TaiwanRegion

Living, work, immigration, education & business — official links and practical guides

Key Facts

Basics

Currency

TWD

Region

East Asia

Local time

UTC+8

Asia/Taipei

Tax snapshot

Corporate tax

20%

VAT

Top individual income tax

40%

Capital-gains tax

Varies

No single capital-gains rate: the securities transaction income tax is currently suspended, real-property transfers fall under their own consolidated housing and land regime, and other gains may be taxed as income.
One of the lowest VAT rates in Asia.

Source: National tax authority · Cross-check: OECD · PwC · KPMG · Last checked: 2026-07-16

Headline statutory rates. The income-tax figure includes national surtaxes; any regional or municipal layer is shown beside it. Social contributions and reliefs are excluded. Verify the current rate with the authority before relying on it.

At a glance

A manufacturing and semiconductor economy with an unusually direct entry route: the Employment Gold Card bundles work permit, resident visa and residence card into one application that needs no employer. The rulebook here was rewritten twice inside a year — a single data-protection commission from November 2025, and an AI framework act in force since January 2026 — so recent official guidance matters more than usual.

Best for

Specialists in semiconductors, electronics, precision manufacturing and software who can qualify on their own record rather than through an employer; founders serving Asian supply chains; and researchers and teachers in the fields the talent scheme names.

Who this may not suit

People who expect to work in Mandarin-light environments outside the tech corridor, or who assume a company registration by itself permits them to live here — it does not, and the two applications are separate.

Main routes in

Work permit and the talent card Either an employer applies for a work permit, or you qualify yourself for the combined talent card. Register a company Registration is published in the public commercial registry; it is not by itself a basis to reside. Invest and set up operations Foreign investment is screened, and the approval is separate from the company registration itself.

Key trade-offs

Employer costs and payroll admin are heavier than the headline salary suggests: labour insurance, national health insurance and the labour pension are three separate enrolments and three separate monthly contributions.
Bookkeeping is built around the government uniform invoice from day one, which is unfamiliar if you are used to issuing your own invoice formats.
Compliance expectations are being raised rather than settled — the data-protection authority is newly consolidated and the AI framework act is new enough that its risk-classification detail is still being developed.

First steps

1 Decide whether your entry runs through an employer or through the talent card — the evidence each one weighs is different, and only one of them can be started without a job offer.
2 If you are forming a company, treat the registration and any foreign-investment approval as two filings, and check the registered particulars afterwards in the public registry.
3 Before you hire, set up the three employee schemes and the uniform-invoice bookkeeping together — both are easier to establish at the start than to retrofit.

What changes often

· The qualifying fields and evidence accepted for the talent card
· The statutory minimum wage, which is reviewed annually
· The risk-classification rules being developed under the AI framework act
· Which sectors are restricted or screened for foreign investment

Work-permit conditions and the talent-card criteria are revised periodically, and the data-protection and AI rules are newer still — confirm the current position with the Ministry of Labor and the scheme’s own portal before you rely on it. Ministry of Labor ↗