Sending money from Taiwan for a property purchase: the published thresholds, on both ends of the wire.

Does Taiwan allow a resident to send money abroad to buy property?

Nothing in the foreign exchange declaration regulations prohibits it. Taiwan operates a declaration system rather than a ban: transactions are declared at a threshold, larger single remittances have their documents checked by the bank, and an annual aggregate above a set figure needs central bank approval.

The governing text is the Regulations Governing the Declaration of Foreign Exchange Receipts and Disbursements or Transactions, amended on 26 December 2022 and in force from 1 January 2023. It sets out who declares, at what level, and where approval is needed. It does not set out a prohibition on buying property abroad.

What follows is the structure of those rules. Whether any particular person can complete any particular transfer, on their own circumstances, residence and source of funds, is a question for their own bank and a qualified adviser. This page does not answer it and does not attempt to.

What is the NT$500,000 declaration threshold?

Article 2 of the regulations applies the declaration duty to a person in Taiwan who possesses or needs foreign exchange with a value equal to or over NT$500,000. Above that level the transaction is declared to the bank handling it, on the prescribed declaration statement.

Two practical notes follow from the wording rather than from anything added here.

• The threshold is expressed in New Taiwan dollars and applies by value, so it catches ordinary property-sized amounts several times over.
• The declaration is made through the bank, which means the bank's own documentation requirements sit alongside the regulation rather than instead of it.

Ask your own bank what it needs, in writing, before you agree to any dates in a contract abroad.

What are the USD 500,000 and USD 5 million figures?

Two different things. Article 5 requires supporting documents to be checked by the bank on a single remittance by an individual exceeding the equivalent of USD 500,000. Article 4 sets an individual's annual aggregate settlement amount at up to the equivalent of USD 5 million on direct declaration, and Article 6 puts remittances above that aggregate on the approval route.

Note that the annual aggregate is an aggregate. It runs on the total an individual purchases or sells across the year, not on any single wire, so the shape of a payment schedule does not change which rules apply to a purchase. Read your own contract against all three lines above before you sign it, and ask your own bank which of them your payments will meet.

How is overseas property income taxed at home in Taiwan?

Through the Income Basic Tax Act rather than the ordinary income tax. Income from sources outside Taiwan is brought into basic income once the aggregate for a filing unit reaches NT$1 million in a year. Rent from a property abroad and a gain on selling it are overseas income for that purpose.

The mechanism, as the National Taxation Bureau of Taipei and the Ministry of Finance publish it:

• Overseas income below NT$1 million for the filing unit in a year may be excluded from basic income.
• The basic tax is worked out by subtracting the deduction, NT$7,500,000 for an individual, from the basic income amount, and applying a rate of 20 percent to the remainder.
• The Ministry of Finance announced that the amounts set for 2025 remain in effect for 2026, because the relevant average consumer price index movement did not meet the adjustment condition.

How foreign tax already paid interacts with the basic tax was not researched for this page, and it is a question for a Taiwanese tax adviser on your own facts. So is whether your own filing unit's other items push the basic income calculation past the deduction.

What does the destination ask at the receiving end?

It varies, and in one case it decides whether the title can be registered at all. Thailand will not register a condominium unit to a foreign buyer on freehold title without evidence that foreign currency of not less than the price came in from abroad for that buyer. Other markets test the money at the exit instead.

The one to internalise is Thailand's, because it is the only one on that list where the paperwork on the money is a condition of owning the asset. The document in full: the Thailand FET certificate, explained.

What should a Taiwanese buyer settle before signing abroad?

Four questions, answered in writing before a deposit moves. Can the full amount lawfully leave on my own facts. Can it arrive as a payment from me. Can it arrive by the deposit date and the balance date. What will the receiving bank need before it issues whatever the destination's registry asks for.

1. Can the full purchase amount reach the destination, on my own circumstances, residence and source of funds.
2. Can it arrive as a payment from me, so the receiving record names me as the remitter. In Thailand that is not a formality, it is what Section 19 ter is tested against.
3. Can it arrive by the dates in the contract I am being asked to sign, allowing for declaration steps, bank document checks and any approval route.
4. What documents will the receiving bank need before it issues the evidence the destination's registry asks for.

Take all four answers in writing, from your own bank and a qualified adviser, before a deposit moves. If any one is still open, the purchase is not ready to sign. Then have a local lawyer make the contract conditional on the funding and the registration documents. Where the evidence on Taiwanese buying actually exists: Taiwanese buyers in Thailand.

Header photo: kallerna, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. All credits: image credits.