Plan contractor hiring in Taiwan

Engage a Taiwan contractor in the identity under which they actually provide the service, agree the fee and payment dates, and establish which document they will issue. Taiwan draws an important distinction between an individual providing professional services and a business selling services. Personal professional activity falls outside business-tax sales. A business providing services used abroad may instead qualify for zero-rated sales and an exemption from issuing a Government Uniform Invoice. Those are different reasons for receiving a document without business tax. Ask the supplier to identify the reason at onboarding, before your accounts team builds a uniform-invoice requirement into every payment.

Sources: Business Tax Act, Regulations Governing Uniform Invoices

執行業務收入憑證

Professional income receipt or voucher

The professional practitioner issues this receipt or voucher to the customer and keeps a corresponding copy. It is the supplier's record of professional income, with its own numbering and required contents. A professional receipt can therefore be the correct document even when the person does not issue a Government Uniform Invoice for that activity. Agree how the supplier will send the final receipt and how your team will match it to the fee paid. The rules also recognize electronically transmitted original vouchers, which the practitioner stores electronically.

Issued by: The professional practitioner, to the customer.

Timing: Issued for professional income, with a copy retained by the practitioner.

Sources: MOF professional practitioners' accounting and vouchers rules, Business Tax Act

外匯證明文件

Foreign-exchange receipt evidence

Foreign-exchange receipt evidence supports the supplier's zero-rated business-tax filing for qualifying export services. Where foreign currency is converted or deposited with a government-designated bank, the evidence is the foreign-exchange document that bank issues. Where it is neither converted nor deposited there, the rules accept a copy of the original foreign-exchange income receipt. This is why the contractor may need to match your payment to the service order after the money arrives. Keep the invoice reference and the paying customer's identity clear so the supplier can connect the payment with the transaction being reported.

Issued by: The designated bank, or the issuer of the original foreign-exchange receipt in the alternative case.

Timing: Obtained from the receipt of funds and used by the supplier to support zero-rated sales.

Sources: Business Tax Act Enforcement Rules

A business-tax invoice for services provided in Taiwan can qualify for a zero rate when the services are used abroad or relate to exports. The customer's overseas address is only one transaction fact; it does not replace the use condition. Describe what the contractor supplies and where the customer will use it, and keep that description consistent with the service order. The supplier then has to support the qualifying sale and its foreign-currency receipt. Personal professional services have a separate exclusion from business-tax sales, so confirm that first before asking an individual to describe every untaxed receipt as an export invoice.

Sources: Business Tax Act, Business Tax Act Enforcement Rules

What an invoice has to show

• The practitioner's uniform number on a numbered professional income voucher

  The professional voucher must identify the practice, its address and uniform number, alongside the date, customer name, fee items, amounts and total. This is the professional-income document's own content rule. It asks for the customer's name and does not turn an offshore customer into a Taiwan-registered business. Match the practice identity to onboarding and return a voucher for correction when the stated supplier or service differs from the contracted work.

  Sources: MOF professional practitioners' accounting and vouchers rules

• The correct Government Uniform Invoice status, including the export-service issuing exception

  Qualifying export services can be exempt from issuing a 統一發票, or Government Uniform Invoice. A request for a commercial bill without a GUI is therefore compatible with Taiwan's issuing rules when that exception applies. If the supplier does issue a GUI, its taxable, zero-rated and exempt sales must be distinguished as prescribed. Agree the expected document type before the first payment, including whether the supplier will issue an electronic uniform invoice. The existence of e-GUI does not remove the statutory export-service exception.

  Sources: Regulations Governing Uniform Invoices, MOF export-service invoice and conversion guidance

Agree payment dates expressly: Taiwan's contractual defaults distinguish delivery of a completed work from the end of a remunerated mandate. Where Taiwan law governs, a work contract pays on delivery, or completion when no delivery is needed; separately priced parts are payable as each part is delivered. For a remunerated mandate, the default claim follows termination and a clear final report unless the contract provides otherwise. Recurring advisory work therefore benefits from explicit periodic payment terms. The governing-law clause matters in a cross-border agreement, since Taiwan's conflict rules respect party choice and otherwise look to the closest connection.

Sources: Civil Code work and mandate contracts, Act Governing the Choice of Law in Civil Matters Involving Foreign Elements

The currency on the invoice

The parties can specify a foreign-currency fee, and a Taiwan-law contract should say expressly whether payment must be in that currency. Civil Code Article 202 otherwise allows a foreign-currency debt to be discharged in Taiwan currency at the market value at the time and place of payment. Separately, the supplier reports qualifying export-service sales using the receiving bank's foreign-currency buying rate on the receipt date. That accounting conversion does not rewrite the agreed fee. Record the payment currency in the contract so the supplier's Taiwan-dollar reporting figure is not mistaken for a revised amount due.

Sources: Civil Code foreign-currency obligations, MOF export-service invoice and conversion guidance

Local currency rules

The Taiwan recipient handles the local foreign-exchange declaration, with a reporting trigger at NT$500,000 equivalent for covered foreign-exchange receipts or transactions. When converting into Taiwan dollars, the recipient declares through its bank using the underlying transaction records. For a single conversion exceeding US$500,000 by an individual or US$1 million by a company or sole-proprietorship firm (行號), the bank must check supporting documents against the declaration before processing it; other document requirements can apply below those amounts. These are recipient and bank steps. Send accurate payer and invoice details, and allow the contractor to answer the bank's transaction questions before treating a conversion delay as a missing payment.

Sources: Central Bank foreign-exchange declaration regulations

Treating a foreign customer's payment as tax-free personal income

Work physically performed in Taiwan produces Taiwan-source personal service income even when the customer pays from abroad. The income category can be professional income or other service income according to the actual arrangement. Business-tax exclusion for professional services and zero rating for qualifying export sales answer different questions from the individual's income-tax liability. Keep the fee and supporting records complete, including receipts received from a professional who charges no business tax. A zero-tax document describes the transaction's business-tax position; it does not establish that the individual has no income to report.

Sources: MOF Taiwan-source income recognition principles, Business Tax Act

Assuming every supplier below NT$200,000 a month can avoid uniform invoices

The tax authority can require uniform invoices based on the business's nature, sector or scale even when a turnover shorthand suggests small-business treatment. The NT$200,000 monthly figure therefore needs the supplier's actual assessed status alongside it. Ask for that status when a business explains why it sends ordinary receipts. Then consider the transaction-specific export-service exception separately: a business that uses uniform invoices for other sales can still have a qualifying export service for which issuance is waived. This prevents a domestic turnover rule from becoming an automatic rejection rule for your cross-border bill.

Sources: Government business taxation guide, Regulations Governing Uniform Invoices