I understand that there are considerable monetary requirements for foreigners to register a business in Taiwan. What if one was to register a business in the name of a Taiwanese national? What is the process, the requirements and the fees involved?
Thanks in advance
There are no monetary requirements for foreigners to own businesses. There are only monetary requirements for work permits.
If you have a Taiwanese wife and are on a JFRV with open work privileges, you don’t need to have it in your wife’s name, it won’t bring any benefit to you. This means your wife starting the business in her name would be of no help anyways because you need either a work permit for the company or open work privileges. Foreigners, at most will need to get MOEA approval, but it’s hardly invasive. If it was in the name of a Taiwanese national that is not your wife, they wouldn’t be able to get a work permit for you without a business that has at least $5 million paid in capital.
This is my CPA. He will help you. Tell him Marco sent you.
Thank you.
So if your Taiwanese partner opens a business they can sponsor your work permit without the 5 mill paid in capital? I don’t need a work permit, just curious.
If the partner is your spouse with a citizenship, you don’t need a work permit.
If not, the business should meet the criteria to employ a foreigner.
Good point 
No. They cannot sponsor anyone’s work permit without 5 million paid in capital. As a married person, by consequence, you have an open work permit.
You, the owner, can open without any paid in capital cause you have an open work permit.
An owner without an open work permit, can sponsor themselves with $500000 of paid in capital.
You are not in need of one, you are fine and have no monetary requirements.
If the business owner needs a foreigner, you can hire one with open work rights, IE, someone else like yourself or someone with an APRC without sponsoring their work permits.
Would there be any consequences of me registering my business now, to get things in order, despite not planning to start properly operating until a year or so from now? What if I registered and later decided to not go through with my plan, is it simple to close up shop?
You have to file things like income tax and sales tax. Sales tax figures are every 2 months. It’d just be a waste of time filing in 0s for everything.
Any monetary consequences if I wasn’t reporting any revenue? No impact on my personal taxes? I plan to keep my day job.
No. But do you want to make them ask questions?
It’s a $1000 fine for not reporting sales tax on time and $700 fine for not reporting payroll on time, despite being 0.
The ‘business’ I would like to open is a small restaurant, and I would like to register it before opening up shop, so I can sign a lease on a location using the business name, etc. If my restaurant hadn’t actually opened yet, I don’t think there would be too many questions as to why I hadn’t reported any revenue. I am the co-owner of a decent sized restaurant in the UK, so I have experience in this area.
That’s fine, but a year is excessive. A CPA’s job is to make sure it’s as smooth as possible for you. He’ll give you the best advice. It’s also his job to save you money.
You’re best spending the time learning the ins and outs from the CPA I gave you first.
Thanks for the info! Much appreciated!!!
What is his hourly fee if I just wish to discuss things with him? I am also interested in opening a small business, but not so experienced with this kind of thing.
No hourly fee. There are monthly fees if you want things like taxes, payrolls, etc… done for you. I write my own sales taxes cause I am still fairly basic.
Setting up might be around $50000-60000. (Don’t quote me)
Free consultation.
I did mine years ago, and you know inflation brings up prices. I don’t know the current price of a setup.
As a referrence, depends where you are. Our cpa charged 18,000 startup. Now that we are familiar we can do it all except one step.which requires a licensed person. Depends a lot. I wouldnt trust a cpa with anything but being the companies laborer withreceipts and such. always do your own research and know the law. If just for restaraunt, it should be fairly straight forward, and no need for a ltd. But almost all serious restaraunts have both a small business and a company to play taxes better.
All the tax laws and acts are in english on the governments website, surprisingly convenient.
