NDC's Amendments for "Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals" get approved to further support foreign talents to work in Taiwan
Legislative Yuan approved the draft Amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals drawn up by National Development Council (NDC) on 18th June 2021. The Amendments will extend the scope of foreign professionals, easing provisions concerning independent and dependent residency, and optimizing social protection and tax concession.
To attract more foreign talents to come to Taiwan, NDC has enacted varieties of regulations including the Taiwan Employment Gold Card Program and Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals, which let international workers can obtain the entrepreneur visa and stay in Taiwan easily.
Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals, enacted by NDC in February 2018, has gained a stellar record. As of March 2021, NDC already issued 2,447 Employment Gold Cards, as well as helped hire 1,883 "foreign professionals" and "special professionals", which means totally the act has attracted 4,330 international talents, including entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley, to work and develop new business in Taiwan. NDC also establish an inter-agency special task force to further attract foreign workers, and they target to attract over 10,000 foreign professionals to come to Taiwan.
This June, The Legislative Yuan has approved the Amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals. The Amendments will extend the scope of foreign professionals, easing provisions concerning independent and dependent residency, and optimizing social protection and tax concession.
The Amendments aim to build a more complete legal framework for recruiting talents, so more international talents can "get in" and "stay". NDC's mission is to make Taiwan a talent hub of the Asia-Pacific region.
To ensure that foreign professionals meet certain qualifications, the Amendments relax regulations on work, residence, and dependency, and optimizing social protection without reducing the salary threshold. The main points of the amendments are as follows:
Extending the scope of foreign professionals:
Adding the field of national defense to the expertise of "foreign special professional"; building the consultation mechanism of the competent authority on examining the expertise of “foreign special professional”; allowing the "Special Classes for Children of Foreign Talents" approved by the Ministry of Education to hire foreign subject teachers; adding teachers of experimental education to the scope to foreign professionals; exempting graduates of the world's top universities announced by the Ministry of Education from being required to have at least 2 years' work experience as a prerequisite for taking up specialized or technical work.
Easing of provisions concerning independent and dependent residency:
Allowing foreign professionals and foreign special professionals who enter the country with a visa exemption or visitor visa, and their dependent relatives, to apply for an Alien Residence Certificate without needing to apply for a resident visa; easing the conditions for foreign professionals to obtain permanent residency by shortening the requisite duration of residence from 5 years to 3 years for foreign special professionals, and allowing 1 to 2 years spent at school in Taiwan obtaining advanced degrees of master's level and above to be counted toward fulfilling the requisite duration of continuous residence.
Optimizing social protection and tax concession:
Extending from 3 years to 5 years the period in which foreign special professionals can utilize the tax concession bestowed on them by this Act; relaxing the law to provide for foreign special professionals and foreign senior professionals who meet the criteria for being insured as employers or self-employed business owners, together with their dependent relatives, to join the National Healthcare Insurance system without waiting for six months.
NDC will cooperate with related ministries to complete relevant regulations and measures as soon as possible, and report to the Executive Yuan for designating the implementation date, so foreign professionals and their relatives can apply this Act before long.
In addition to amending the Act, NDC will continue to promote the global recruitment action targeting talents of the 5+2 and Six Core Strategic Industries, and establish policy coordination mechanism to address issues related to Employment Gold Card applications, settling in Taiwan, job matching, starting a business.
