A law aimed at expanding the recruitment of foreign talent by relaxing the requirements for them to work in Taiwan came into effect yesterday. 

The amendment to the ‘Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professional Talent’, a bid to attract and retain more foreign white-collar workers in the country, was passed in June 2021 and approved by the Executive Yuan, coming into force Monday, according to Taiwan News.

“The amended provisions of the Act lay a more complete legal framework for our country’s talent recruitment, ensuring that more of the world’s prime talent will be able to come to and stay in Taiwan,” the law states.

The main points of the amendment are as follows:

1. Increasing flexibility for the recognition of foreign special professionals: A provision was added for a mechanism to enable recognition by the Competent Authority (the National Development Council) in consultation with the central competent authorities concerned, so that the world’s new forms of industry and cross-field talent can be brought within the sweep of recruitment.
2. Vying for graduates of the world’s top universities to come to work in Taiwan: Eligibility for graduates of the world’s top universities, (according to the Ministry of Education), to engage in specialised or technical work in Taiwan, is relaxed by removal of the two years’ work experience requirement.
3. Loosening regulations for foreign nationals’ permanent residency applications: The period of continuous residence in Taiwan required for foreign special professionals to apply for permanent residency is reduced from five years to three, further discounted by one year for those who have obtained a doctoral degree in Taiwan.  Also, while foreign professionals (ordinary, not considered ‘special professionals’ under the law) are still required to have resided continuously in Taiwan for five years before they can apply for permanent residency, that period can be discounted by one or two years, respectively, for those who have obtained a master’s or doctoral degree in Taiwan.
4. Enhancing tax preference and social security measures: The time limit on the tax preference for foreign special professionals is extended from three years to five; and foreign special and senior professionals who are employers or self-employed business owners, together with their dependent relatives, are exempted from having to wait six months to join the National Health Insurance system.

“To go in concert with the implementation of this amended law, the NDC has worked with the authorities concerned to amend related regulations, administrative rules and supporting measures, so that foreign professionals and their dependent relatives can utilise these long-awaited changes to the law as early as possible, and to ensure that the Foreign Professionals Act can secure optimum spillover effects, enhancing the retention of key global talent, invigorating Taiwan’s talent pool, and bringing qualitative change, growth, and transformation into Taiwan’s industries,” the law stated.