Taiwan Entrepreneur Visa extension

Our one year entrepreneur visa for Taiwan was about to expire (yes, it’s already been a year since we launched myroomabroad.com in Taipei!) so I started my research on how to renew it. 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 (Both in English and Chinese). This article will show which documents to prepare and submit at immigration.

This post will only cover the renewal of a Taiwanese entrepreneur visa. Please refer to our article about the Entrepreneur Visa Application for the initial application.

Categories

First and foremost, the official documentation offers 4 different categories for extending the visa:

1. The revenue of last year is at least 3M NT$
2. The operating expenses of the most recent year is at least 1M NT$
3. The company employs at least 3 Taiwanese nationals
4. “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. “

You only need to qualify for one of these 4 categories to extend your visa.

As with the initial visa application I expected 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

Which documents should you prepare to show you comply to one of these four categories:

1 & 2: For the revenue and expenses, the only thing that matters for the MOEAC are the 401 documents. These are the bimonthly tax filing sheets which you can request from the tax bureau, or ask your CPA to get send them to you.

3: For the employment category you need to show the document from NHI that you are paying for they are on your health insurance.

4: Not sure, the people I contacted told me this has never happened before and told me this was very unlikely to get and would require a very strong case.

You will also need other documents to start the application procedure:

• A temporary P&L statement
• Any invoices you have for the upcoming tax period
• Your team’s salary slips
• Your lease contract 
• A document from your team members stating they want you to apply for them. (or go all together)
• Each team member’s ARC (Alien Resident Certificate) – Copy and real one, you don’t need to leave your real ARC yet so you can travel during the application.
• Each team member’s Passport – Copy and real one, you don’t need to leave the real one.
• Standard renewal application sheet you can obtain at your immigration office (Sheet 1)
• Group application form for entrepreneur visa which can be downloaded from the MOEAC website

You will need to submit all these documents to your local immigration office 40days prior to the expiration date of your ARC.

Timeline

You should submit your application for renewal at least 40 days prior to the expiration date of your ARC. I’d recommend submitting it a little earlier just in case you are missing documents and need to return to immigration.

Another important thing to note is that you need to show one of these things with the Taiwanese company. So let’s make a practical example:

If you obtain your initial Entrepreneur visa on January 1st. This means your visa will expire on December 31st. Which means you would need to apply around mid-November at the latest for your extension. Let’s say that you start launching the company 2 months after you got your ARC, or March 1st. Launching your company takes on average 2 months. (1 month if you are very lucky and have a great CPA) Which means your company is ready for business as of May 1st. In this scenario, as you need to show past expenses for the company, you will only have 6 months and a half to get your numbers to 3M revenue or 1M expense.

In other words, if you plan on renewing your Entrepreneur Visa after one year, I would recommend launching the company as soon as possible to have the most time possible to get the numbers up.

Contact Person

In case you need to add documents or if the MOEAC needs more information, they will get in touch. You could also proactively get in touch with the MOEAC. Mr. LEE(李偉智) has been extremely helpful with the preparation of my documents and is also the person who is reviewing them. I would recommend contacting him via phone rather than email. He doesn’t speak English so you will need to communicate in Mandarine.

• leewc@moeaic.gov.tw 
• 0233435700#724

Housing for your team

Thank you for reading this article, we hope that this article was informative! If you are looking for housing for you or your team in Taipei, please visit our website myroomabroad.com . We filtered the best accommodation, with 1000+ rooms and studios which accept foreigners and monthly contracts.