Cost of living in Taiwan?

We are planning on moving to Taiwan. I have lived all over Asia but never did business in Taiwan so don’t have a clue.

Family of 4. Kids are in elementary school. Would have vehicle. Decent 3 bedroom apartment with at least 28 ping.

Cost around Taipei?

Costs for smaller cities?

The prices on this website are a reasonable guide. https://www.591.com.tw/ Most landlords are willing to bargain down a little.

Go, I am a Taiwanese. I teach Chinese in Taiwan as well. If u have any question. Please feel free to ask. I would like to help u. Living in Taiwan I can’t say it is the best country. But there are a lot of foreigners live here as some my friends. They love it. It just depends on what will you plan for your life.

Life is easy than America or Canada, France that I heard this from my friends.

So sweet.

Just moved here with my wife from Illinois, USA.
Living in central Taiwan because we didn’t want the craziness of living in Taipei, but we love it here.
Cheap food, incredibly nice people, beautiful scenery, very safe to live, and lots to go see (albeit less to do in central Vs the capital).
If you’ve got enough money to set yourself up for the first year, then you’ll be fine. We sadly didn’t, and have been struggling, but nowhere nearly as hard as living in the states.
Best of luck to you and your family!

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I’m not being nosy, just inquisitive. What part of Illinois? North, South, Central?

“central Taiwan” coastal-like or mountain-like?

Yea, definitely easier to live in Taiwan than states.

I never did get any hard answers to my question.

Any one care to share their monthly budgets?

You may need more details of “decent”. Cost of a 3 bedroom apartment could be minimum 20000 NTD to more that 100000 NTD.

(I’m talking on Taipei.)

3 bed apartment in a gated community in Taoyuan = 20,000NTD. In Taipei itself I would be looking at 30k+.
Elementary school fees = a couple of thousand a semester if you send your kids to a public school.
Running a car = pretty cheap. Difficult to provide an exact figure.

Any other questions?

international schools: 200k~300k NTD per semester, right? If you are with a package, it could be free.

“bilingual” schools: 100k ~200k

private schools: 50k ~ 100k

I think that’s about right. TES is around 50k a month last time I asked (about 3 years ago).

Grew up in Chicago, moved to Central Illinois for college to get away from the violence and costs of everything.
We’re living in Zhongxing, just south of Caotun, and east of Nantou City. Beautiful area, only problem is the air quality, so my wife and I take allergy meds.

To answer your initial inquiry, our budget for two is about $40,000 a month, to cover everything we need. Biggest cost is rent and food, just like the US, but I’m still sending loans back to the US for college. All in all, we’re using my entire income (I’m a public, not private school teacher), so my wife tutors on the side.

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The reality is if you want something affordable you will have to look in the surrounding areas and not Taipei City itself. The MRT has expanded enough to service almost all of New Taipei City with many other areas soon to get access.
Yes, you will need a scooter or car or rely on public transport such as the MRT.

Everything on the MRT is accessible within a 1 hour ride, the exception being the airport of course. A 3 hour ride round trip is unlikely unless you are doing many transfers and its during peak hours. 2 hours max for an all day commute.

You can live cheaper with good quality housing and work at normal salary rates in New Taipei City. Then if you want the nightlife, shopping, etc. of Taipei, just head on in to the city. No need to commute into the city for work. Plenty of jobs outside the city. In fact, the housing trend now is for people to buy and live in Taoyuan, Sanxia, Tucheng, Linko and Shulin. Those are the hot spots and many new schools are opening up to service those people. Hell, Kangciao is hiring for their new location in Linko.

So yeah, it is crazy to live in Taipei City when there are reasonable alternatives.

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Looks like my office will be near Shuanglian. I like the Beitou to live but it really depends on what local Mandarin school the kids end up in.

suigeneris has a point. i really don’t get all those negative posts. i don’t live in taipei but from my experience, it all comes down to how close you live from an mrt station and for that matter how close your office is to the next station.

ideally you want to live within walking distance to your job. if that’s not possible you look for other reasonable options, what’s wrong with less fancy areas though still conveniently accesible?

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If you like Beitou, you have good options for school.
Private schools, you have WeGo bilingual school.
Public schools, you have WenHua Elementary which has a very good bilingual program too. It was the first to have it for a public school and became the model that the MOE uses for all other public schools that offer an English program.

I can’t give you a cost break down and it is certainly possible to live cheap here depending on your priorities but we are a family of 4, plus a couple dogs, and we burn through 90k a month easily. We don’t pay rent and we own our car. Travel would require more.

We don’t go to expensive restaurants or the like, but we eat healthy food. Generally we find the cost of living here not that different from the home country - the differences come when you want buy things on the edge of necessities - clothes, vitamins, TVs or whatever. Usually far more expensive here.

The biggest advantage is the cost of healthcare. For most non life threatening conditions it has a distinct advantage to where we come from.

We aren’t in Taipei, but Hsinchu.

Good info.

We spent about USD2K a month in the US and we also eat well - organic and healthy only. But we didn’t have a house payment or car payment - just insurance, utilities, food and entertainment.

We are now temporarily in Malaysia and costs are much lower. When we lived here 5 years ago we had a hard time spending $1300 a month. And we went out to fancy places without thought. Again, no house or car payment.

We will lead a pretty simple existence unless we decide to stay in Taiwan for the long term. We still have a large house in the US full of “stuff.”

Three bedroom flat. Public schools. A simple car (mainly for touring around).

We have had luxury cars, houses, etc. Don’t need them anymore.

Tanks for the input.

I haven’t followed the whole thread in detail but I can add that cost of living in Taiwan per month ranges from 10,000NT to 1,000,000NT. I’ve known hundreds of people on that spectrum over the years. Hope that helps

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We’re a family of three and burn through around 70-80k a month. We live outside of Taipei, though. I’m sure we could live off less, and I have Taiwanese friends who certainly do. 15k of our fixed monthly expenses it paying off a loan on a car, so when that expires later this year our outgoings will reduce.

Apartment (3 bed Taoyuan): 20k
Car loan: 15k
Car running costs: approx. 5k
Anxinban: 8k
Utilities bills etc: 5k I guess
Groceries: around 20k

Not sure if that helps much.