Opening in Taiwan: Qualify the New Entity, Then the Chef

For a Taiwan opening, the first bottleneck usually is not the work permit itself but whether your newly formed Taiwan entity can be an employer at all. The standard test is NT$10 million or more in revenue (latest year, or a 3 year average), which a brand-new company cannot meet. Companies under one year old have an alternative test instead: NT$5 million or more in paid-in capital. Set the capital at that level when you form the entity, and you can sponsor from opening year one. This page covers that employer test, how to run the kitchen while the permit is pending, and the social insurance and tax split between a secondee and a local hire.

1. Who can be the employer: the new-entity shortcut

Cook is a recognised category of specialised foreign work in Taiwan's food service sector. But the sponsoring company has to qualify, and a company one year or older must show NT$10 million or more in revenue (latest year, or the average of the past three years). A restaurant that has not opened yet has no such track record.

The alternative that matters for an opening is the test for companies under one year old: NT$5 million or more in paid-in capital, with no revenue history required. Set your entity's capital at that level at the design stage and you avoid the trap of "wait a year before you can bring in a head chef." If you do not want to hold capital at that level, or want to use a route via a hotel or tourism licence instead, the fuller qualification flowchart is in the English guide's decision table, which also covers using an established group company as the employer for a joint venture or franchise opening.

2. Backward schedule for an opening team

Taiwan has no Singapore- or Hong Kong-style rule where local headcount already on payroll gates how many staff you can import. The bottleneck is the sponsoring company's own qualification and the chef's evidence file. Working backward from opening day looks like this.

Fees and statutory steps follow official sources; the week counts are a planning allowance, not a published processing time. Total first-year cost for one hire and a more detailed week-by-week schedule are in the English guide. When sending more than one person from Japan, hold this lead time for each of them separately, and confirm at the start of your backward count that the sponsoring entity will still meet its qualification test on the day each chef is due to arrive.

3. Running the kitchen before the permit clears

If the entity is capitalised at NT$5 million or more from the start, the wait is largely just the permit process itself, roughly 3 to 4 months. Even so, opening day and the head chef's arrival date will not always land on the same day. If you want to open sooner, or choose not to hold capital at that level, here is how to staff the kitchen in the meantime.

• Build a Taiwanese-staff-led kitchen first. Taiwan has roughly 7,100 Japanese restaurants (2025), a very large market relative to its resident Japanese population. Taiwanese cooks with washoku experience do exist; a workable pattern is to open with a Taiwanese-led kitchen and have the head chef refine technique after arrival.
• Use working holiday makers as a bridge. The Japan-Taiwan working holiday scheme has a large annual quota of 10,000, a realistic way to bring in junior kitchen or floor staff on a fixed-term basis. Treat them as a bridge to the head chef's arrival, not a permanent solution.
• Do not let the sponsored chef work before the permit is issued. Paid work inside Taiwan before the permit is issued is not allowed. Either set opening day after the permit is expected to clear, or work your opening date backward from your best estimate of when it will.

4. Secondee vs. local hire: social insurance and tax

Who you second and who you hire locally is a separate decision from the work permit requirements. The application itself does not change either way, but social insurance and tax treatment do.

• Social insurance: a foreign national holding a work permit is covered by Labour Insurance and National Health Insurance (NHI). Labor pension (6%) applies only if the employee is married to a Taiwanese national or permanent resident. The Japan Pension Service lists no social security agreement in force between Japan and Taiwan as of 2 March 2026, so pension contributions cannot be coordinated between the two systems. Keeping a secondee enrolled in Japan's health insurance and pension on top of Taiwan's Labour Insurance and NHI means the company carries both, and how much of that double cost to accept is a judgment call against the benefit of protecting the employee's Japanese pension record.
• Tax: someone present in Taiwan 183 days or more in a year is generally treated as a tax resident there. On the Japan side, an employee posted abroad for a year or more is usually treated as a non-resident for Japanese income tax. Whether pay is run through Japan or through Taiwan changes the outcome, so confirm the specifics with tax advisers in both countries.
• The practical dividing line: a head chef you plan to repatriate and redeploy to another location is usually the secondee; a cook you want to keep in Taiwan long-term is usually the local hire. Either way the work permit application itself does not change, but decide the contract and HR treatment at the entity design stage.

5. Local talent in Taipei

Japanese nationals resident in Taiwan number 21,755 nationwide and 9,693 in Taipei alone (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1 October 2025). The share who are permanent residents is high by regional standards, and some long-term residents do have restaurant experience, but always confirm that a candidate's own residency status permits them to work before hiring. Local Taipei pay levels, and the gap between the work-permit pay floor (NT$47,971 a month) and minimum wage, are covered in detail on the Taipei page.

6. Checklist

• Will the sponsoring entity meet the revenue test (NT$10 million), or is it under one year old and capitalised at NT$5 million or more?
• Has the head chef's Article 5 criterion (experience, credentials, evidence) been decided, with evidence-gathering starting 3 to 4 months before arrival?
• Is opening day worked backward on the assumption that the chef cannot work before the permit is issued?
• Is there a plan to run the kitchen on Taiwanese staff and working holiday makers while the permit is pending?
• Have secondees and local hires been provisionally split, with social insurance and tax treatment checked for each?

This article is general information, not legal, tax or immigration advice. Figures were checked as of September 2026. Confirm your specific case with a Taiwan-side professional and a tax adviser on the Japan side.