Taiwan Visa Requirements: Visa-Free Entry, Arrival Card and Extensions

Taiwan’s visa-exempt programme sorts passports into three bands. The list below is the Bureau of Consular Affairs (BOCA) list as of mid-2026; your stay starts the day after you arrive, so a 90-day entry on 1 March runs to 30 May.

A few conditions trip people up. Only full passports qualify: emergency and temporary passports need a landing visa instead (US emergency passports are the exception and are accepted visa-free). British passport holders must have British Citizen status; British Nationals (Overseas) and other categories are not on the list. Some passports from Belize, Eswatini, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Tuvalu and Honduras are excluded if the holder was born in certain countries, including mainland China, Iran, Pakistan and Nigeria.

Thai, Filipino and Bruneian visitors on the 14-day trial must also show a hotel booking or a host’s contact details and enough money for the trip, and immigration officers do ask. Omanis who want to stay longer than 14 days apply for an eVisa in advance.

Residents of mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau are handled outside the visa system, through entry permits issued by the National Immigration Agency (NIA), and mainland Chinese tourism has been heavily restricted in recent years. If that is you, start with the NIA rather than BOCA.

Landing visa: citizens of visa-exempt countries who arrive on an emergency or temporary passport (valid six months or more) can get a 30-day landing visa at Taoyuan, Songshan, Taichung or Kaohsiung airports. It costs NT$1,600 (about $52) plus an NT$800 handling fee, needs two photos and an onward ticket, and cannot be extended or converted into another visa.

Travel Authorization Certificate: nationals of India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar who hold a valid visa or residence permit from one of a set of countries (including the US, Canada, the UK, Schengen states, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand; recently expired visas often count too) can apply online to the NIA for a free certificate in place of a visa. It typically allows stays of 14 days. Check the current conditions on the NIA’s application page before you rely on it, because the qualifying documents have changed over the years.

eVisa: BOCA issues single-entry eVisas online for tourism, business and visiting relatives to eligible nationalities, generally for stays of up to 30 days. Apply through the BOCA online visa system at least a week before travel and print the approval to show at check-in and at the border.

Visitor visa: everyone else, and anyone who needs longer than their visa-free allowance for a specific purpose, applies at a Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (Taiwan’s embassies in all but name) or via the online form. Visitor visas are single or multiple entry, allow stays of 30, 60 or 90 days, and usually cost around NT$1,600 for single entry, with reciprocal fees for some nationalities.

Since 1 October 2025 every foreign arrival must complete the online Taiwan Arrival Card; the paper card is gone. The filing window has since been widened from three days to seven days before arrival, so you can file it while packing. It asks for your passport details, flight number, address in Taiwan (the first hotel is enough) and purpose of visit, and takes about five minutes.

One person can file for a family or group of up to 16 travellers, and every traveller including babies needs their own entry. You get a confirmation email, but you do not need to show it: the officer pulls up your card when your passport is scanned. If you forget, you can still complete it on your phone in the arrivals hall before the immigration desk, using the airport Wi-Fi, though queues at Taoyuan in the evening wave of arrivals are a bad place to start.

Taiwan’s immigration check is quick and usually wordless for visa-exempt visitors, but you are expected to have all of the following:

• Passport: valid at least six months beyond your arrival date, with a blank page for the stamp.
• Onward ticket: a confirmed air or sea ticket out of Taiwan within your permitted stay, plus a visa for the next country if it needs one. Airlines check this at departure and can refuse boarding, so a refundable or cheap onward flight is better than arguing at the gate.
• Arrival card: the TWAC, filed online before you queue.
• Address and funds: a hotel booking and enough money for the stay. These are compulsory for the 14-day trial nationalities and occasionally asked of anyone with a long or repeated stay.
• Permits for work: paid work, performing and some religious activities need a permit or the right visa before entry; visa-free status is for tourism, visiting and business meetings.

Customs matters as much as immigration. Taiwan fines travellers who carry undeclared pork products, including jerky, sausages and pork floss from countries with African swine fever, NT$200,000 (about $6,500) for a first offence, and foreigners who cannot pay can be refused entry. Declare cash over NT$100,000 or US$10,000 in foreign currency. Drug trafficking carries the death penalty, and possession of even small amounts of cannabis, legal or not at home, is a criminal offence.

For almost everyone, the visa-free period is final: you cannot extend it or switch to another visa inside Taiwan, except in genuine emergencies such as serious illness, natural disasters or cancelled flights, or for white-collar professionals who have a work permit and apply within the last eight working days of their stay.

The exception is the UK and Canada. Under reciprocal agreements, British Citizens and Canadians who enter visa-free can apply once to extend their 90 days by up to another 90, to a maximum of 180 days in total. Apply in person at an NIA service centre (there is one in every county, including Taitung and Keelung; the Taipei office is on Guangzhou Street near Ximen) before your current permission runs out, with your passport, a photo, an onward ticket for the new date and the application form. BOCA publishes a separate notice for British and Canadian holders with the details.

Visitor visas are a different case: a 60-day visitor visa without a “no extension” annotation can usually be extended at the NIA, in some cases up to 180 days, if you have a reason such as study of Mandarin, family or medical treatment.

Do not overstay, even by a day. Under the Immigration Act, an overstay brings a fine of NT$2,000 to NT$10,000 ($65 to $325), paid at an NIA office or the airport before you leave, and a ban from re-entering Taiwan that lengthens with the overstay, from a year for short overstays to several years for long ones. Visa-exempt privileges can be withdrawn for future visits, and anyone who overstays and works illegally faces deportation and detention.

If you are stuck because of a typhoon, an earthquake or a medical problem, go to an NIA service centre before your permitted stay ends, with evidence (a cancelled-flight notice or a doctor’s letter). They routinely grant short extensions in those circumstances, and doing it before the deadline keeps your record clean. Typhoons disrupt flights at Taoyuan and Kaohsiung several times a season between July and October, so check your stay end date against your flight if you are travelling then.

Taiwan is one of the few Asian countries with workable long-stay options for remote workers, and cities such as Taipei, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung are easy places to settle for months. The digital nomad visitor visa gives six months at a time and, since January 2026, can be renewed in six-month steps up to two years; it requires an income of at least $40,000 a year if you are 30 or over ($20,000 if you are 20 to 29) and a steady bank balance. The Employment Gold Card is a one to three-year open work permit and residence card for skilled professionals, and Mandarin students can get resident visas through accredited language centres. Requirements, costs and paperwork are on our digital nomad guide to Taiwan.

There is no fixed annual cap on visa-free entries, and many visitors leave for a weekend in Tokyo, Seoul or Hong Kong and come back for another 90 days. Immigration officers have discretion, though: someone who spends most of the year in Taiwan on back-to-back visa-free entries may be questioned about work and funds, and can be refused. If you plan to spend more than about six months of a year in Taiwan, use a proper long-stay visa.

Taiwan’s outlying islands are domestic travel, so flying to Penghu, Kinmen or the Matsu Islands needs no extra paperwork beyond your passport, which domestic airlines check at boarding. Kinmen also has ferries to Xiamen in mainland China, which count as leaving Taiwan, so you need a Chinese visa and a fresh Taiwan entry when you come back.

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