:help: Does anyone know what the laws are for foreigners opening restaurants?
… and BARS? :help:
(Thanks, Napoleonite… I’m piggy-backing! 
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What do you want to know?
Do they have laws? … well, I guess they have in Taipei …
Bars … ask the mafia (bamboo brothers gang) but even than it’s not a guaranty for success … Taiwanese are not bar or pub people, and there are not enough foreigners to fill your place all the time
Restaurants … get a Taiwanese wife … it’ll make it easier …
If you don’t have an ARC through marriage you’ll need to invest at least 5 million to get a work permit, you need to have a culinairy university degree or at least 5-8 years of relevant working experience. The money that’ll be invested needs to be wired from abroad. There are also zoning laws you need to respect but you could get away with it if you contact the right people.
… and it’s tuff to get the right ingredients all the time if it’s to be a foreign food restaurant … importers don’t really care about having them in stock all the time …
My folks want to retire and move here, and they want to open a small eatery. What are the laws to the best of anyone’s knowledge?
At the present time Taiwan does not have a “retirement” visa. What passports are your parents carrying??
Opening a restaurant with Western food here is a good way to get broke, said a gentleman named Turnton somewhere. Because the locals eat nothing but Chinese food (so, rice!) here and if they eather other than Chinese foot it gotta taste and smell like Chinese food.
There are exceptions though, some make it, with a lot of foreign guests I guess.
Come to the monthly entrepreneur meeting at Carnegies on the 3rd Sunday of every month at noon. You can ask these and many more questions from those who are doing it, have done it or know where to find the information. Shipper, accountant, lawyer, restaurant owners, website developers and other business type folks. If they don’t have the answer, they can at least head you in the right direction.