Complete Guide to Opening a Rep Office 2011 Update

The Japanese embassy does not want to play, so this morning i was unable to get the required authentication stamp on the company registration document, which also means i held off on the notarization and am not yet ready to hand in the paperwork - but since i was in Taipei i went to the MoEA anyway and had them check the documents - all fine (except the missing stamp and notarization). So now on to plan B - next report to come before long…

I would guess that any embassy/country office here in Taiwan would refuse to do that, it’s not in their jurisdiction. I only know of once case where it worked, which was a fluke anyway (Lost Swede) :slight_smile:

Good luck though! Personally I would contact the Taiwan office in Japan and go through whatever process they have established. You will need their seal on your certificate of incorporation anyway.

Yeah, that’s what most companies do since it’s convenient in most cases, but for me that route is most inconvenient (and expensive), since the nearest TECRO office is on another island, 400km away from home. That’s why i took the hint from the MoEA and the notary i talked to in Hualien last week and went to my own embassy - and even the Taipei notary whom i saw afterwards suggested the same thing: after all, it is the logical thing to do. I am going to ask the Nomura Resarch Institute (whose explicit job it is to help Japanese citizens abroad in business related matters) to follow up with the embassy on my behalf - i haven’t given up the idea yet that it can be done, after all. :wink:

400km? Well, when I did mine I was in Taipei, 10000km from my office in Ottawa! So distance shouldn’t be a huge problem :slight_smile:

Right, it can certainly be solved with money! I’ll just try another $20 option first before thinking of a $270 option. :wink:
Will report back…

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone else had run into problems getting their Power of Attorney notarized in Taiwan? Here in Taiching I’ve been told that this has to be done in my home country because the company is a foreign company. Even after expalining that they simpky needed to witness and notarize the signature, not the content of the document, they were unwilling to help. I’d appreciate knowing how others got on with this!

Also, does anyone know the address of the MOEA here in Taichung, or do all representative offices have to be registered through the office in Taipei?

Many thanks!

Your first question can be answered in the way 90% of such questions can be answered in Taiwan: try a different day/office/counter/style of dress, etc.

Second question, try Google I guess… never been to Taichung. :sunglasses:

My experience has been the opposite of yours, both the court associated notary in Hualien and the one in Taipei that i went to indicated that i was at the right place for getting this kind of work done. :laughing:
However, you will get both the PoA and the official document with the particulars of your company (no idea what you would call it in your country - i only have two Japanese expressions for that) notarized at the same time, and the notary may have suggested that the big stamp from the TECRO office in your own country was missing on that company related document - so be sure you have those details right and, otherwise: exactly as Lee says. :slight_smile:

There is no office in Hualien where i could have asked, so i’ve always dealt with the office in Taipei. In your case i’d say, if you find an MoEA office in Taichung just go and ask them; if there is no such office inTaichung, you’ll know what to do. :wink:

You will have to go through Taichung if that’s where your business is registered.

They have offices spread over Taichung depending on what you need to do so you might get sent to another office, but this is the main point of contact in Taichung:

經濟部中區聯合服務中心
台中市南屯區黎明路二段503號7樓
tel: 04-2252-1111

If you can’t speak Chinese then I don’t recommend to try and do this on your own.

You could try this notary office: notary-wang.com/

“The POA will have to be notarized, 500NT and 5 minutes, super simple. 500NT should get you unlimited copies, get 2~3, who knows when you’ll need them.”

An update :
It’s not 500 NT anymore. It’s 750 NT ( info double checked with 3 different notaries)
among other, the contact given previously in the post confirms NT750.
and it’s not so super simple as one needs to show the original certificate of incorporation already legalized AND a POA legalized in your home country like said before.

How do you do when the intended Rep Office is for a HK ltd and when you are not HK national ?
not so easy ; )

judiciary.gov.hk/en/crt_serv … stille.htm

[i]"Overseas Applications

(1) For applicants residing outside Hong Kong, they could send a person in Hong Kong to bring along the document and pay the fee in cash in person and collect the apostilled document on behalf of him/her.

(2) Alternatively, they could mail to the Apostille Service Office, High Court Registry the document and a bank draft for the processing fee ($125 per apostille) (in Hong Kong currency) payable to ‘Government of Hong Kong SAR’. The bank draft must be specified that it can be drawn in Hong Kong. Moreover, the applicant should bear any additional bank charges for the transaction.

(3) The apostilled document will be sent to the applicant normally by ordinary air-mail. In a more secure way, the applicant may request to have the document sent by registered air-mail at his/her own expense at an additional HK$13. In this case, the applicant should include this charge net into the bank draft."[/i]

Yes, the notifications were 750NT$ for me, too.
BTW, i went to the MoEA office again recently to have all my documents confirmed and then put them away, since i recently learned that i would leave Taiwan before the end of this month (an altogether different project has come up). So… for me this was a dry-run, and the matter will wait until when i’m back in Taiwan…

ok yuli thanks for your feedback and good luck for next project ; )

I summarize :

Certificate of incorporation is no problem as our accountant in HK can legalize it for us, provided we give him the right to act on our behalf.( directors minute)

Regarding the POA
if you are director, it can be done in Taiwan easily like said before.
if you are not the director…it’s a different story ! HK Ltd’s directors need to be in person in HK at notary office to notarize the POA ( which , indeed , cannot be the case)

But as we know “the POA needs to be legalized by the Taiwanese representative office in your country” ( quote from /businessintaiwan.blogspot.com)

i guess we can do the POA in any country. Directors just go to the local notary to make a POA in local language. then they send it to the local taiwan office for legalization.

My concern is : where do you translate the local POA ? in local country ? , in HK ? in Taiwan ?

I did not find the answer yet…

Sorry for the late reply, for some reason the forum stopped sending me email notifications.

You seem to be a bit confused. By POA I’m guessing you mean Power of Attorney? This does not need anything more than to be notarized, with costs 500NT (or more?), can be done in Taiwan, and can be in Chinese to avoid any translation non sense. The site you mention has a sample you can use. No legalization is needed.

Hi Lee,

I’m writing about the POA. Does this need to be notarized by the HK office (assuming my company is based in HK? Also, on your website, the links to this don’t work. Do you have an English version you could send?
Thanks

  1. (改派)在中華民國境內指定之訴訟及非訴訟代理人授權書(須經驗證並附中文譯本)
    Power of attorney (POA) giving you the right to act as representative, and should state your exact responsibilities as rep, same as I explain in the preamble. Might as well be in Chinese, otherwise a translation will be required. I used the one at the blog I mentioned above:

businessintaiwan.blogspot.com/20 … ffice.html

or the MOEA’s less-cool version:

gcis.nat.gov.tw/doc/a2_2_2_1_8.doc

The POA will have to be notarized, 500NT and 5 minutes, super simple. 500NT should get you unlimited copies, get 2~3, who knows when you’ll need them. (There are reports this might be 750NT now)

Here’s a very helpful notary: 陳永星 台北市羅斯福路三段126號4樓之3

Thanks for letting me know about the links! Should be ok now.

The Power of Attorney must be signed by a company director or owner, and have the full name of the representative on it. Those two can be the same person.

Ideally it will be notarized in Taiwan by a Taiwanese notary, which means of course that the person signing has to be present in Taiwan for the notarization. That’s why it’s easiest if you are the company owner or one of the directors/officers/people with signing authority, whatever your country calls them.

A POA from overseas is fine too, but it will have to be legalized (I think) and translated into Chinese (for sure), possibly by a certified translator in the case that the original is not in English. So if you go through your friend’s company, they will have to sign it in front of a notary wherever they are, then have it legalized by their local TECO, and sent here. Note that person will also have to sign your employment contract for the CLA, employment certificate for the NIA, etc., so honestly it’s easier if you are your own boss.

Good luck!

oops

Thanks a lot everybody for all these informations. Being a freelance web developer I am going to create my own company this year.

I have a few questions.

1- I m hesitating between creating a unlimited company and limited company , I know most of my friends get their ARC from a limited company , but I supposed it does not make a difference having an unlimited company. An unlimited company cost less , and is less a burden in Hong Kong to declare revenue , is that suitable for a not so risky freelance / consultant business ?

2- I read there than to get an ARC from a representative office , you can declare any salary ( but not too low ) , however some friends who did that recently told me that you need to earn at least 48000 nt per month ( the minimum for foreigners in Taiwan ) in order to keep your working visa and ARC … if not , you will lose it. This is based on the amount of profit you make during the year. This one , being freelance sounds not so easy to achieve.

3-If I have a working visa / ARC and a representative office , should I be able to send an invoice to a Taiwanese company and get paid in Hong Kong ? Is that dangerous if I send an invoice to a Taiwanese university for example ? ( not for teaching of course )

Looking forward for your answer , nice thread !

  1. Unlimited may be fine, your only way to know for sure is to ask at the MOEA. They are very helpful, give it a shot. In general I think as long as your company has lots of official, supporting documents such as an official charter and shows the name of the owner or directors you’re ok. Otherwise it sounds great.

  2. Never heard of that. As far as I know only the CLA cares about that, and they didn’t blink when I wrote ~20k a month on my employment contract, and my buddy put his home country’s min wage which is lower than Taiwan’s. Why would they allow it during the application, then deny you during renewal? That said, ~48k is indeed the minimum for local companies hiring foreign white-collar workers, a rule which I imagine is intended to dissuade companies from hiring foreigners over locals.

  3. You will want to send invoices in the name of your home company. I doubt it matters where the invoice actually comes from. As to payments, where clients send them is entirely up to you, as long as it’s NOT to your account in Taiwan. That would be ‘doing business’, which is a no no. Unless you were to have a local company, as some here have suggested in the past.

Note that if it’s a public school (or any government body or dept.) you do not need a work permit to work there and thus can receive the money directly in your Taiwanese account. The school’s accounting dept. should know more. And don’t forget to include those amounts when filing your taxes!

Thanks Lee for that long and detailed answer !
Your advices are really helpful.

The school wants to take me as a foreign contractor ( foreign company ) and would therefore send the money to Taiwan.