Settling into the Ilha Formosa 🇹🇼

I’ve been spending a lot more time in Taiwan 🇹🇼 this year, for various reasons I wrote about previously. Although I don’t feel like I’ve fully settled in, as there’s a few items I haven’t taken care of (finding a permanent place, getting health insurance), there’s a number of other things I’ve figured out. This is Part 3 of a series on moving to Taiwan 🇹🇼 from Japan 🇯🇵. You can also read Part 1, moving out of Japan, and Part 2, getting permission to live in Taiwan.

But first, some Japan finance news and tech job opportunities!

Table of Contents

• Japan finance news

• Japan tech job opportunities

• Mobile Connectivity

  • Prepaid vs. Postpaid

  • Signing up

  • Carriers

    • Taiwan Mobile

    • Taiwan Mobile (台湾大哥大, táiwān dàgē dà)

    • Other Carriers

    • Roaming abroad on prepaid cards

• Banking

• Receipt Lottery

• Tourist Lottery

• Immigration e-Gates

• Convert to a Taiwanese Driver’s License

• Conclusions

Japan finance news

It was announced recently that LINE Pay services would be discontinued in Japan in April 2025, in favor of PayPay. LINE Pay and PayPay were brought under the joint management in 2019, allowing LINE Pay users to pay at PayPay supported stores. As the services are somewhat redundant, with PayPay having the lion’s share of the market and LINE Pay having a minority share, LINE Yahoo states that their focus will be on PayPay from now on. Users will be allowed to transfer their balance from LINE Pay to PayPay starting February 2025. This does not affect LINE Pay services in Taiwan or Thailand, where Line Yahoo does not have duplicate services. It was nice that I could use my LINE Pay Japan account to pay at supported stores in Taiwan and Thailand, hopefully there continues to be some form of support.

I found out recently that many American Express cards in Japan come with free luggage delivery from and to (depending on card) international airports. Only suitcases and golf bags are allowed, not cardboard boxes, and bags need to be 30 kg or under (25 kg for Yamato Transport in the case you are returning from Nagoya Chubu Airport). All cards support delivery to airports, and select cards support delivery from airports. It seems like Kansai International Airport and Nagoya Chubu Airport are supported with all cards, whereas the support for Haneda Airport (Terminal 3) and Narita Airport vary by card. Also, the number of bags, whether 1 or 2, also vary by card. The service provider is JAL ABC, besides for returning from Nagoya Chubu Airport. For full details, see the American Express campaign page.

Japan tech job opportunities

Sony AI is looking for a Senior Portfolio Manager. The position is global, so can be anywhere offices are, but preferably Tokyo. Japanese proficiency is not required, but is preferred. For more details, see the job listing.

foriio is an early stage startup providing portfolio services for creators. They are looking for both a full-time front-end developer (React, 3+ years of exp) as well as a full-time backend developer (RoR, 3+ yrs of exp) to join them at their office in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The positions are not on their jobs page, but you should be able to reach out directly.

Citadel AI is a startup based in Shibuya, Tokyo helping companies automatically test and monitor their AI systems. They are looking for a solutions engineer to help customers integrate. The position is partially remote. Japanese proficiency is required.

SmartNews is a news app with 20 million users across the US and Japan. They are looking for both Senior Machine Learning Engineers as well as Senior Software Engineers on various teams. The positions are fully remote. More details can be found on their jobs page.

Mobile Connectivity

Getting a mobile service is useful for various reasons, as even if you have roaming data service, many services will only take Taiwanese phone numbers.

eSIMs, such as Airalo (referral link) and Global YO (referral link, generally cheaper) offer convenient data as soon as you land, but generally don’t give you a real number or offer voice service. You need to show your passport to a shop to get an actual number and voice service.

For short term tourists, here’s an overview of the SIM options available in Taiwan. These are great because they generally offer unlimited 4G data (speed throttled after a certain amount of usage). However, for longer term stays in Taiwan, the tourist SIM cards expire after a set period and are generally not extendable. Furthermore, you can save money with longer term plans for residents, whether prepaid or postpaid.

Prepaid vs. Postpaid

Like many other places in the world, plans are separated into prepaid vs. postpaid plans. I’ve generally found that prepaid plans in Taiwan offer better prices, with the downside that you need to top up every once in a while (SIM cards are generally valid 6 months after the last top up. Top ups are fairly easy and can be done either online or in person at a local shop. Here’s a wiki for pre-paid SIM options in Taiwan. For all plans / packages, there usually are long running promotions adding bonus data in addition to the nominal data amount, so it’s good to check each carriers’ page for exact details.

Signing up

For foreigners, signing for any plan needs to be done in person, as even with an ARC, the carriers require seeing your passport. If you are a citizen with a Taiwanese ID and a Citizen Digital Certificate, then you may be able to sign up for service purely online.

Carriers

Chunghwa Telecom (中華電信, zhōnghuá diànxìn)

Chunghwa Telecom is generally considered to have the best coverage and speeds. However, I found that their plans are slightly more expensive. You can compare their pre-paid offerings and post-paid offerings.

Taiwan Mobile (台湾大哥大, táiwān dàgē dà)

I personally am with Taiwan Mobile on a prepaid plan and find their coverage good. You can see the costs for postpaid services and prepaid data packages.

I got a 5G prepaid card, but probably didn’t need it as it seems 4G speeds are great in Taiwan. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem allowed to change to a 4G prepaid plan later without canceling your current plan. Prepaid plans can be recharged online, in store, or within the Taiwan mobile app.

Other Carriers

There are some other carriers in Taiwan, like FarEastTone (遠傳電信, yuǎnchuán diànxìn). You can check their postpaid and prepaid plans. Another popular choice amongst expats was Circles.Life, but unfortunately they are shutting down in July 2024.

Roaming abroad on prepaid cards

With my Taiwan Mobile prepaid card, I wasn’t getting any network connection abroad, thus I was not receiving calls or text messages. This was a problem when trying to do 2 factor authentication for services. However, if you enable WiFi calling, you should be able to receive both! This should work for other prepaid cards as well!

Banking

Although you can operate in Taiwan with cash most of the time, it’s useful to have a bank account when actually living here, for things like paying rent, paying and receiving money from others, and using various apps and services.

However, there are frequent complaints from expats and locals alike about the banking system being archaic, whether poorly designed websites and apps, or poor English support. There are some banks that don’t support foreign residents.

If you have a Gold Card, there are a number of banks that are official Taiwan Gold Card partners, making it smooth for holders to open accounts.

I started a crowdsourced spreadsheet of banks and how foreigner friendly they are. It can definitely use more data points, so if you have any updated info, please leave a comment!

My personal choice for now is using a HSBC Premier account based in the US to get HSBC (滙豐銀行) Premier status in Taiwan. HSBC Premier in Taiwan gets you free interbank transfers, and free ATM withdrawals at any ATM in Taiwan, and no additional fee from HSBC for ATM withdrawals abroad. Unfortunately, getting HSBC Premier normally requires holding 3 million NTD in your account, which I find a waste as there are better investment opportunities than just holding cash in your bank account, and not everyone is ready to invest that much money in the Taiwanese market. You can see more details about the US HSBC Premier account as well the Taiwan HSBC Premier account on the HSBC official website.

So instead, I set up a US HSBC Premier account, which requires $75,000 USD of assets, but those can be investments transferred from other brokerages. If you are from a different country and have enough assets there, this strategy can also work if HSBC has operations in your country. Another benefit of having HSBC Premier is that you can match that status to HSBC accounts across the globe. Furthermore, you get instant money transfers globally - normally when sending money to Taiwan you need to send it as a supported currency (Taiwan Dollars are generally not a supported foreign transfer currency). Then the bank holds up the money as they contact you to provide supporting information about the source and purposes of the money. Instead of that hassle, I can instantly send almost any amount of USD I want to my HSBC Taiwan account, then convert it to NTD as needed. I have found the exchange rates at HSBC to be decent, usually only 0.03-0.04 NTD per USD below the market rate.

You can sign up for a US HSBC Premier at https://us.hsbc.com/refer with promotion code S013376008 and name Michael Wu so that you and I both get $300 upon fulfilling the Premier requirements. This current referral campaign only lasts until June 26, 2024, so hurry, though it is likely that the campaign will be renewed.

The downsides of HSBC is that they aren’t really a Taiwanese bank, and they don’t work for most apps and services. Thus I am now looking into getting a bank account at a local Taiwanese bank, most likely MegaBank (兆豐銀行) or E.Sun Bank (玉山銀行), or a digital account like Richart. The downsides of a normal bank account is that transfers outside the bank usually aren’t free until you put a significant amount of money into the account, but they do tend to work with the various apps and services like EasyWallet (悠遊付) and JKOPay (街口支付). The benefits of the digital accounts is that operation is mostly online, but not all of them are available for foreigners, and they may not work with the various apps and services. That’s why I started the crowdsourced spreadsheet of banks above.

Receipt Lottery

If you haven’t been exposed to the receipt lottery system, it’s a system that awards monetary prizes to consumers if the purchase was registered through an official receipt (發票, fāpiào). Here’s a great blog post explaining it in detail.

Tourist Lottery

Taiwan is running a tourist lottery until June 30, 2025, giving 5000 NTD as a prize for lucky visitors that can be spent on accommodations, dining, and shopping. Even as a foreign resident, if your trip to Taiwan is between 3 to 90 days, you can still win. All the lottery staff care about is that you are a foreigner and your trip is within that duration, verified by your outbound flight.

Apparently you can still use the e-Gates as they only check your passport and flight out, and don’t look at the stamp on your passport.

Immigration e-Gates

As a Taiwanese resident with an ARC, you can register for the immigration e-Gates to speed up your entry and exit from Taiwan. The registration counters are at the arrival and departure halls of major international airports and ports, as well as immigration service agencies. The process is fast, free and easy. As one trick, I have found that the upgraded e-Gates work much more reliably than the older e-Gates; often the older ones won’t recognize my ARC at all.

United States, Australian, German, Korean, Italian, and Singaporean citizens can also register for the e-Gates as a non-resident. Further details can be found on the immigration website.

Convert to a Taiwanese Driver’s License

If you’re actually going to be spending significant time in Taiwan and want to rent cars or motorcycles, it’s worth it to convert your license to a Taiwanese license. I personally have been using my Japanese license along with a Chinese translation, which is legal to drive in Taiwan with, but I keep hitting issues where rental places don’t take that.

To convert your driver’s license to a Taiwanese one, you need the following:

1. Identity documents (original and photocopy). For Taiwanese nationals moving back from abroad, this is your national ID or military ID. For foreigners, this is your ARC assuming you have a period of stay of over 6 months.

2. Three one-inch color photos taken within the past 2 years.

3. Passport and photocopy.

4. Valid foreign driving license and photocopy (this needs to be verified by the foreign Taiwan consular mission).

5. The application form.

6. Health examination results. Apparently this takes 5 minutes and $200 NTD, and you can get the results same day. It’s possible that this is the same examination for APRC and obtaining household registration as an NWOHR, but I’m not certain.

7. Proof of entry/exit record (like a stamp on your passport)

If transmission type is not specified, then you automatically get permission to drive automatic and manual transmission cars. To get permission to drive motorcycles, you need that permission on your foreign driver’s license. You can see details on the official Highway Bureau page.

Conclusions

Settling into Taiwan and figuring out life here (besides June to September, way too hot!) has been an interesting process, full of new discoveries. I’ll be continuing to write about my learnings as I go along. For any questions, you can always reach out [email protected]. Remember, you can also support this publication by becoming a paid subscriber or a Patreon!