Open restaurant or food stand. What permits, etc required

If any of the members already done this, and it seems few already went through this path.
My wife is Taiwanese citizen and we want to open small restaurant or food stand in Taiwan.
Question # 1: Would it be possible to open restaurant on my name or joint ownership? If my name would be on ownership deed do we have to pay more taxes vs. just my wife name?

Question # 2: How much are the taxes? Lets assume it would be in Taipei or Ilan.

Question # 3: What licenses or permits we need to get to operate a restaurant or food stand? How difficult to get them?

Thank you in advance.

1: You can, but it may cost more and involve more paperwork. That’s why some people don’t do it.

2: At least here in Jiayi county that depends on many things, including how much business you have. From your question I would suppose it is a smaller scale operation, like the one we did/will do again. The tax office will make a guess when you apply (you can try to argue) and later should send someone checking how well your business runs to determine your tax.

3: Depends on what you do. You do not need a license for beverages. You don’t need one if you sell beverages and some food. I am not sure about a pure food stall without anything to drink, but for a “real” restaurant you would need someone with a license. Ask around among your relatives, chances are someone has such a piece of paper. I’m not sure how much “borrowing” one would cost, but it can’t be much. Just be advised that for a “real” western style restaurant you need a license for western food - different planet, different laws of physics, you know…

But much of it depends on how you word and do things, it’s usually easier than you first think…

Thank you dl7und.
“…2: At least here in Jiayi county that depends on many things, including how much business you have. From your question I would suppose it is a smaller scale operation, like the one we did/will do again. The tax office will make a guess when you apply (you can try to argue) and later should send someone checking how well your business runs to determine your tax…” [color=#BF40BF]means that tax office will tax before restaurant/food stand will be open? Based on estimation?[/color]

“…3: Depends on what you do. You do not need a license for beverages. You don’t need one if you sell beverages and some food. I am not sure about a pure food stall without anything to drink, but for a “real” restaurant you would need someone with a license. Ask around among your relatives, chances are someone has such a piece of paper. I’m not sure how much “borrowing” one would cost, but it can’t be much. Just be advised that for a “real” western style restaurant you need a license for western food - different planet, different laws of physics, you know…” [color=#BF0080]Beverages; you mean alcohol beverages? So licenses required for western style restaurant but not necessary for Taiwanese/Chinese style?[/color]

Thanks again
Serge

That’s what they did with us: a vague guess, gf objected, they lowered their estimate. So you can haggle. In the end they didn’t show up though. Came once to pick up the menu, but haven’t seen them again. May depend on their “workload”…

No, non-alcoholic. Soft drinks, Cola, milk, whatever. If you offer anything to drink, you can declare yourself as a 飲料店, just like all the others offering milk tea etc. AFAIK, you don’t need a license for that. And you can “additionally” offer a few things to eat. Absolutely secondary of course…

Good luck,

Olaf

Thank you Olaf.
But to sell beer, wine or hard liquor we need to get license?
Correct?

Serge

[quote=“feropont”]But to sell beer, wine or hard liquor we need to get license?
Correct?[/quote]
AFAIK, yes. But we never tried that (and I personally would prefer to stay on the non-alcoholic side), so I don’t know about requirements or process.

Edit: Funny… When I click on “Food” on the site you list in your sig, it shows me wine… :smiley:

[quote=“dl7und”][quote=“feropont”]But to sell beer, wine or hard liquor we need to get license?
Correct?[/quote]
AFAIK, yes. But we never tried that (and I personally would prefer to stay on the non-alcoholic side), so I don’t know about requirements or process.

Edit: Funny… When I click on “Food” on the site you list in your sig, it shows me wine… :smiley:[/quote]

Thank you again Olaf.
Yes, minor flaw, I do not sell food yet :slight_smile: