👉 Can anyone share advice about living in Taiwan long term?

Taiwan Moving to Taiwan
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Hi guys, my wife and I are seriously considering moving to Taiwan long-term from Singapore because we love the culture, the people, and the good times we’ve had there over the years.

As travellers, we understand that travelling for vacation is very different from living abroad for longer periods as an “expat” or resident. Since I run my own business online, I’m not looking to work over there, but rather to rent a place and live there long term.

As this is a major decision, we’re still planning, researching, and want to hear from anyone who lives in Taiwan.

Could anyone share their experiences, please? :blush:

  • Where are you staying in Taiwan?

  • Where in Taiwan would you recommend staying longer-term or semi-retiring?

  • How has it been coming from your home country and settling in?

  • Is there anything you like or dislike about living in Taiwan vs your own country?

  • Would you mind sharing what type of visa you have and if you had any issues?

  • Are there any tips you’d like to share about your condo/apartment rental experience?

  • Do you have kids or is your kid studying there? How’s it going?

  • Do you have any advice for people moving to Taiwan?

Please don’t feel obligated to answer the questions, although it would be much appreciated. We sincerely appreciate any feedback or sharing. :pray:

Thanks for reading! :grin:

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  • Outdated banking system that discriminates against foreigners.

  • Lack of quality housing.

  • Laziness and incompetence of the local work force.

  • Complete disregard for road safety.

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And those are just the things he likes. :sweat_smile:

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Long term I would also take into account climate change (though I guess also Singapore will get affected). Just how much heat are you willing to endure?

Another long-term issue is the China wild card. There is a non-zero chance of military action, anything from blockade, missile attacks to full-blown invasion.

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Taiwan has a much nicer climate than Singapore for sure .

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Having lived in both. I believe Taiwan climate is much worse than Singapore.

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Factor Transportation requirements into your living location. Will you need and have a car, ride scooters, or use public transportation.

Taipei has great public transportation and personal transport is not necessarily needed.

Many other cities probably need a scooter minimally. Although may have some bus and MRT is growing.

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Job market in Singapore is probably more accessible to foreigners? But that is just my impression.

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  • Where are you staying in Taiwan?
    Miaoli but I wouldn’t reccomend it

  • Where in Taiwan would you recommend staying longer-term or semi-retiring?
    Any major city outside of Taipei and New Taipei.

  • How has it been coming from your home country and settling in?
    Day to day life is great. Getting anything official or semi-official done can be a nightmare.

  • Is there anything you like or dislike about living in Taiwan vs your own country?
    It’s common for people in Taiwan to say ‘no’ when they don’t know how to do their jobs rather than figure out what to do. I find this extremely frustrating.

  • Would you mind sharing what type of visa you have and if you had any issues?
    Spouse, no issues.

  • Are there any tips you’d like to share about your condo/apartment rental experience?
    I’ve never had any issues in this area but if you plan on applying for or already have citizenship at some point make sure you ask if they will cause a problem with household registration before you sign a lease

  • Do you have kids or is your kid studying there? How’s it going?
    N/A

  • Do you have any advice for people moving to Taiwan?

Taiwan is great to foreigners on a person to person and day to day basis but problems usually involve something semi-official.
Foreigners are always assumed to be treated differently and in a more complicated way than citizens but this is almost always only true because who you are talking to makes it complicated.
Sometimes this is ignorance, sometimes discrimination, sometimes policy. Try to be patient with the ignorant and stand your ground with the discriminatory.

Example of ignorance: i am in the process buying a brand new motorcycle the sales person immediately said ‘I’ve never sold a motorcycle to a foreigner before, I don’t think I can register a new motorcycle to a foreigner’ which obviously isn’t true and he called the vehicle office to check and of course a foreigner can buy a motorcycle if they want to.
He was nice and helpful but it kind of proves the point of how locals think of foreigners here. If he wasn’t nice and helpful i would have to either argue or just go to a different store.

Examples of discrimination: we don’t give credit cards (or any form of credit) to foreigners. This also isn’t true but comes up often and you can see many stories on this forum.

Example of policy: can’t apply for an ikea family card online because our ID numbers are different format to locals

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Wow! Thank you so much for taking the time to answer all our questions. We really appreciate it!

In terms of major cities outside of Taipei and New Taipei, are you talking about Taichung, Kaohsiung, etc.?

We didn’t expect this, so thanks for sharing!

Ooooo, that’s a really interesting point, and as you say, it can be frustrating, especially when you know it can be done with a little research/training.

We’re really curious since you brought this up twice, as it can be something we need to consider. Can you give an example of something semi-official?

Wow, thanks for going into such detail and giving us a clear picture of what you’re talking about. It does indeed make sense how foreigners like us can feel frustrated or disappointed about discrimination.

So on the whole, we just need to be more firm about most of the “NOs” that foreigners may get from the locals and give a little gentle nudge to get some of the benefits that we’re actually entitled to?

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Oh

Oh, we’re both Singaporeans, so we’ve no trouble finding jobs over here, except I run my own business so I’m not really looking for a job in Taiwan just yet.

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Ahh right. Seems like public transportation or scooters around might work for us. Curious if you personally drive/ride your own vehicle or take the public transportation?

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Agree~!!! Haha.

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Since Singapore is warmer than Taiwan, heat isn’t really an issue for us. Haha. One of the reasons we like visiting Taiwan is for its weather, especially at the beginning and end of the year.

That’s a good point about the China wild card. Thanks for sharing! :slight_smile:

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LOL, I wonder. hahaha.

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  • Outdated banking system that discriminates against foreigners.

Do they have intuitive banking apps, or do you have to go to the bank to do everything?

  • Lack of quality housing.

I’m sorry to hear that, could you elaborate and share more about this since housing is an important thing for expats?

Btw thanks for sharing :slight_smile:

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Some banks have decent apps, but not all. If you want English then try HSBC, or maybe DBS since you are from Singapore. Generally most things can be done via online banking, but opening the bank account in the first place can prove to be a bit of a nightmare here. Not to say it can’t be done, it certainly can (I have 7), it’s just always a hassle and usually takes a couple hours.

Some people say Taiwanese landlords don’t like to rent to foreigners, but I’ve never really experienced that. Generally, older houses here are pretty poor in terms of safe construction and rarely have elevators, they are also dog ugly. Newer buildings/gated communities are everywhere and are great, but are expensive, especially if you want to buy.

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  • Where are you staying in Taiwan?

I stayed in New Taipei City and Taipei City at different times. I don’t know where I’ll stay when I return.

  • Where in Taiwan would you recommend staying longer-term or semi-retiring?

If you and your wife don’t speak Chinese and you want to have exciting social lives, Taipei City or New Taipei City. If you’re from a big city in most other countries, New Taipei City won’t feel like an entirely different city to you because Taipei in general is so small. If budget is a concern, you can save a lot of money by living further out in an area that would still feel close to the city centre if you’re familiar with London, Tokyo, etc.

  • How has it been coming from your home country and settling in?

Like yourself, I had a very pleasant experience visiting Taiwan as a tourist. However, when I moved there, after the honeymoon period finished, I was very stressed and unhappy. This was largely caused by my job at the time (teaching English to children - something I really didn’t want to do), but I also found it very hard to adjust and I complained all the time.

After a year, however, I left the job I hate and finally put in the effort to learn Mandarin. My new non-English-teaching job was still stressful, but I think putting in the effort to learn the language made a world of difference and I soon stopped complaining (as much) and accepting the differences. My second to fourth (final - for now) years in Taiwan were brilliant, though I was ready to leave and take a big break by the end of it.

  • Is there anything you like or dislike about living in Taiwan vs your own country?

The main thing I dislike is the work culture, but you don’t have to worry about this so I won’t elaborate. Connected to this is the Confucian face-saving culture, which makes forming good relationships with people difficult. It’s easy to make superficial “friends”, but not easy to form more meaningful connections, whether professionally or socially, at least from my experience.

I also feel like Taipei life can be quite overwhelming. The pollution and humidity is not nice and I don’t think enough mention is made about the grim winters which I personally think are worse than in England, though I’ve heard the South of Taiwan doesn’t have this problem.

As for what I like… Honestly, too much to list! I love the people, even if I think it’s quite difficult to penetrate the surface. I love the food. I love the fact that Taipei is surrounded by mountains that you can easily get to any weekend. I love that Taiwan is quite small and that it’s easy to go out and visit new places and explore nature. In comparison, London definitely has more quiet places like parks and forests than Taipei, but getting out and appreciating real nature isn’t something you can do any time.

  • Would you mind sharing what type of visa you have and if you had any issues?

I had a work visa, now I have a Gold Card visa. No issues.

  • Are there any tips you’d like to share about your condo/apartment rental experience?

Apparently, this is one of the negatives about Taiwan. Fortunately, I seem to have gotten lucky because all my landlords have been wonderful and I always got excellent deals. But, aside from one time where I just lucked out with a really nice landlord, I used Facebook pages for foreigners to find apartments, so I bypassed the BS.

  • Do you have kids or is your kid studying there? How’s it going?

No

  • Do you have any advice for people moving to Taiwan?
  • Study Chinese if you don’t already know it. You don’t have to get particularly good at it, but simply being able to get by and showing people you’re making the effort makes a huge difference.
  • Read up on Confucianism. I didn’t do this until after I left Taiwan, but when I did a lot of things started making sense to me that I found very confusing before. This is the philosophy that underpins much of Taiwanese life.
  • I think Taiwanese people have a really weird relationship to “foreigners” (a word you’ll hear directed towards you all the time, which personally took me some getting used to even if it is the correct word). As a visitor, you get the impression that “Taiwanese people love foreigners” (an expression I heard many times), but once you live there, you soon realise that this isn’t really true and the way they feel is a lot more complicated and in some ways hostile. I’ve already written a lot so I’ll stop here, but happy to discuss this point further. I’m mentioning it as something to be aware of.
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Are you both Mandarin speakers and Chinese literate and of predominantly east Asian ancestry? Because that impacts some if the advice you are being given…

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That’s great to hear that HSBC and DBS apps are working well in Taiwan. :slight_smile:
For the multi-currency feature and better exchange rates, we’ll probably also use Wise most of the time.

LOL @ your “dog ugly” descriptions of the older houses! Ahh, I see. Most likely we’ll live short-term via AirBnB and then sign a long-term lease if we like it.