It has been a long time since we lived in Taiwan; we lived there from 1998-2010. Now that we are very close to pulling the pin and moving (details about that later), we are trying to figure out our banking and finances before we go.
When we lived in Taiwan previously, using foreign bank issued credit cards at grocery stores (Welcome, Carrefour, even Costco) was very touch and go, and often not possible.
What is the situation these days? Do most major grocery stores accept foreign credit cards?
How about Costco? I remember reading that in Taiwan they only accept the Taiwan Costco Credit Card?
visa and Mastercard are fine, you can also connect them to apple pay or google pay and then pay with your phone in most places.
Amex is not as widely accepted, but if they do accept amex, foreign amex works fine.
I pretty much exclusively pay with a foreign debit or credit card, if cards are accepted at all. The only places where I have issues are PX Mart, Carrefour, FamilyMart, Pizza Hut and KFC.
to be fair, these are a handful of the biggest banks in TW: fubon, cathay, esun, first bank…total of 8 or 10 banks. much more customer friendly now compared to before.
Carrefour would be a major issue for us if foreign cards are not accepted there. Didn’t Carrefour buy out Welcome, and are now the major grocery store on the island?
I used a foreign credit card at a Carrefour hypermarket 8 years ago and it worked without problems. Haven’t tried since then and don’t know if it works in the smaller ex-Wellcome supermarkets.
We will be in Taiwan for a couple of months checking out some different locations to live, and then hopefully be working after Chinese New Year. Once I get my ARC and some earning history under my belt, I will apply for sure.
That explains it then. We have a very different scenario with having to cook for our son, who has specific dietary needs. Grocery shopping is not optional.
You can just pay cash at the grocery store. There are tons of places that don’t even accept cards in Taiwan, so you’ll likely still need to run to the ATM often anyway.
I have the investor checking account with the American bank Charles Schwab, which has zero foreign transaction fees. They also reimburse all ATM fees. If you’re moving here from the US, I’d recommend opening an account with them.
Yeah but minimum account opening is US$25k. Covered that in another thread when poster NZ was questioning what experience I had with transferring funds to the USA.
At Carrefour, department store grocery stores and independent small grocery stores (that have a credit card reader), using a US visa card is fine for me.
Unless something has changed, you should be able to use a Citi Costco branded card at Taiwan costco in-store. But you might shoot them a message online to double check. On costco.com.tw you can use the Citi Costco credit card for online shopping as it is listed as one of the accepted forms of payment.
If you are staying in Taiwan long term, then using Citi Costco card would not be practical as any annual cashback bonus that you get, you cannot use in Taiwan.
