Taiwan Rep / Notes

Factory or trading company? What Taiwan's three public registries can tell you about a supplier

Taiwan publishes who a company is, the English name it trades under, and whether it has a registered factory. That information sits in three government databases, mostly in Chinese. Here's how to read them, using a listed bolt maker and our own company as the examples.

Updated October 11, 2026. Every record quoted here was read from the live registries that day.

Say a first order from a new Taiwan supplier starts with a quote on letterhead: an English company name, a factory photo on the website, and bank details at the bottom. The registries can confirm some of that from your desk. Below we cover how to get from the English name to the business number, what the company record does and doesn't prove, how to read a factory record, and what you can only check in person.

Step 1: from the English name to the business number

Taiwan's company registry records names in Chinese. A company may also put a foreign-language name in its articles, but the English name you usually see on export paperwork is a different one: the exporter's English name, registered with the International Trade Administration (國際貿易署) when the company registers as an exporter or importer. The rules for that name are short: it has to state the name and the type of company, in general it can't duplicate another registered exporter's English name, and an industry word in it can't go beyond the company's registered line of business (Regulations Governing Registration of Exporters and Importers, Articles 4 and 5).

The Trade Administration's exporter and importer search is bilingual. You can search by English name, Chinese name, business number, representative, or the first four or eight digits of a product's tariff code, and it asks for a CAPTCHA. By regulation, what it publishes is the Chinese and English name, both addresses, the representative and the company's import/export eligibility (Article 7-1). The page title says results also include a range for the company's export and import value.

Two details are easy to miss:

• Phone, fax, website, email and product list are entered by the company itself. The same Article 7-1 says so. Don't treat them as independently verified.
• The English note on the search page has the meaning reversed. It says companies may apply "for disclosure" of their data by the first eight digits of a tariff code. The Chinese original says companies may apply to be excluded from those searches. A maker that doesn't come up when you search an eight-digit code under 7318 may simply have opted out.

There is a shortcut if you already have the business number or the Chinese name. The company registry page (step 2) shows the registered English exporter name in brackets next to the Chinese one. For Chun Yu Works, a Kaohsiung wire rod and bolt maker listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange since 1991 (code 2012), it reads CHUN YU WORKS & CO., LTD.

For our own company, it reads yutuotech LTD. That isn't the name on our websites, which say YUTUO Technology Co., Ltd. So a website name that doesn't match the registry isn't by itself a sign of fraud. It is a reason to ask which name goes on the contract and on the bank account, and to get that answer in writing.

Step 2: read the company record

The English name gets you to the business number. The number gets you the record everything else hangs on, in the Ministry of Economic Affairs company registry at findbiz.nat.gov.tw. Dates there use Taiwan's calendar: add 1911 to the year, so 054 is 1965 and 115 is 2026.

The status line has one more limit. Next to it, the registry itself points you to the Ministry of Finance tax portal for the company's latest operating status. That tax registration lookup also takes a CAPTCHA.

If you check many suppliers, the same company data is available as open data. This request returns the basic record for one business number as JSON, no key needed:

Step 3: factory or trader

The company record tells you what a company may do. Whether it has registered plants is recorded in the factory registry of the Industrial Development Administration (產業發展署); the company page also has a factory tab that lists them. The factory search had no CAPTCHA when we used it, and each record carries the company's business number.

Under the Factory Management Act, a fixed place that manufactures or processes goods counts as a factory once it reaches a set floor area or power capacity, and it has to be registered before it starts production (Articles 3 and 10). The general thresholds are 150 square meters of plant floor or 75 kW of motors and electric heat combined; a few categories, such as chemicals, have lower ones. A small shop under both doesn't have to register, so a missing record doesn't prove there are no machines.

Searching 春雨工廠 returns nine factory records. Two of them show why you read each record rather than just counting them:

The Zihguan plant's registration was cancelled on July 31, 2026, yet its census line still says "operating". The record explains why: the last census ran from June 20 to July 31, 2025. Read the status and the dates, not the census result. Check the address too. If the plant you're told will make your order isn't on the list, ask which registered plant it is.

Two prefixes change the meaning of a registration number. A number starting with S is a "specific factory" registration for a previously unregistered plant, valid at most until March 19, 2040. A number starting with T was a temporary registration valid only until June 2, 2020. The registry also notes that its data is for reference only and can't be used as a certificate. If you need a document, ask the supplier for its official one.

No factory record doesn't by itself make a supplier a trader. It may be a trading company, use subcontractors or a related company, or run a shop below the thresholds. Ask where your parts are made and why no registration appears. The answer matters for paperwork too: the mill test certificate behind a Section 232 melt-and-pour declaration and the production records behind CBAM emissions data come from whoever actually makes the parts.

What the registries can't tell you

After the three steps you know the company exists, what name it exports under and which plants it has registered. You still don't know:

• whether the registered plant actually makes your part, and on what machines
• whether the person emailing you works there
• whether the bank account on the invoice belongs to the company

On the last one, a simple rule covers a lot: if bank details change by email, confirm by phone using a number from your own records, not the one in the email.

Back to that first quote. The registries can turn an English name and a factory photo into a business number, an active company and a list of registered plants with addresses. What they can't do is show you what happens at that address. A visit is the most direct way to check.

The registries change. Fields and wording are as we read them on October 11, 2026. This is a practical guide for buyers, not legal advice or a credit check.

Sources

• Company registry record, 春雨工廠股份有限公司 (88187108), Ministry of Economic Affairs, read October 11, 2026
• Commerce and industry registration open data, Ministry of Economic Affairs
• Exporter/Importer Registration System, basic data search, International Trade Administration
• Regulations Governing Registration of Exporters and Importers (出進口廠商登記辦法), Articles 4, 5 and 7-1, amended April 8, 2025
• Factory registry public search (工廠公示資料查詢系統), Industrial Development Administration, read October 11, 2026
• Factory Management Act (工廠管理輔導法), Articles 3 and 10
• Standards for the scope, floor area, power capacity and heat of factories (工廠從事物品製造加工範圍及面積電力容量熱能規模認定標準), December 21, 2018
• Tax registration public search, Ministry of Finance
• Securities code lookup, 2012 春雨, Taiwan Stock Exchange