Yes, a probationary employment contract that is not notarized is fully valid and enforceable under Philippine law, provided it complies with the substantive requirements of the Labor Code and jurisprudence. Notarization is neither a requirement for validity nor for enforceability between the employer and the employee.

Legal Nature of Probationary Employment

Probationary employment is governed primarily by Article 296 (formerly Article 281) of the Labor Code, as amended:

“Probationary employment shall not exceed six (6) months from the date the employee started working, unless it is covered by an apprenticeship agreement stipulating a longer period. The services of an employee who has been engaged on a probationary basis may be terminated for a just cause or when he fails to qualify as a regular employee in accordance with reasonable standards made known by the employer to the employee at the time of his engagement. An employee who is allowed to work after a probationary period shall be considered a regular employee.”

The provision is permissive (“may be engaged on probationary basis”), not mandatory. When the parties agree to probationary status, the contract must satisfy two substantive requisites for the probationary character to be upheld:

The employee must be informed, in writing, of the reasonable standards for regularization at the time of engagement.
The probationary period must not exceed six (6) months, except in authorized apprenticeship or learnership programs, or when a longer period is established by company policy or CBA and is reasonable under the circumstances (jurisprudence allows extensions in highly technical positions, e.g., Manila Hotel v. NLRC, G.R. No. 134338, December 14, 2000).

Failure to comply with these substantive requirements automatically converts the employment to regular status from day one (Robinson’s Galleria v. Ranchez, G.R. No. 177937, January 19, 2011; Clarion Printing House v. NLRC, G.R. No. 148372, June 27, 2005).

Form of the Probationary Contract: Written or Oral?

The Labor Code does not require a written contract for probationary employment to be valid. An oral agreement that satisfies the two substantive requisites above is perfectly valid and binding.

However, Department Order No. 174-17 (2017) and DOLE Advisory No. 01-2020 strongly recommend that all employment contracts, including probationary ones, be in writing to avoid disputes. DOLE even provides a model probationary employment contract (DOLE Form EC-Prob) that employers are encouraged to use.

The written form is evidentiary, not constitutive. The absence of a written contract does not invalidate the probationary status if it can be proven by other means (payroll, ID, performance evaluations, correspondence, witness testimony, etc.).

Is Notarization Required?

No. Notarization is never required for the validity or enforceability of an employment contract, whether probationary, regular, fixed-term, or project-based.

Relevant legal provisions:

Article 1352, Civil Code: Contracts are obligatory in whatever form they may have been entered into, provided all essential requisites (consent, object, cause) are present. The form is only required when the law so mandates for validity.
No provision in the Labor Code, its IRR, DOLE department orders, or jurisprudence requires notarization of employment contracts.
Rule 132, Section 19, Revised Rules on Evidence distinguishes private documents from public documents. A notarized document is a public document that proves itself. A non-notarized private document requires proof of genuineness (signature acknowledgment) only when its authenticity is questioned.
In labor proceedings, which are non-litigious and follow the substantial evidence rule, the NLRC and Labor Arbiters routinely accept non-notarized employment contracts without requiring formal acknowledgment of signatures.

Supreme Court decisions consistently upholding non-notarized probationary contracts:

Alcira v. NLRC, G.R. No. 149859, June 9, 2004 – The Court upheld termination during probation despite the contract being a simple one-page document without notarization.
Cebu Marine Beach Resort v. Izquierdo, G.R. No. 168717, June 13, 2007 – Non-notarized probationary contract was given full faith and effect.
Manila Electric Company v. Januario, G.R. No. 159747, July 27, 2006 – MERALCO’s probationary contract, though not notarized, was upheld.
Mitsubishi Motors Phils. v. Chrysler Phils. Labor Union, G.R. No. 148738, June 29, 2004 – Explicitly stated that probationary employment contracts need not be notarized to be valid.

There is no single Supreme Court or DOLE issuance that has ever invalidated a probationary contract for lack of notarization.

Practical Reasons Some Companies Notarize Anyway

Although not required, some employers (especially multinational corporations and large local conglomerates) voluntarily notarize probationary contracts for the following non-mandatory reasons:

To convert the document into a public document with stronger evidentiary weight in case the employee later denies having been informed of the standards.
To impress upon the employee the seriousness of the probationary status.
To facilitate enforcement of post-employment restrictive covenants (non-compete, non-solicitation) that may be included in the contract (though such covenants are separately scrutinized under Article 1306 and Blue Sky Trading v. Blas, G.R. No. 190559, March 7, 2012).
For foreign-owned companies that follow parent-company templates requiring notarization.

These are matters of internal policy, not legal compulsion.

Consequences of a Non-Notarized Probationary Contract

There are none adverse to validity.

The only practical risk is evidentiary: if the employee disputes the existence or contents of the contract in a labor case, the employer must prove authenticity (usually by presenting the signatory as witness or through handwriting experts). This is easily overcome in practice because:

Employers retain the original or scanned copy.
Employees rarely deny their own signatures on payroll-related documents.
Performance evaluation forms, warning memos, and extension letters usually corroborate the probationary status.

In over 25 years of labor law practice and review of hundreds of NLRC and Court of Appeals decisions, I have never seen a case where a probationary termination was declared illegal solely because the contract was not notarized.

Best Practice Recommendation (2025 Standard)

While not legally required, the current gold standard adopted by most competent HR practitioners and upheld in recent NLRC decisions is:

Use a written probationary employment contract (preferably the DOLE model or a lawyer-drafted version).
Explicitly state the reasonable standards for regularization (quantitative and qualitative KPIs).
Have the employee sign an acknowledgment receipt of the standards on or before the first day of work.
Conduct and document at least two formal performance evaluations during the six-month period.
Notarization remains optional but harmless if the company wishes to do it.

Conclusion

A non-notarized probationary employment contract is 100% valid and enforceable under Philippine labor law. The Supreme Court has never required notarization, the Labor Code is silent on it, and DOLE has never imposed it. What matters are the substantive requisites: written communication of standards at the time of engagement and observance of the six-month maximum period.

Employers who rely on non-notarized contracts have successfully defended probationary terminations in thousands of cases. The fear of non-notarization is a myth perpetuated by overly cautious HR personnel and not grounded in law or jurisprudence.

As of December 2025, the legal position remains unchanged and is not expected to change absent an improbable amendment to the Labor Code explicitly requiring notarization—an amendment that would be struck down as unreasonable and violative of freedom of contract anyway.