Eligibility for Membership

To qualify as an ICOM member, you must:

  • be a museum or an institution recognized by ICOM as they are defined in the Statutes
  • be a museum professional or a person or an institution interested in the museum community evolution
  • accept and respect the ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums

A person or an institution - including the staff - who sell cultural goods (objects, natural and scientific specimens) cannot become members. To a wider extent, this restriction applies to any person or institution that carries out activities that might lead to a conflict of interest with ICOM’s activity


Membership Categories

You can join ICOM Philippines as an Individual member or as an Institutional member.

Individual members are:

  1. A person working full-time or part-time as museum professionals, as defined in Article 2, of the ICOM Statutes;
  2. Students preparing for a career as a museum professional;
  3. Retired museum professionals;
  4. Museum enthusiast and volunteers.

In a limit of 10% of the National Committees’ workforce, other persons who, because of their experience or professional services they have rendered to ICOM for one of ICOM’s programs or a National or International Committee, are deemed worthy of being a member of ICOM.

Institutional members are:

  1. Institutions designated as museums;
  2. the following institutions, qualified as museums, are eligible to seek membership to ICOM:

 · Natural, archaeological, and ethnographic monuments and sites and historical monuments and sites with museum-related activities including   acquisition, conservation, and making material evidence of peoples and their environment;

  · Institutions holding collections and displaying live specimens of plants and animals, such as botanical and zoological gardens, aquaria, and    vivaria;

 · Science centers and planetaria;

 · Non-profit art galleries as well as conservation institutes and exhibition galleries maintained by libraries and archive centers;

 · Nature reserves;

 · National, regional or local museum organizations as well as public agencies (ministries, departments, or organizations) responsible for museums   as defined in this Article;

 · Non-profit institutions or organizations researching areas of conservation, education, training, documentation, as well as other activities relating   to museums and museology;

 · Cultural centers and other institutions facilitating preservation, perpetuation, and management of tangible and intangible heritage resources   including living heritage and the creation of digital artifacts.



Membership Benefits

You become part of an international museum community, and will gain access to important benefits which include:

The ICOM Card

You will receive an ICOM Membership Card which gives you free or negotiated entrance to participating museums worldwide. The ICOM Card is one of the most widely recognized membership programs for museums in the world. When planning to visit a museum, it is best to check with the museum beforehand if they accept the ICOM Card. Additional benefits for institutional members include 3 to 8 membership cards depending on the category of membership.

Participating in the meetings of ICOM Philippines.

Sharing and exchanging with experts of the international museum community on your professional knowledge and the challenges facing museums and their future. You can join the meetings of the International Committees who represent different kinds of museums or different disciplines in the profession.

Access to ICOM’s triennial General Conference: meet colleagues from all over the world and participate in in-depth discussions on the main issues of the profession.

Access to ICOM Resources

  • Access to the UNESCO-ICOM Museum Information Center
  • Subscription to ICOM News (magazine)
  • Access to ICOM publications


Membership Application Process

1) Fill up the application form and submit application attachment:

Please fill up the application form at bit.ly/icomphilippines or scan the QR code below.

For new membership applications:
Please prepare a Curriculum Vitae.

For new membership applications of retired museum professional:
Please prepare a Curriculum Vitae and provide any attachment justifying your former status as a museum professional.

For student membership applications:
A student applicant must be enrolled in a program of study leading to a postgraduate degree in museology, museum studies, museum education, museum management, conservation, or equivalent museum-related subject; 

The application must be made to the National Committee of the country in which the student is enrolled in a nationally recognized institution.

Please prepare a Curriculum Vitae and proof of enrollment (e.g. latest student ID, registration form, and others).

Student membership is subject to the review and approval of the host National Committee.

(Decision of the 102nd Executive Council, Dec. 9-11, 2002)


For new membership applications of museum enthusiast and volunteers:

Please prepare a Curriculum Vitae and letter of intent.

For new institutional membership applications:

Please prepare the following requirements.

·         CV of the three representatives.

·         Letter of Intent

·         Brief background of the museum (Approx. 500 words)

·         Pictures of the museum or the institution

*Please send the attachments to the official email address of ICOM Philippines [email protected] AND [email protected].

Your application is subject to the approval of ICOM Philippines’ Membership Committee. If approved, we will send a billing statement. Once we receive the payment for membership, we will forward your application to the ICOM Secretariat in Paris which issues the ICOM membership card. We will inform you at the soonest possible time once we receive the membership card from the ICOM Secretariat.

*Please note that the new application for 2022 is now open. The deadline is on 30 December 2021.

2) Membership Fee

Individual Membership Categories

Regular (Voting)                                                                                                         PHP 2,500.00

Retired Professional (Voting)                                                                                     PHP 2,500.00

Student (Non-voting)                                                                                                 PHP 1,500.00

Students must supply proof of full time course enrollment with application

Institutional Membership Categories          

Category I (Less than 1,708,459.56 PHP Operating Budget) Membership Fee: 15,000.00 PHP 

Category II (1,708,459.56 PHP PHP to 5,694,864.20 PHP Operating Budget) Membership Fee: 25,000.00 PHP

Category III (5,694,864.20 PHP to 56,948,651.98 Operating Budget) Membership Fee: 30,000.00 PHP

Category IV (₱ 56,948,651.98 to ₱ 284,743,259.90 Operating Budget) Membership Fee: 50,000.00 PHP

*ICOM membership is annual and runs from 1 January to 31 December of the year for which subscriptions are paid.



3) Payment



You may pay your membership fee on the following:

a. BPI Family Bank Deposit 

Account Name: International Council of Museums - Phils., Inc

Account Number: 6861-0034-75

Bank Details: BPI Katipunan Ave

b. Thru GCash:

Please send to 0917-8117314 (Ma. Victoria Herrera)

Once complete please send the proof of payment or  if you need a statement of account or invoice.

[email protected] [email protected]