had adopted it, and listed business, building and working permits, community tax certificates, civil registry documents and barangay business clearances among its services. In September 2025 DILG also said 99.67% of LGUs were compliant with BPLS standards. Check what your office already runs before adding anything. The pages we read do not state what eLGU costs an LGU, and DICT's own site would not load for our automated read, so confirm terms with DICT. Among Philippine vendors, Infoman's RISE LGU suite lists a Business Permit and License System alongside real property tax, budget, revenue collection, tricycle permit and executive information modules. Its page shows no price.
DILG's Document Management System for LGUs (DMS4LGUs) is the government option. DILG Memorandum Circular No. 2026-034, dated June 9, 2026, gives the guidelines on its adoption. DILG describes the system as a platform that digitizes, centralizes and securely manages official records, developed under the Local Government Unit Support System, Cities and Municipalities Information Management System (LGUSS-CMIMS), and says it will be provided free of charge to all local government units nationwide. The LGUSS is made up of the Barangay Information Management System (BIMS) and CMIMS, per DILG.
For a backlog of paper records and maps, Nova Gov offers human-led document digitization: we scan and encode the records, and handwritten and older pages are encoded by a person, not automated OCR.
HazardHunterPH describes itself as a one-stop shop for hazard assessment. You check a location for seismic, volcanic or hydrometeorological hazards and can generate an assessment report. It is led by PHIVOLCS and says the hazard information it uses was generated by government agencies. Basic search is open; advanced features are for partner organizations with GeoRiskPH accounts. Geoportal Philippines also lists saved queries such as Hazards Near Me and Active Faults. Which hazard source a CLUP or CDRA needs is a separate question: see our hazard maps guide and CDRA page. Nova Gov does not ingest live hazard feeds.
| Option | What it is | Published cost model | Best for | Not for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DICT eLGU system | Online LGU service system created by DICT under the eGov PH Super App. DILG (Oct. 22, 2025) lists business, building and working permits, community tax certificates, civil registry documents and barangay business clearances, and says 942 LGUs (41 cities, 901 municipalities) have adopted it. | No cost statement on the DILG page we read. DICT's own pages blocked our automated read, so confirm terms with DICT. | LGU front-office services and permit processing. | Plan preparation, GIS or zoning maps. The pages we read do not describe those. |
| DILG DMS4LGUs | DILG's Document Management System for LGUs, developed under LGUSS-CMIMS. DILG says it digitizes, centralizes and securely manages official records on one platform. Adoption guidelines: DILG MC No. 2026-034 (June 9, 2026). | DILG says it will be provided free of charge to all LGUs nationwide (July 2026). | Day-to-day document routing and records inside the LGU. | Maps, GIS layers, or plan analysis. |
| HazardHunterPH (GeoRiskPH) | Multi-agency hazard assessment platform led by PHIVOLCS. Check whether a location is prone to seismic, volcanic or hydrometeorological hazards and generate an assessment report. It says the hazard information it uses was generated by government agencies. | Basic search is open. Advanced features are for partner organizations with GeoRiskPH accounts. No price listed. | A quick hazard check on a location. | Drawing zoning maps or managing your own plan data. |
| NAMRIA Geoportal Philippines | NAMRIA's map portal. Its home page lists map apps including CLUP, Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, Lot Plotter and Map Composer, and saved queries such as Hazards Near Me and Active Faults. | NAMRIA's site says maps, publications and other resources are offered free; products in its sales catalog are for sale. Check each layer's terms. | Base maps and public reference layers. | Holding your own plan data or running a zoning workflow. |
| QGIS | Desktop GIS, free and open source under GNU GPLv2+. Runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. | Free download. Your costs are staff time, training and hardware. | Zoning and land use maps and overlay work, in an office with at least one person who will learn it. | Offices that want a ready-made planning workflow. QGIS is a map tool, not a CLUP process. |
| ArcGIS (Esri) via Geodata Systems | Esri's commercial GIS. Geodata Systems Technologies calls itself the sole authorized Philippine distributor of Esri and lists software access, consulting, technical support, training and implementation. | No public price found as of 2026-10-11, so ask Geodata for a quote. Geodata's page and Esri's ArcGIS Pro page list no price. | Offices that want a commercial GIS with a local distributor for support and training. | Anyone who needs a price before talking to a seller. |
| Infoman RISE LGU | Software suite for LGUs from Infoman. Modules named on its page: real property tax assessment and collection, business permit and license, budget and expense monitoring, tricycle permits, revenue collection, an executive information system, and miscellaneous systems. | No price on the page we read. | Revenue, permit and finance back-office work. | CLUP, zoning or GIS. The page lists no such module. |
| MapX (Caraga State University) | Geospatial platform from Caraga State University researchers for visualizing and managing land and real property data. Its pages describe real property tax mapping, tax map digitizing, an online platform with a mobile app for tax payment, and training for municipal assessor staff. DOST-funded, per its 2021 launch article. | No cost statement on the pages we read. | Assessor and real property tax mapping work. | Zoning or land use planning. The articles we read do not mention it. |
| LGI Consultants GIS-ULIS | A GIS-based Unified Land Information System offered by LGI Consultants (Quezon City), meant to consolidate land-related information on all parcels of an LGU and link tax maps, cadastral data and tax systems. The page is undated. | No price for the service on the page. | Parcel-level land information and local revenue work. | Producing the CLUP document itself. The page mentions physical planning only in passing and does not describe CLUP preparation. |
| Planning consultancies (a service, not software) | Firms that prepare or review plans and studies. Example from its own pages: PRIMEX, which describes itself as a Filipino consulting firm (founded 7 August 1989), lists a January 2018 to December 2020 assignment to review a city's CLUP, zoning ordinance, CDP, LDIP and ELA. RA 10587 requires a Certificate of Registration to practice environmental planning. | Engagement fees. No fee schedule on the pages we read. | Offices and developers that outsource plan preparation or review. | Offices looking for software. |
| Nova Gov custom builds | Scoped software built around your own workflow and data: data-request trackers, CLUP milestone trackers, sectoral-study templates, map QA, review portals, dashboards and reports you specify. Pre-pilot: no customers and no pilots running yet. We do not prepare or sign plans. | No price list. A free 30-minute workflow call, then a written scope and a fixed quote. Separately, the LGU pilot is free for the first year (see /pilot). | A repeating workflow that off-the-shelf systems do not cover, at an LGU planning office or a planning firm. | Offices that need references today, live hazard feeds, GIS layer ingestion, or integrations with other platforms. Those are not built. |
Most of what is sold as AI for urban planning is one of two things: a general chatbot used on your own files, or a purpose-built tool with a narrow job. They are different, and you should ask which one you are buying.
Nova Gov is pre-pilot: no customers and no pilots are running. Our public tools are a CLUP requirements checklist, an eight-question readiness self-check, the municipal CLUP document directory for Laguna, Cavite and Rizal, a sample-data demo, and human-led document digitization. We have built AI-assisted drafting and analysis tools that sit behind a pilot login and are not yet used by any LGU, so we make no claims about their results. We do not read shapefiles or other GIS layers, draft CLUP sections, generate annexes, or connect to other platforms or LGU portals. If a vendor says otherwise, ask to see it on your data. Our offer is custom work: software for urban planners, scoped around your own workflow.
These official pages did not load for our reading on October 11, 2026, so this guide says nothing about the terms behind them: the Philippine Statistics Authority's PSGC page, which sat behind a human-verification check that we do not bypass, and DICT's own pages, which blocked automated reads. For eLGU we rely on DILG's published reports instead. If you run a system we missed, tell us and we will add it from a page we can read.
There is no single answer, and we do not rank products. It depends on the job. For maps and zoning drawings, offices use a GIS: QGIS is free and open source, and ArcGIS is sold in the Philippines through Geodata Systems, which lists no public price. For LGU documents and records, DILG says it will provide its DMS4LGUs system free of charge. For permits and front-office services, DICT's eLGU system had been adopted by 942 LGUs as of DILG's October 2025 report. For a quick hazard check, there is the PHIVOLCS-led HazardHunterPH. Writing the CLUP itself is professional planning work, not a software purchase: RA 10587 requires a Certificate of Registration to practice or offer to practice environmental planning. Use the by-job table on this page to pick one tool per job, then ask each agency or seller for current terms in writing.
See also: Software for urban planners · CLUP requirements
Yes, for parts of the work. QGIS is free and open source under the GNU GPLv2+ licence. DILG states that its DMS4LGUs document management system will be provided free of charge to all local government units nationwide. HazardHunterPH has an open basic search, with advanced features for partner organizations that hold GeoRiskPH accounts. NAMRIA says it offers maps, publications and other resources for free, while products in its sales catalog are sold. The DILG page we read does not state a cost for DICT's eLGU system, so ask DICT. Free licences still cost staff time, training and hardware, and none of these is a complete tool for preparing a CLUP.
See also: CLUP requirements checklist
We found no public Philippine price for ArcGIS as of October 11, 2026. Geodata Systems Technologies calls itself the sole authorized Philippine distributor of Esri and invites a consultation instead of listing prices, and Esri's ArcGIS Pro page lists no price. Treat it as quote-based. Ask Geodata for a written quote that names the product, the number of users, the term, whether support and training are included, and the renewal price. QGIS is the free alternative, though it is a different product with a different support arrangement.
We could not find a national survey, so we do not claim a market share. The pages we read show a mix. Geodata Systems lists government agencies among the organizations it serves. NAMRIA runs Geoportal Philippines for map apps and layers. Caraga State University's MapX was launched with the Butuan City Government in 2021 and has been used to train municipal assessor staff in Buenavista, for land and real property data. LGI Consultants offers a GIS-based land information system for LGUs. Infoman's RISE LGU suite lists tax and permit modules but no GIS module. The practical way to find out is to ask your DILG or DHSUD field office, and the neighboring LGUs you coordinate with, what they run and what it costs them.
Any GIS can draw a zoning or land use map. QGIS is free and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, and ArcGIS is the commercial option sold in the Philippines through Geodata Systems. Base layers and public reference maps are available through NAMRIA's Geoportal Philippines, which lists a CLUP map app; check each layer's terms before you reuse it. The map is only the drawing. The zoning ordinance that gives it force is enacted by the sanggunian in consonance with the approved CLUP (RA 7160, Secs. 447 and 458), and the CLUP submission has its own requirements.
See also: CLUP requirements · CLUP glossary entry
Yes. DILG's Document Management System for LGUs (DMS4LGUs) was developed under the Local Government Unit Support System, Cities and Municipalities Information Management System (LGUSS-CMIMS). DILG Memorandum Circular No. 2026-034, dated June 9, 2026, gives the guidelines on its adoption. DILG says the system digitizes, centralizes and securely manages official records on a single platform, and that it will be provided free of charge to all local government units nationwide. If your office also has a backlog of paper records and maps, someone still has to scan and encode them; Nova Gov offers that as a human-led service.
See also: Document digitization service
All pages below were read on October 11, 2026. Prices, terms and availability change; check the source before you decide. We plan to re-read these in November 2026.
Kung may trabahong inuulit ninyo buwan-buwan (data requests, milestone tracking, map QA), iyon ang unang tinitingnan namin. Book a free 30-minute workflow call. We send a written scope and a fixed quote afterwards. No price list, no obligation.
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