Getting Your Taiwan Entrepreneur Visa Extension
Updated: Jan 4, 2022
*This post has been adapted from its original form with permission from My Room Abroad, which is a great platform for finding housing in Taiwan. If you don’t know them, you should check out their site.
Some time ago, our one year entrepreneur visas for Taiwan were about to expire, so I started my research on how to renew them. Extending or renewing your entrepreneur visa is quite easy if you have the numbers and know what to do. I did not, and found very little helpful information online (either in English or in Chinese). This article will explain which documents you need to prepare and submit to immigration.
Please note that this post will only cover the renewal of a Taiwanese entrepreneur visa, not the initial application.
Renewal Categories
First and foremost, the official documentation offers four different categories for extending the entrepreneur visa:
The previous year’s revenue is at least NT$3 million
The operating expenses for the most recent year are at least NT$1 million
The company employs at least three Taiwanese nationals
(Or, most cryptically, from the official documentation:) “The enterprise of the applicant (group) can demonstrate some other category of operational performance that leads the competent authority to determine that the enterprise is making a positive contribution to Taiwan’s economic development.”
Qualifying for any one of these categories grants eligibility to extend your visa.
As with the initial visa application, I assumed we could submit expected revenue and expenses for the whole year. THIS IS NOT THE CASE! You need to show official documents to prove this.
Supporting documents
Here are the supporting documents you’ll need to supply in order to comply with one of the four renewal categories indicated above:
1 + 2. For revenue and expenses, the only thing that matters for to MOEAC are the 401 documents. These are the bimonthly tax filing sheets that you can request from the tax bureau or ask your CPA to send them to you.
3. You will need to show documents from NHI as proof that you are paying your Taiwanese employees’ health insurance.
4. It’s not clear what is needed here, the people I contacted told me this has never happened before. They told me this was very unlikely to get and would require a very strong case. Essentially they are asking you to prove that you have accomplished something remarkable or are in the middle of doing so, but/and your submission will be judged by some person or people you don’t know nor do you know by which criteria they might evaluate it.
You will also need other documents to start the renewal application procedure:
A temporary P&L statement
Any invoices you have for the upcoming tax period
Your team’s salary slips for the last year
Your lease contract
A document from your team members stating they want you to apply for them (or go all together)
Each team memb