I would think this is by design. The person that has earned that amount or above, has the money to migrate, and likely has the contacts abroad to continue earning a similar amount of income, or has a business they can continue to run.
The recent approved amendments to the Foreign Talent Act will see the permanent residency article re-numbered to 18 and also āā¦may apply to the NIA for permanent residency if they meet one of the following circumstances:
- Having legally and continuously resided in the State for three years, residing for an average of 183 days or more each year.
- Meeting certain conditions announced by the Ministry of the Interior, and having legally resided in the State for one year, residing for 183 days or more.ā
Those conditions for the second point to apply after 1 year are now available for public feedback:
Translation:
Title: Draft Criteria for the Certain Conditions Required for Foreign Specialist Professionals to Apply for Permanent Residence
Article: The ācertain conditionsā referred to in Article 18, Paragraph 3, Subparagraph 2 of the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals mean that a foreign specialist professional must have domestic salary income and income from the performance of professional services in the most recent year totaling NTD 6 million or more.
Explanation: Starting in 2024, Japan has implemented the Special Highly Skilled Professional Program (J-Skip), which grants foreign nationals who meet specified requirements in terms of academic/professional background and annual income eligibility for permanent residence in Japan.
In order to expand Taiwanās efforts to compete globally for talent and to attract skilled professionals, reference is made to the annual income tiers under Japanās J-Skip program (20 million yen and 40 million yen, approximately NT$4 million and NT$8 million). A compromise threshold of NT$6 million is therefore adopted as the ācertain conditionā for foreign specialist professionals applying for permanent residence.
At the same time, considering that the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals is intended to attract foreign specialist professionals to Taiwan to engage in specific professional fields and to address domestic talent and technology shortages, the relevant income is, in principle, limited to domestic salary income and income from the performance of professional services in the most recent year.
Extremely useless: If one earns NTD 6 million in local salary per year, they would be stupid to change their Gold Card into an APRC before expiration and thus lose the Gold Card tax benefitā¦
reads as if they thought āJapan is doing it! Quick letās copy!ā
I did check the law on this to see if it was considered but it remains unchanged, I think there could be enough language in there for the Ministry of Finance to allow it though historically itās been unclear if a GC holder moving to APRC could still use the benefits.
if a foreign specialist professional who has no household registration in the State, who is approved to reside in the State for the purpose of work for the first time, and who meets specified conditions, engages in professional work, or has obtained an Employment Gold Card under Article 9 and during the term of the Employment Gold Card is employed to engage in professional work, then for five years counting from the tax year in which they first meet the conditions of residing in the State for 183 full days of the year and have a salary income of more than three million NT dollars, half of the part of their salary income above three million NT dollars in each such tax year in which they reside in the State for 183 full days will be excluded from the assessment of individual income tax, and paragraph 1, subparagraph 1 of Article 12 of the Income Basic Tax Act do not apply.
Regulations on the specified conditions referred to in the preceding paragraph, the procedure for seeking application, the requisite documentary proof, and other relevant matters shall be prescribed by the Ministry of Finance in consultation with related authorities.
Yeah, nothing Iād recommend anyone to risk for a >$500k difference in taxes owedā¦ 
Japan is not exactly known for being.. foreigner friendly especially lately, Iām surprised theyāre being used for reference. Japan is proposing changes to make PR harder to attain and easier to revoke.
Iām not being surprised at all.
Two notable changes seem to be that they will require language proficiency for attaining PR - and want to make it possible to revoke PR if certain ācivil dutiesā (such as paying taxes) are not being followed.
Letās see if Taiwanese legislators will also pick up on those changes or notā¦
I am an American at the passport submission step and Iām leaving for Taiwan in January. Iām not going to mail my passport and the nearest TECO is 4 hour drive.
Do I have to only go there twice to show my passport and then a different day to pick it up?
Is it better for me to just go to Taiwan on the 90 day visa free and skip the passport verification. But if I did that how long would I have to wait to finally get it?
My understanding is times vary by TECO so calling in advance is best and state itās a 4 hour drive.
There may be a way to switch to a domestic application on application portal but you might need an address and local number.
When I did my application the closest TECO was a 5 hour flight away, they agreed to inspect my passport by courrier/mail.
I was in the same situation ā 3 hour drive to the nearest TECO, and didnāt want to mail my passport. So I just entered Taiwan visa-free and fronted up at the immigration office in Taipei.
Turns out you need to go on the Gold Card portal and find the link to change from a pickup abroad to a pickup in Taiwan. This is true even if you are in Taiwan in the office standing right in front of them. No, they ācanāt change thatā in their system. They tell you to do it on your phone, which is fine if it works. Mine wouldnāt, no matter who tried. And just FWIW, the computers supplied in the Taipei office lobby do not work to do this. Not quite sure what they are doing there if they wonāt even go on a government web site, but whatever. The link is not very obvious, but if you have a lot of time, you can always go to the office in Taiwan and have them find it for you if you canāt. (You might be able to, just saying. I just tried to login and my account doesnāt work anymore, so unfortunately I canāt give links or screenshots).
CALL the helpline, donāt put it off if you have a problem. The guy there is a native English speaker and heās competent. Very competent.
The people in the office will tell you to do it on your phone, and if (when) that doesnāt work, youāre told to āgo home and use your computerā. In October, I had not brought my computer to Taiwan (first time ever, too!) so I had to argue, and in the end, after an hour or two, they got an engineer to come down from āupstairsā somewhere and mess with the web site on my phone. He eventually got it to admit I was in fact in Taiwan, but when the girl at the counter and I both asked him how heād done it and what had been wrong, he said he didnāt have any idea. Anyway I took the win and got the card a couple of days later.
I took the wait and the runaround and the poor logic as being nostalgia for the Taipei of bygone times where you couldnāt pick up an ARC unless you had the number stub from the take-a-turn machine from the time you put in the application a week or more before. Or messing around getting exit permits. Good times.
ALSO ā fwiw ā when you exit Taiwan, they will treat you as though you were in Taiwan on the Gold Card, and youāll need to show that to immigration when leaving. I hadnāt offered it as I assumed I entered visa-free so I was leaving the same way, but it wasnāt the case. Not a big deal, just a little confusing at the moment.
Anecdotal data point: When I applied for my APRC after gold card, some government agency told me something like āthe APRC looks like any other, but in the system is flagged as gold card - gold card benefits will still applyā.
Is the 1 year to APRC for the new Global Elite Cardā¦ and not the Gold Card? Or is it for both?
My understanding is: there is no āglobal elite cardā like the gold card or plum blossom card.
But rather, gold card holders with NT$6 million domestic Taiwan income are eligible to apply for APRC after 1 year.
Or was this change part of launching the proposed Global Elite Card, both were to be classified as foreign special professionals.
Or did it get shelved and replaced with the same income amount but domestic income only and within the gold card regime?
this
Possible that this only applies to NIA - the tax authorities often have their own interpretation of things (just like with residencyā¦).
Yeah I would say NIA would only be speaking for benefits related to immigration and the law has the wording for those benefits that they are carried over to APRC, āWhere a foreign specialist professional or foreign senior professional has been approved for residence or permanent residence by the NIA, their lineal ascendants may apply to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or one of its overseas missions for a visitor visaā¦ā.
If any spouse or adult child of a Gold Card holder wants an open-work permit then submit the following application form to the WDA (Workforce Development Agency). Instructions are in the Guidance Notes: