1-3 employees in a physical location other than where I registered an office a problem?

Hope it hasn’t been asked 100 times but I didn’t find an answer.

I’m a rep office working alone currently. I’m trying to move to a bigger space and hire 1-3 full time people. I found a 3 story house which is perfect for my needs except that the landlord refuses to let me register my company at his address, even if I pay his tax difference.

I’m familiar with those 3k a month virtual offices, but not sure what risks are involved with me actually having staff at the office that’s not registered?

Any advice or experience?

Thanks!

I can’t imagine what the issue would be, except for something like insurance. Does having an ordinary company registered at an address imply that all your business is going to take place within those premises? Can you register more than one? Are the staff Taiwanese? I’d ask the virtual office people; they’d probably have some insight.

If any of them is a foreigner who needs a (normal) work permit, you need to be careful about the address.

Beyond that, the rules you need to follow vary according to the nature of the business. (For example, a buxiban’s actual address needs to be registered with the education department, you can have no more than x students per m2, etc.)

I’m not sure what the rules say for run of the mill office space.

Thanks you all!

It’s run of the mil office space and very seldom would anyone but those 1-3 employees be coming to visit.

You’re right, the national labor insurance stuff would have the virtual office address.
And my work permit would have the virtual office address as well.

Good idea to ask the virtual office people, but they might just sell me in their favor just like the real estate agent is trying to do :slight_smile:

Any one think of any other red flags? I’m a pretty cautious / paranoid person. Everything I’ve done so far has been 100% up to snuff as far as I know.

Thanks!

Are you having an accountant help you? They usually know and help you with all the tricks of the trade.

I know that government officials do visit the physical place a couple times, as that happened to me. I didn’t have the virtual office, but used the office of a friend, even though I never transacted business there. Personnel there always covered for me when they came, though I doubt it was necessary. But I remember it was required that I be interviewed by a government official at the site at least once.

thanks Jotham, that’s good info.

You’re the second person to mention that officials might stop by.

So far I’ve been at this current address more than 2 years but no one has come by yet.

I was using an accountant here in Taichung, but they already got some things wrong in the past so I stopped using them and did all my renewal stuff by myself. (couldn’t have done it without the guides here).

I’m leaning towards passing on this house just cause I shouldn’t have to be doing any worrying just so someone who owns multiple properties can save a whopping 2k-3k a month.

Oh, you’re in Taichung? That probably explains it, cause the official comes from a certain department of the “federal” government in Taipei, and probably wouldn’t travel that far just to “verify.” Or if there is a federal branch in Taichung, they may do policy different.

One thing that got me, that I hadn’t known prior until I had to do it, it costs 10,000 in government fees just to move address.

They undoubtedly will :slight_smile: But you may still be able to glean some insight, and I doubt they’d outright lie to you if you ask direct questions.

Which ministry was that?

Gosh, it was 10 years ago, I don’t remember. I just remember it seemed not to have a business-sounding name, it didn’t seem to be the ministry of commerce, or such.

If it was a department as you said above, then it was your local government, unless the translation was faulty (or they’ve rearranged the nomenclature). But a department is a ministry’s local representative, so whatever the ministry says, theoretically, is valid.

no, I don’t know the nomenclature or category, you probably know more than me. I remember having to hop across all kinds of administrative ministries, Labor, and 2 or 3 others when getting set up. And now that I think about it, I believe there were Federal and local levels I had to visit.

Now that i think about it more, it seems it was the local branch that sent out people to verify. So they should have that in Taichung as well, that makes sense. Even so, as I said before, they probably do policy different in different precincts.