Taiwan, China

Starting a Business in

Taiwan, China

Listed below is a detailed summary of the bureaucratic and legal hurdles an entrepreneur must overcome in order to incorporate and register a new firm, along with their associated time and set-up costs.  It examines the procedures, time and cost involved in launching a commercial or industrial firm with up to 50 employees and start-up capital of 10 times the economy's per-capita gross national income (GNI).

The information appearing on this page was collected as part of the Doing Business project, which measures and compares regulations relevant to the life cycle of a small- to medium-sized domestic business in 183 economies. The most recent round of data collection for the project was completed in June 2011.

  • Standardized Company

  • Legal Form: Private Company Limited By Shares
  • City: Taipei

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No. Procedure Time to Complete Associated Costs
1 Use the online application (http://onestop.nat.gov.tw) to search the name, apply for incorporation and tax registration, apply for Labor Insurance, National Health Insurance and Pension Plan Report with the Bureau of Labor Insurance and register for work rules with the Council of Labor Affairs

The review period has been shortened to 2 days. therefore the procedure now takes one day for search, reservation and application. Then the government officials are required to review the application on the second day. At the end of the second day, (if approved) the approval is ready, and the applicant can pick it up from the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA). Otherwise, it is mailed to the applicant, in which case it takes up to four days to receive the confirmation. The company can search the availability of the company name and check the legality of planned business online.

The articles of incorporation for a private limited company must include the company name, business purpose, shareholders’ contributions, profit-allocation ratio, location of offices, number and names of directors, manner of issuing public announcements, and the date the articles of incorporation were adopted.
The application for a taxpayer’s identification number is done at the same time.

The Labor Insurance Bureau now adopts a three-in-one consolidation application (i.e., the labour insurance application, national health insurance application and the pension plan appropriation application), so the Labor Insurance Bureau and National Health Insurance Bureau can now review and process the application at the same time, if all in order, the Bureau can grant the application in 5 - 7 business days. All firms may apply for national health insurance (NHI) regardless of the number of employees, but only companies with five or more employees may apply for labor insurance (LI). National health insurance, labor insurance, and the pension plan report can be filed with one consolidated form. Forms can be downloaded from the Bureau of Labor Insurance Web site.

7 days TWD 150 (online search) or TWD 300 (governement fee) + 0.025% of capital (in case the registration fee payable is less than TWD 1,000, the registration fee shall be TWD 1,000.)
2 Make a company seal

Company registration documents and deeds must be sealed (chopped). A set of company seals should be prepared for registration, including the name of the company, and name of the chairperson of the board of directors. These seals are required to be used for future company updates.
1 day TWD 450 (depending on the number/ material used, each range from TWD 450 to TWD 1000)
3 submit a CPA audit report showing that the amount of capital invested is sufficient to cover company establishment cost

Although the minimum capital requirement was removed, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, in place of the minimum capital requirement , now there is a requirement to submitt a CPA audit report showing the invested capital will cover the costs of establishing a company to the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
2 days TWD 5,000 -TWD 20,000, fee varies across firms
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