Where to live in Taiwan
We track one city in Taiwan: Taipei. It averages 23°C over the year. We estimate a couple needs €3,362 a month to live centrally. Taiwan sits in our low to medium tax tier. For foreigners, long-term residency is possible, with conditions.
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- Tax tier
- Low to medium
- Moderate personal income tax
- Languages
- Mandarin
- Some English
- Safety
- 82/100
- country-level
- Healthcare
- 86/100
- country-level
- Internet
- ~170 Mbps
- median fixed broadband
The city we track
| City | Size | Setting | Avg temp | Rain a year | Est. cost a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taipei | major | coastal | 23°C | 2,734 mm | €3,362 |
Source: City size from GeoNames, temperature from the Open-Meteo archive (2019 to 2023 averages), rainfall from TerraClimate (1991 to 2020 normals), coast distance from Natural Earth. Cost is our model estimate for a couple living centrally.
Taxes
Taiwan sits in our low to medium tax tier: moderate personal income tax. The tier applies to every city here, and couples who cap tax below it will not see these cities in their results.
Source: OurNextCity tax tiers, assigned by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation, with no fixed rate cut-offs. Coarse by design; not tax advice.
Residency and visas
Possible, with conditions. Realistic long-term routes are the Employment Gold Card for skilled professionals or high earners (open work, no sponsor needed) and the investment resident visa; Taiwan has no passive-income or retirement visa, and permanent residency (APRC) generally requires five years of residence.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Taiwan:
- Income: about $5,100 a month (Taiwan Employment Gold Card salary criterion, NT$160,000/mo before tax (USD/TWD ~31.35); as of June 2026)
- Investment: about $200k (Taiwan Resident Visa for Investment, USD 200,000 minimum capital (approx NT$6 million); as of June 2026)
For short visits, 67 of 198 passports can enter visa-free, 24 can get an e-visa or visa on arrival and 107 need a visa in advance.
Source: OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed approximations researched against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. Not legal advice: check the official source before you apply. Short-stay entry from the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT).